Conclusion: Can We Go Bananas? Discourse and Health

Abstract

Alfred Korzybski, the founder of general semantics, has entitled one of his books Science and Sanity. Surprising, and perhaps shocking, as the word ‘sanity’ might be to some readers, it encapsulates an important, if not the most important, aspect of Korzybski’s message, namely, that the scientific extensional orientation of attending to tangible reality allows us to maintain mental health, whereas moving in the other direction, that is, in the direction of highly abstract words and symbols, and developing an intensional orientation, may reduce our sanity. It is Korzybski’s and many other general semanticists’ opinion that developing an extensional orientation may prevent us from mental disturbances and some basic maladjustments and misevaluations. Of the many points that I discussed in the previous sections of this book, identification stands out as a crucial factor in the maladjustment and confusion likely to lead to mental disturbances. ‘There is no “identity” in this world: but the whole old orientations are based on “identity”. Insanity is based on identifications, identifications in a world where there is no identity. You will find in daily life endless serious problems produced by identifications, or improper evaluations.’ (Korzybski 2002: 102). Identifying the verbal and the non-verbal levels seems especially dangerous: ‘In psycho-logical and evaluational processes we mostly identify our verbal statements or judgments about the facts with the actual facts, which facts are on the silent unspeakable level, not on the verbal level.