Overcoming%20Conservative%20Characteristics

1
Overcoming Conservative Characteristics

• Society, Self and Sanity

Tom Valcanis
2
What are Conservative Characteristics?

• First mentioned by Alfred Korzybski in Science
  and Sanity
• An extension of anthropologist Bronislaw
  Malinowskis theories
• Offered explanation of mental illnesses as
  semantic arrested development (p. 493)

3
Explaining Conservative Characteristics

• Korzybski Mental illnesses (infantilism
  included) appear as semantic arrested development
  or a regression to lower levels to those of
  primitive man
• Korzybski via Jelliffe Four periods Archaic
  (9mo.), Autoerotic (7yrs.), Narcissistic
  (7-14yrs.), Social (14yrs)
• A failure in adaptation to reality falling
  short of maturity
• An inability to move past the infantile general
  orientation (Johnson)

4
Theorizing Conservative Characteristics

• Considering oral/traditional cultures are mainly
  non-literate and modern culture as literate
  (Strate)
• Major maladjustments are a result of an
  non-consciousness of abstraction (Johnson)
• What has been learned thalamically must be
  unlearned thalamically

5
GS Nomenclature to explain CCs

• A tendency for subjects to exhibit
• Allness
• Two-valued thinking/evaluation
• Confusion of logical levels
• Revert back to the adolescent or juvenile states
  of thinking
• Extreme examples found in schizophrenics and
  bi-polar disorder
• Moderate examples in clinical depression

6
Historical Origins

• Platos theory of forms abstractions are the
  true reality
• Leap forward from low levels of abstractions in
  pre-literate cultures (Strate)
• The limits of this thinking highlighted by
  emerging media

7
Societys Role

• Literate societies routinely decontextualize
  their thoughts via communication and use
  higher-level abstractions
• Along the way, the Aristotelian-Platonian
  subject-predicate, law of excluded middle, law of
  non-contradiction, is of identity emerges as
  dominant bias of communication
• The media newspapers, books, TV, radio et. al.
  abstract and decontextualize as routine behavior
  (Watzlawick)

8
Media Ecology and CCs

• Media Ecology owes a debt to GS
• Neil Postman was editor of ETC. from 1976-86
• Information no longer has any relation to the
  solution of problems
• Inherent bias in education

9
Media Reinforcement

• A focus on allness, the label-libel function
• Thought destroying aphorisms
• Media is the technology in which a culture
  grows (Postman)
• Information reduced to trivialities, irrelevancy

10
Methods of Escape

• Using Ellis A-B-C model in RET (related to GS)
• Asking critically how do we/they know what we
  know? (Watzlawick)
• Developing a mature non-attachment to outcome

11
Acknowledgements and Selected References

• Dr. Lance Strate of Fordham University for his
  valuable contributions to this presentation
• David Hewson for guidance and input
• Other esteemed members of the AGS

• Korzybski, A. Science and Sanity an
  introduction to non-Aristotelian systems and
  General Semantics (5th ed.) Institute of General
  Semantics Dallas, TX, 1994.
• Johnson, W. People in Quandaries, Harper Bros
  USA, 1946.
• Ellis, A. and Harper, R. A Guide to Rational
  Living, Melvin Powers Book Co. Chatsworth, CA,
  1997.
• Postman, N. and Weingartner, C. Teaching as a
  Subversive Activity, Penguin Books Middlesex,
  UK, 1969.