ETC: A Review of General Semantics is in the mail and is now available for download from the IGS Store in searchable PDF format.

• Click here to download ETC 72:2 from the IGS Store.

Table of Contents Preview

• "Work-Life & The Popular Press: How Words Create Worlds" by Mary P. Lahman and Alison Lietzenmayer
• "World War I: The Closing Period of the Childhood of Humanity" by Martin H. Levinson
• "Hebrew Slang" by Fred Skolnik
• "On Being Read To" by Daniel Linton
• "Three GS-Related Satires" by Martin H. Levinson
• "Principles into Praxis: Peace and Nonviolence in Action" by Bini B. S.
• "Essay: Bloody Fingers" by Barry Chersky
• "The Next Generation: Revising the Happiness Formula" by Jermaine Martinez
• From the Vault:
  "Michael Polanyi and Carl Rogers: A Dialogue" by Michael Polanyi and Carl Rogers
  "Not by Any Means: Doubletalk in the Service of 'Humane' Ends" by Christine L. Nystrom
  "Forward from the Editor" by Neil Postman
• Poems:
  "Dusting the Window Sill" by Danny P. Barbare
  "Cleaning the Showers" by Danny P. Barbare
• Plus Letter from the Editor.

Cover Art

The photograph used for the cover of ETC 72:2 is of stained glass work "Bloody Fingers" by Barry Chersky, an artist and writer based in Los Olivos, California. Photo courtesy of Michael Baiad.

We have just added video of presentations to the IGS YouTube account from the 63rd Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture & 2-Day General Semantics Symposium, sponsored by the Institute of General Semantics at the Princeton Club in New York City, October 2-4, 2015.

The videos are compiled into a sequential playlist that mirrors the sequence of events from the weekend.

As of publication, not all videos are available as we await consent from the presenters. As presenters consent, we will release more videos in the playlist.

• Click here to watch individual entries from the playlist.

Sanford I. Berman

The Institute of General Semantics has learned that Dr. Sanford I. Berman -- 2003 Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecturer, sponsor of the Sanford I. Berman Award for Excellence in Teaching General Semantics, general semantics author, scholar, and longtime donor -- passed away on June 16, 2015.

Dr. Sanford I. Berman, philanthropist, real estate investor, professional hypnotist, and former board member of the Institute of General Semantics, passed away on June 16, 2015.

The son of a livestock broker, Berman was born Oct. 15, 1924 in Virginia, Minnesota, a small town north of Duluth. He received his Bachelor’s degree in Radio and Communications from the University of Minnesota; a Master’s in Speech from Teacher’s College, Columbia University; and a doctorate in Speech Communications from Northwestern University, where he then assisted Dr. Irving J. Lee in his famous general-semantics classes. Berman served as president of the International Society for General Semantics, and was on the Board of Trustees of both the Society and the Institute of General Semantics.

As of the year 2000, Berman had given more than a million dollars to the University of California, San Diego (UCSD); San Diego State University (SDSU); and University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). Berman endowed the Sanford I. Berman Institute for Effective Communication and General Semantics at SDSU in 1997, the Sanford I. Berman Chair in Language and Human Communication at UCSD in 1998, the Dr. Sanford I. Berman Professorship of Public Discourse and General Semantics at UNLV in 1999, and UNLV's Sanford I. Berman Debate Forum.

Books relating to general semantics by Berman include Words, Meanings and People, The Closed Mind, How to Lessen Misunderstandings, and Why Do We Jump to Conclusions? Berman acted as editor for Logic and General Semantics: Writings of Oliver L. Reiser and Others and he created over 100 audio tapes on motivation and general semantics. Sanford I. Berman was a towering figure in the field of general semantics and he will be greatly missed by GSers all over the world.

The San Diego Union-Tribune ran a profile of Dr. Berman's extraordinary life as a hypnotist and general semanticist in its July 5th obituary announcement.

IGS is in possession of Dr. Berman's educational cassettes, which it hopes to make available in MP3 versions by year's end in the IGS Store.

• Click here to order the Berman Collection from the IGS Store.
• Click here for information on the Berman Award.
• Click here to listen to Dr. Berman's 2003 Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture.

ETC: A Review of General Semantics will soon be mailed and is now available for download from the IGS Store in searchable PDF format.

• Click here to download ETC 72:1 from the IGS Store.

Table of Contents Preview

• "The Terrance Deacon’s Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter. The Teleodynamics of Culture, Language, Organization, Science, Economics and Technology (CLOSET). Part II: Are Culture, Language, Organization, Science, Economics, and Technology (CLOSET) Teleodynamic Phenomena?" by Robert K. Logan
• "Structuring and the Notion 'Time': A General Semantics Conscious Time-Binding Approach" by Milton Dawes
• "The Time Binders in Korzybski’s Manhood of Humanity" by Krishna Daiya
• "On Language Wars" by Michael Moore
• "Danger: Deficiences Ahead" by Gary H. Mayer
• Interview:
  "Media Ecology and Teaching Chinese as a Second Language (TCSL)" by Peter Zhang, Chin-Chin Tseng, and Natalie Sheen
• From the Vault:
  "Metalanguage" by Gregory Bateson
  "Form, Substance, and Difference" by Gregory Bateson
  "The Relevance of General Semantics" by Alvin Toffler
• Poems:
  "'I am a tear of the sun': Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Autobiography" by Phillip Dow
  "The Face" by Joan Colby
  "Joyrides" by Joan Colby
  "The Sketch Artist" by Joan Colby
  "Vowels" by Joan Colby
  "ISMS" by Joan Colby
• Plus Letter from the Editor, Book Reviews, News and Notes.

Cover Art

The photograph used for the cover of ETC 72:1 is titled Haecceity “此”性 and is part of a textual and
photographic essay Zen Musings as featured in ETC 71:4 by photographer Wei-Shyuan (Stone) Peng.

• Click here to view more photography by Stone Peng.

Back issues of our journal, ETC: A Review of General Semantics, are now available on JSTOR, the digital library that includes academic journals, books, and primary sources. In addition, previews of selected articles from back issues of ETC are also available. ETC is available as part of the Arts & Sciences XIV collection on JSTOR.

Currently, back issues from 1943-2009 are electronically preserved in JSTOR. Click here for more information on JSTOR.

Click here to access the back catalog of ETC: A Review of General Semantics on JSTOR.

To access the JSTOR page directly, use the URL: http://www.generalsemantics.org/jstor

Purchase Back Issues of ETC

If you wish to purchase back issues of ETC, you may do so in searchable PDF format from the IGS Store.

Click here to browse back issues of ETC: A Review of General Semantics in the IGS Store.

 

Volume 71, Number 4 (October 2014), of the Institute of General Semantics's quarterly journal ETC: A Review of General Semantics will soon be mailed and is now available for download from the IGS Store in searchable PDF format.

• Click here to download ETC 71:4 from the IGS Store.

Table of Contents Preview

• "Zen Musings" by Peter Zhang and Wei-Shyuan (Stone) Peng
• "The Terrance Deacon's Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter. The Teleodynamics of Culture, Language, Organization, Science, Economics and Technology (CLOSET). Part I: A Review and Précis of Incomplete Nature" by Robert K. Logan
• "Political Symbols and American Exceptionalism" by John Engle
• "The Labeling Process and Other Interdisciplinary Similarities between Buddhism and General Semantics" by Christoper Bear-Beam
• Probes:
  "The Wise and the Journalist" by Vanessa Biard-Schaeffer
• From the Vault:
  "Words and Music" by Hal Tracy
• Poems:
  "Spinners" by Hillel A. Schiller
  "Fate" by Hillel A. Schiller
• Plus Letter from the Editor, Dates and Indexes, and Book Reviews.

Cover Art

The photograph used for the cover of ETC 71:4 is titled "Folds褶" and is part of a textual and photographic essay "Zen Musings" that is one of our two featured pieces for this issue. Photographer Wei-Shyuan (Stone) Peng is a hydrogeologist based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. There are a total of nine photographs presented in this photo essay.

• Click here to view more photography by Stone Peng.

Volume 71, Number 3 (July 2014), of the Institute of General Semantics's quarterly journal ETC: A Review of General Semantics has been mailed and is now available for download from the IGS Store in searchable PDF format.

• Click here to download ETC 71:3 from the IGS Store.

Table of Contents Preview

• "A Culture of Teaching and Learning Excellence Starts with an Examination of Assumptions: Influences of General Semantics on Faculty Development" by Chris Stabile
• "Cicero's Brutus: A History of Rhetoric or a History of Politics?" by Panagiotes Kontonasios
• "An Esperanto of Evaluation" by Devkumar Trivedi
• Perspectives:
  "GS as a Humanist Endeavor" by Dom Heffer
• The Next Generation:
  "Shifting Traditions: Chaucer's Narrative Accompliment in the Wife of Bath's Tale Considered in the Context of the Shift from Oral Tradition to Literate Print Tradition" by Ruth Sylvester
• Probes:
  "Horizons" by Milton Dawes
  "Focal Knowledge, Medium Bias, and Metamedium" by Peter Zhang
• From the Vault:
  "A Perceptual Model of the Whorfian Thesis" by Ralph L. Carnes
  "Not Since Babel" by Edmund Carpenter
• "Inherent Meanings" by Ross Jackson
• Plus Letter from the Editor, Letters to the Editor, Book Reviews, and News and Notes.

Cover Art

The cover of ETC 71:3  is from a painting by British artist Dominic Heffer titled "All the Trash Goes Somewhere."

• Click here to view more art by Dominic Heffer.

Newly published from the Institute of General Semantics is The Communication Panacea: Pediatrics and General Semantics, a book by IGS Trustee Eva Berger, Ph.D., and Isaac Berger, M.D.

The book is now available from the IGS Store.

About the Book

The Communication Panacea: Pediatrics and General Semantics by Eva and Isaac Berger provides a most interesting and relevant examination of the profound, and often dangerous, influences that human communication practices have on health outcomes. The book, firmly grounded in the theory of General Semantics, describes the power of language use in shaping interpretations of reality and responses to health care. While grounded in relevant theory, this book is not a dry academic treatise. It provides vivid analyses of real health care cases, demonstrating how communication influences both the delivery of care and responses to health care. The book suggests best communication strategies for health care providers and consumers to achieve desired health outcomes. The authors encourage strategic use of communication that empowers consumers to take charge of their health, that promotes cooperation in the delivery of care, and that facilitates informed health decision-making. I recommend this fascinating book for health care providers, consumers, and policy makers to help them utilize communication to enhance the quality and effectiveness of health care.

-- Gary L. Kreps
University Distinguished Professor
Director of the Center for Health and Risk Communication
George Mason University

Writing in the tradition of Neil Postman, Ivan Illich, and Susan Sontag, this collaboration between a doctor of philosophy and a doctor of medicine combines an innovative theoretical approach with the stories of eight patients shared not as "case-studies," but as key-moments to show how vital it is to change our mentality and our language when addressing the idea of illness itself.

-- Lance Strate
Professor of Communication and Media Studies
Fordham University

The Communication Panacea fills a major gap in the study of the modern doctor-patient relationship, applying the principles of General Semantics to the too often uncanny communicative processes affecting the way patients perceive their illness, as well as their response to it. The idea of a "personalized semantic medicine," brilliantly and rigorously discussed in this book, is suggested as a truly convincing strategy to regain focus on the patient within (and in spite of) the increasingly complex medical (corporate-like) environment.

Berger and Berger combine a substantial innovative theoretical approach with the stories of eight patients shared not as "case-studies," but as key-moments to show how vital it is to change our mentality (as well as our language) when addressing the idea of illness itself. They challenge us to think of medicine as art and not as war; a linguistic and a conceptual shift which could impove the quality of many patients and doctor[s] alike.

-- Elena Lamberti
Department of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures
University of Bologna

About the Authors

Eva Berger

Eva Berger is a Professor of Communication at the School of Media Studies of COMAS (College of Management Academic Studies) in Israel where she was Dean (2006-2012). Dr. Berger is member of the Board of Trustees of the Institute of General Semantics (since 2009) and of ETC.: A Review of General Semantics (since 2008). She is member of the Editorial Board of Giluy Daat: A Multidisciplinary Journal on Education, Society and Culture (since 2011) and was member of the Editorial Board of EME: Explorations in Media Ecology (2005-2014). She has held many public positions and is active in numerous organizations in Israel: She was member of the search committee for candidates for the position of Chair of the Council for Cable and Satellite Communications (appointed in 2013 by the Minister of Communication); Chair of the Board of Women in the Picture (an organization for the advancement of women in the visual arts); member of the Israel Press Council (2011-2013) and of the Israeli Film Board (2000-2006). She is member of the board of IPI (Israel Peace Initiative, since 2011). Eva is periodically invited as guest commentator on Israel's newspapers and public and private radio and television stations; she is the author of programs for the teaching of media in Israel's high schools; and has published numerous academic articles and book chapters on varying topics including war photojournalism; advertising; language, metaphor and narrative; and media and technology. Eva is married and has two sons.

Isaac Berger

Isaac Berger studied medicine at UNAM--National University of Mexico in Mexico City (1955-1961). He did his internship as well as his residency in Pediatrics at Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago and was research fellow in neonatology there. In 1965, he returned to his country of origin -- Mexico -- where along with his private practice throughout the years, he was instructor of postgraduate courses in Pediatrics at Juarez Hospital; assistant lecturer in Pediatrics at UNAM (National University of Mexico); lecturer in Pediatrics at the School of Nursing as well as at the residency program of American British Cowdray Hospital in Mexico City; and he taught neonatology at Hospital Infantil Privado where he was physician in charge of Medical Education. In 1977 Dr. Berger moved with his family to Israel where he became Head of the Pediatric Outpatient Department of Meir General Hospital in the city of Kfar Saba, and later Head of Pediatric Ambulatory Services (including Emergency Room, Clinics, Day Hospital Unit, and Child Development Unit). Isaac coauthored numerous articles and chapters in books. He retired from the hospital in 2003 and aside from his still active private practice he is medical advisor to a large child development center in Israel. Isaac is married and has five daughters and nine grandchildren.

Purchase the Book

Click here to purchase The Communication Panacea in the IGS Store.

Newly published from the Institute of General Semantics is A Continuing Education Guide to Teaching General Semantics, a 56-page book by IGS President Martin H. Levinson, Ph.D.

The book is now available from the IGS Store.

About the Book

Debuting at the 62nd Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture in October 2014 as a gift to registrants, the 56-page book A Continuing Education Guide to Teaching General Semantics offers guidance for teachers interested in creating a continuing education course for students of general semantics.

General semantics (GS) is a process-oriented, problem-solving system that trains individuals to make their language and thinking more relative to objective reality in order to better evaluate and understand the world. Its ideas and formulations have been taught in numerous college courses throughout the world. Over the years, many articles on the benefits of GS have appeared in the General Semantics Bulletin and ETC: A Review of General Semantics and more than 150 doctoral and master's degree theses have demonstrated its efficacy. General semantics is clearly a highly useful methodology with a wide range of applicability in diverse areas of human endeavor.

This guide contains twelve continuing education lessons in general semantics. Each lesson includes an Introduction (for the teacher) of the basic GS ideas to be presented, a Motivation to begin the lesson, and Suggested Activities for students. Lessons can be combined or abbreviated depending on the time constraints of the course and wishes of the instructor.

About the Author

Martin H. Levinson, Ph.D., is the President of the Institute of General Semantics, Vice President of the New York Society for General Semantics, and book editor of ETC: A Review of General Semantics. He is the author of four books and numerous articles on general semantics.

Purchase the Book

Click here to purchase A Continuing Education Guide to Teaching General Semantics in the IGS Store.

Volume 71, Number 2 (April 2014), of the Institute of General Semantics's quarterly journal ETC: A Review of General Semantics has been mailed and is now available for download from the IGS Store in searchable PDF format.

• Click here to download ETC 71:2 from the IGS Store.

Table of Contents Preview

• "Media Literacy as an Ethical Obligation: A General Semantics Approach" by Lance Strate
• "'Living History' as the 'Real Thing': A Comparative Analysis of the Modern Mountain Man Rendezvous, Renaissance Fairs, and Civil War Reenactments" by Patrick McCarthy
• "Political Catchwords: Linguistic Maps That Shape Politics and Governance" by Martin H. Levinson
• "The Next Generation: An Analysis of Autism through Media Representation" by Alexandria Prochnow
• Perspectives:
  "The Challenges Facing General Semantics" by Ben Hauck
• Metaphors in Action:
  "Convergence" by Raymond Gozzi, Jr.
• "Interview with IGS President Martin H. Levinson" by Edward Tywoniak
• Probes:
  "Vitalism in Ivie" by Peter Zhang
• From the Vault:
  "Towards a Theory of Protest" by Kenneth E. Boulding
  "Korzybski's Quest" by Gerald Haslam
  "Our Computational Culture: From Descartes to the Computer" by Berg R. Dreyer
  "Fanaticism: The Panhuman Disorder" by Margaret Mead
• Poems:
  "Surroundings" by Ross Jackson
  "A Persistent Lack of Gravity" by Ross Jackson
  "Syllogism" by Jane Blanchard
  "Resolution" by Jane Blanchard
  "Erasure" by Jane Blanchard
• Plus a Letter from the Editor and News and Notes.

Cover Art

The cover of ETC 71:2 is from a painting by Tana Lehr titled Any Road.

• Click here to view more art by Tana Lehr.