ETC.: A Review of General Semantics articles from September 1995

ETC.: A Review of General Semantics archives from September 1995

Looking ahead: why the real lesson of Vietnam eludes Robert McNamara.
September 22, 1995... The New Yorker depicts him in a pin-stripe suit, holding a handkerchief to his face, his eyes leaking crocodiles, and a cartoon in my local paper shows him as the grim reaper. (1) His biographer asks why he has "waited so long to publish his...

Metaphorical maps of improbable fictions: the semantic parables of Christian Morgenstern.
September 22, 1995... Some poets write as if they want to concentrate on words, to see less of the world and time and death. Consider Keats' blindly verbal circling in "Beauty is Truth, truth beauty - that is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know," said as if...

97% fat free: on the art of misinforming.
September 22, 1995... Label: A slip of paper or other material bearing information, instructions, etc., concerning something to which it is attached. The Random House College Dictionary Andy Warhol turned soup cans into modern art. A close look at the label on...

Keeping it on the road: a metaphor for the economy?
September 22, 1995... Metaphors from the economy pervade our language, as Gozzi shows. (1) We "coin" phrases, "spend" time, and enter the "marketplace for ideas." (2) The road between the economy and metaphors runs both ways. The economy provides powerful metaphors....

What is general semantics? A personal view.
September 22, 1995... Sometimes when people ask "What is General Semantics?", I don't want to answer. My reluctance to categorize general semantics arises from the general semantics principle of non-identity. This postulates that no two things are identical in all...

The resiliency of metaphysics.
September 22, 1995... Earl Hautala's critique of metaphysical thinking ("Developing a Prudent Society," ETC., Fall 1994), has provoked several writers to respond at length. (See, for example, correspondence from Allan Brooks in the Summer 1995 ETC.) Craig Payne...

The generation X and boomers metaphors.
September 22, 1995... Generation X: blank, unformed, unknown, "whatever." The media use it to refer to people born in the later 1960s and the 1970s, who are young adults by the 1990s. Generation X is a metaphor, referring to an age-cohort of North Americans, giving...

Communication in the information age: a critique.
September 22, 1995... Information Age As understood by a host of analysts, civilization seems to be entering the Information Age. Every day the media carry stories about data bits, micro chips, and the information superhighway. Soon computers will be used in the...

A general semantics glossary (part XII).
September 22, 1995... formulation/formulator; evaluation/evaluator. In writing this Glossary I have necessarily and frequently used the terms formulation and evaluation and their various cognate forms. Here are some examples from our earlier installments. (The Roman...

Nouning the verb.
September 22, 1995... To evaluate more extensionally, perhaps we should divide our referents into things which exist, which we have, and things which happen, which we do. (1) For those which exist, we should use nouns. "I drive a car." For those which we do, we should...

Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain.
September 22, 1995... Descartes' philosophical perspectives have exerted tremendous influence on science and medicine for more than three hundred years. As scientific knowledge progressed, some of his theories, such as his conviction that fine particles in the blood...

How to Argue and Win Every Time ... at Home, at Work, in Court, Everywhere, Everyday.
September 22, 1995... Gerry Spence's newest book brims with tales about how "truth will out" in the courtroom, bedroom, schoolroom, factory, and office. According to Larry King, on whose TV programs Spence appears and whose quote appears on the book's jacket, "How to...

Just Curious.
September 22, 1995... The essayists and critics Bernard DeVoto and Dwight Macdonald endeared themselves to the literati/intelligencia folks (especially the East Coast variety) during the middle years of this century. Through their usually, but not excessively,...

Victims of Memory: Incest Accusations and Shattered Lives.
September 22, 1995... What has been termed "false memory syndrome" (and which might more accurately be called something like "possibly improperly enhanced memory syndrome") appears to be a major semantic distortion in America today. This arises when individuals,...