Drive Yourself Sane : Using the Uncommon Sense of General Semantics, Revised Second Edition

Having never been able to plow my way through all of Science and Sanity, I've mostly been searching for summaries of general semantics, and anything I can get my hands on. This book was an excellent overview of general semantics. GS along with the help of this book has completely overhauled my thinking. I can think -far- more clearly than I ever have in my entire life. I owe great debt to Korzybski et al! Definitely worth the read for those interested in evaluation & general semantics.

Drive Yourself Sane takes the core principles from Alfred Korzybski's book Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics (International Non-Aristotelian Library), and presents them in simple format that anyone can use. I regularly recommend this book to my coaching clients. You learn tools to make your own thinking processes more effective so that you can better understand situations and people. You learn communication tools that will help in personal and work situations. This really is a primer for experiencing your internal and external worlds with more ease and enjoyment. Would it be helpful to leave behind misleading thoughts that lead to anxiety and turmoil? This book could be a start. Each chapter has practical exercises that you can do on your own, with a friend or a group. The authors use humor and a clear writing style to guide you through the information and tools. This is a great tool for team building whether at work or with those you love!

General semantics provides a very clear, lucid way of understanding reality, and of building linguistic structures to express our understanding more clearly. I highly recommend this book for its clarity and ease of explanation, not to mention totally righteous, mind-blowingness.

Bruce I. Kodish has a doctorate in Applied Epistemology: General Semantics; further has studied physical therapy with posture-movement education. Currently serves on the teaching staff of the Institute of General Semantics. Susan Presby Kodish has a Psychology doctorate. Joining the Institute of General Semantics teaching staff in 1983, serving as Educational Director. Further both served as senior editors of the "General Semantics Bulletin".
Our daily functioning depends upon notions comprising of personal, collective, etc., experiences, perhaps involving some level of scientific understanding, but organized by Aristotle's (c. 350 B.C.) 'logic', which has an equivalence to a cultural 'common sense' forming a world view (paradigm). However when we evaluate using such mis-information, this leads to mis-perceivings, resulting in inappropriate, inflexible, functionings, etc., hence appearing maladjusted. Further that we do not question our false assumptions remains apart of the 'common sense' notions, that we are not aware as to how language affects our evaluating (event(s)-insight-logic), 'filtering' our perceivings. For example, Benjamin Whorf (1956) while an insurance investigator, had (re-)discovered (Korzybski, 1933) that, such 'unconscious' language 'habibts' can lead to accidents: people often smoked carelessly around 'empty' (filled with vapour) gaseoline drums.
Such that an uncommon sense, must involve an extensional (factual evaluating) orientation, thus scientific, as 'opposed' to 'conditioned' 'aristotelian metaphysical-logical' 'deductions'. That our premises (theories, guesses, etc) lead to consequences, as poorly developed forms of Mathematical-logic, first became noticed by Cassius J. Keyser (1922) as "Logical Fate". So that it appeared clear that if we can apply a mathematical framework, making our premises extensionally conscious, then we might function more adjusted, adaptively, (sanely), etc.; since different premises leads to different consequences, we must revise them inductively.
Where Alfred Korzybski's (1933) General Semantics (Science of values, hence evaluating), addresses these along with many other problems.
Whereas this book represents an excellent primer for General Semantics.

I first read S&S in my late teens while in college probably in 1960. I truly believe that it kept me sane during that decade.
Thank you S&S for helping to save me from abandoning myself to profound confusion. Thank you S&S for helping me to question the events of that period by applying reason and the principles revealed to me by Korzibsky. When I was drafted into the military in 1968 I realized that I had 'under-defined' patriotism by excluding the terms Marine Corps(yes they were drafting people also), rifle and killing. Over 35 years have pasted and now I continue to apply S&S ideas to get me through each day as I hear the double-speak coming out of my government. Thank you S&S for helping me to understand that people who don't question will allow others to cast the definition of words for them. Democracy IS invasion, freedom IS our way, justice IS killing. Thank you S&S for reminding me that democracy, freedom and justice are just words and that their truer meaning can be more fully learned only by the way we define and live our individual lives. After all , democracy is just a word unless you live it!