subject: General Semantics For Dummies [print this page] General Semantics For Dummies General Semantics For Dummies
General Semantics For Dummies
Generalsemanticsis an alternative method of evaluating your evaluations of object, situations, problems andlinguisticsthat focuses on specifics instead of vague concepts.Arguablyit's main ideology focuses on specific details ex. instead of saying "America has a Drug Problem" you can say, "Some people who live in America are negatively affected by the addictive qualities of some of the currently designated illegal narcotics".
The structure of general semantics suggests that using vague words to imply your meaning causes a mental break between the word and the observer of the word. Although, astatisticallyrelevantpopulation of news network watchers in America think they know what "The Drug Problem" is, this way of thinking leads to a disconnection from the "problem" itself. If specific questions aren't asked, then how can you reach an unbiased opinion.
If you break down the un-generalized statement you have two operative words the subject and predicate(Drug and Problem). The subject is described as the target of your sentence and the predicate can be described as the object, property or event affecting thesubject. To generalize a sentence you need to think about what theinferential actually means. In the corrected sentence Drugs becomes "currently designated illegal narcotics". It seems "silly" because humans "know" this is what is intended but this can lead toboogeymanwords. For posterity, you would want to break down "currently designated illegal narcotics", to a specific drug one at a time and the individual problems of the drug to fully generalize the idea being conveyed. For example: There is currently too much access to heroine in America, resulting in addiction and eventual death for a statisticallyrelevant number of people.
Once you generalize an idea, it should intrinsically become easier to think of solutions to the problem since you can now research specifics. We now know there is too much access to Heroine, and so now we can start to research the production and distribution of Heroine to create a solution to the problem.
If you want to learn more about General Semantics read Science and Sanity byAlfred Korzybski.
