ETC.: A Review of General Semantics articles from June 1994

ETC.: A Review of General Semantics archives from June 1994

Our computational culture: from Descartes to the computer. (Rene Descarte)
June 22, 1994... We, all of us, have made the world too much into a computer, and...this remaking of the world in the image of the computer started long before there were any electronic computers. Joseph Weizenbaum, Computer Power and Human Reason, p. ix....

The web and the spaceship: metaphors of the environment.
June 22, 1994... METAPHOR HELPS SHAPE the way we view the world and it empowers human responses to the variety of issues confronting human existence. Whether helping us conceive of ourselves as part of an interconnected web, or as subject to the explosive force...

Educated for what? (analysis of the education of mathematicians)
June 22, 1994... THE NONMATHEMATICIANS I've talked to seem surprised to learn that the entire 1992-93 school-year crop of math PhDs in the United States, although up 14% from 1991-92, still amounted to just 1,202 souls. They are further surprised to learn that,...

Post(modern)man, or Neil Postman as a postmodernist.
June 22, 1994... As A FORMER student of Neil Postman's, I want to acknowledge the debt that I and many others owe to him as an educator. I would add that in the fourteen years that I have known him, very little of what I have heard him say might be categorized as...

Humility: a survival tool.
June 22, 1994... "The word is not the thing." Alfred Korzybski IN TODAY'S bottom line, results-oriented society, the idea of humility goes against the grain. We see ourselves as competitive, hard-working, hard-playing, well-informed, and healthily...

Eleven ways of looking at the Gulf War.
June 22, 1994... IT WAS General "Stormin' Norman" Schwartzkopf, who said that "war is the most complex thing in the world." And the Gulf war was, in many respects, an incredible achievement. The military transported the equivalent of a good sized city to the...

What's pure? (semantic discussion of pure)
June 22, 1994... pure: adj 1a: not mixed with anything else (pure gold) b: free from dust, dirt or taint (pure food). Webster's New Encyclopedic Dictionary (1993) "Thunder is a rich source of loudness." From "Lime is a Green Tasting Rock"; a collection of...

Freedom, fun and fundamentals: defining digital progress in a democratic society.
June 22, 1994... Nicholas Johnson: It's a privilege, actually, to be asked to even attend this conference, let alone to speak at it, and I'm delighted to be here. Some of you may have noticed from the promotional literature that you received that while I teach...

The cyberspace metaphor.
June 22, 1994... EACH DAY AT WORK, I buy my lunch with the help of a computer network. Rather than pay cash, I use a card with a magnetic strip. After the cashier has entered my culinary choices into her computer-cash register, she "swipes" my card through a...

A general semantics glossary (part VIII).
June 22, 1994... extensional orientation as orientation. Throughout his system Korzybski emphasizes the importance of orientation, understood as a sort of compass-equipped platform, an enwrapping point of view and attitude from which and out of which we humans do...

Warum sagen sie das Fraulein? (analysis of the Whorf hypothesis in general semantics)
June 22, 1994... ONE ASPECT OF general semantics and language studies that I find particularly significant is the Whorf Hypothesis. Benjamin Lee Whorf studied several American Indian languages and noted that they were structurally quite unlike English and other...

Bats, bugs and kinip: experiencing the concept of connotation.
June 22, 1994... STUDENTS OFTEN have a difficult time understanding the concept of connotation or connotative value. According to one common explanation, "connotation refers to the feelings or evaluations associated with the word." What feeling and evaluation...

Adventures in Medialand: Behind the News, Beyond the Pundits.
June 22, 1994... In addition to writing books and articles in the areas of politics and the media, Jeff Cohen is the founder and executive director of the media watchdog organization FAIR, and Norman Solomon is a commentator for the Pacifica Radio Network....

Media Spectacles.
June 22, 1994... The essays in this tightly edited volume cover a myriad of subjects all designed to illustrate media spectacles and suggest "how our watching ourselves in the media and how our watching the media itself, might be related to watching politics,...

Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member.
June 22, 1994... This remarkable autobiography takes the reader into the violent streets of Los Angeles and into the life and thought processes of a gang member, Sanyika Shakur, who says, I have lived in South Central Los Angeles all my life. I grew up on...

Rhetorical Questions: Studies of Public Discourse.
June 22, 1994... Edwin Black, Professor of Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin, is a prolific author and scholar in rhetorical studies and criticism. His introduction ("Rhetoric as Critique") to this collection of eight of his essays discusses...

Aristotle on Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse.
June 22, 1994... Aristotle's ideas on rhetoric have been fundamental reading for rhetorical scholars for centuries. Until Kennedy's recent translation, researchers had three translations of Aristotle's work on which to rely: W. Rhys Roberts (1924), Lane Cooper...

Media Maps and Myths.
June 22, 1994... The author is a journalist and a senior lecturer in mass communication at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. His book is thoroughly grounded in general semantics. The influences of Korzybski, Hayakawa, and Kenneth Johnson are evident...

Conversations with Critical Thinkers.
June 22, 1994... This is a fascinating volume of interviews with leading educators concerned with the field of critical thinking. Each interview begins with the question: What is your conception of critical thinking? From this common starting point, each...