Dennis K. Chong and Jennifer K. Smith Chong^©

Alfred Korzybski’s powerful insights and rich discernment were derived from science₁₉₃₃. We are now in science₁₉₉₉. The reader will not be surprised that there have been augmentations, expansions and even revisions of Korzybski’s propositional functions relating to the A system and non-A system over this time span.

To begin with, Alfred Korzybski’s saw what was the critical environment in which Homo sapiens lives:

This name, at present, is used in a restricted sense to signify the animalistic natural history of man, disregarding the fact that the natural history of man must include factors non-existent in the animal world, but which are his natural functions, such as language and its structure, the building of his institutions, laws, doctrines, science and mathematics., which conditions his environment (our underline), his s.r.¹, which, in turn, influence and determine his development (our underline).

Alfred Korzybski: Science and Sanity AN INTRODUCTION TO NON-ARISTOTELIAN SYSTEMS AND GENERAL SEMANTICS The International Non-Aristotelian Library Publishing Company page 38 - 39.

We would add to this quote that the variables Korzybski cited, not only "influence and determine his development," but also his being, i.e. his ontology. From the above quote, it is very clear to us that human language acts as a critical environmental factor in our way of thinking, being and action. It does so because our "institutions, laws, doctrines, science and mathematics," are mediated through our language. It was in this context that Barry Isaacs said to me that "We are all trapped in the world of our words!" It is critical to examine the words and the language of the A system or that of Causality also known as Cause and Effect.²

We now realize that it is our language, but more critically its structure and its presuppositions, that are the ontological drivers of our being. In a circular way, they provide the epistemological conditions for how we are the way we are.

In this context, it has become very clear that there is a semantic connection that the question ‘WHY’ has with the miasma and insanity of the A system³. Through ‘WHY’, the person who is asking it, gets the ‘REASON’ and the ‘EXPLANATION’ concerning any person, thing or event. Once he gets it, he will then have the Y that ‘MAKES’ the X. And when he has this, he then has its CAUSE. It is in this way that ‘CAUSE’ is, as per the language of Neuro-Semantic Programming⁴, semantically co-anchored to ‘WHY’. In Korzybskian language, CAUSE is the s.r. of WHY. In a cyclic way⁶ WHY is the s.r. of CAUSE. By the By the non-A language₁₉₉₉, we now can see that the semantics of ‘CAUSE’ and ‘WHY’ are co-anchored to each other. In turn they are semantically co-anchored to ‘REASON’ and ‘EXPLANATION.’

With CAUSE comes EFFECT. One, therefore, can see that the nature of the A system is about Causality. And Causality, as everyone knows, is a philosophy and it is a way of thinking by Cause and Effect. Today, without question, it is the premier and universal way of thinking. Everyone on this planet thinks by it.

This way of thinking is so much a part of us that until Korzybski, no one ever wonder what the ontological consequences were for us. These consequences are implicate to the axiom:

As a man thinks so is he.⁷

The phrase ". . . so is he" is about ontology. And we now know that if we agree with Korzybski, this ontology is one that is INSANE. It logically follows that if the non-A system were to be the universal way of thinking the consequences will be singular. Thus Korzybski stated:

When all is said and done, one cannot but see, at least as far as the white race is concerned, that a change from an A to would be momentous (our underline).

Ibidem page 12

We therefore infer that Korzybski wants a change in this world from the current A system to the new non-A system. This can be abbreviated thus:

A --> Non-A

However, as we noted above, if everyone on this planet were to shift from A to non-A the consequences would be incredible. We have repeatedly stated that it is the ultimate gestalt switch. And our students are the living testimonials of this.

So, as a way of thinking, Causality inevitably determines a way of being. It is the mother condition of our ontology. From what Korzybski has intimated, refer Part II of this paper, this ontology is one that is INSANE. In its insanity is dis-empowerment, woe, tears, pain, confusion and suffering.

We now know that the epistemic basis for asking WHY is when a person’s modal operators⁸ are violated. So, when you think that something SHOULD BE a certain way and it is not, your ‘SHOULD’ is violated. When this happens you will then ask ‘WHY’.

Now, SHOULD is the generator of our expectations. The act of expecting has a time function. It has to do with the future. This act totally violates Korzybski’s recommendation of what we are to do:

To achieve adjustment and sanity and the consequences which follow from them, we must first study structural characteristics of this world first, and then only, build languages of similar structure, instead of habitually ascribing to the world the primitive structure of our language.

Ibidem page 59

Clearly, the person who has expectations is not following the Korzybskian advice to study the external structures first. He is, in fact, creating his internal structure which then becomes his expectation or objectification. His modal operator determines that he must have the other or things or events to identify⁹ with his objectification. You can smell here the origins of tyranny.

We are self-initiating, self-actualizing, self-sustaining and self-supporting entities. As autonomous, free standing and sovereign entities, its is insane to even desire, want or demand that another would identify with the objectifications of one’s expectations. However, this is what happens and when our expectations are violated we become frustrated, sad, disappointed, depressed and angry, sometimes so angry that we are nearly berserk.

The Korzybskian proposition is that in life, we are best to determine what are the structures that exist outside of our skin. When we do, we are then to adjust to it. However, with the modal operator we see that there is a reversal and, therefore, violation of the Korzybskian proposition. The modal operator generates the expectation and then it wants the structures of the world to be in accord with it. It is comparable to me having some expectation of you and then expecting you to conform to it since that is how I think it SHOULD BE. In Korzybskian terms this is without question - INSANE! We agree.

However, returning to the A system, the question of interest is how will anyone know whether a person, thing or event SHOULD BE or SHOULD NOT BE. How he will know will be determined by his idea of what is RIGHT and WRONG¹⁰. It is very clear that Korzybski realized that here was the other way to recognize that an A system was a two-valued system¹¹.

It is very clear that the modal operators are the epistemic basis for dogmatism and absolutism. As indexed in the footnote below, it is the mother of zero tolerance. It is for this we shall never escape the emergence of raving Tocquemadas¹², from one epoch to another, in the evolving history of our society.

So now we can see how WHY is also semantically co-anchored to our MODAL OPERATORS. In turn our MODAL OPERATORS are co-anchored to RIGHT and WRONG.

What underpins RIGHT and WRONG are all the JUSTIFICATIONS that have been argued out in their favour and have been accepted as valid. In a cyclic manner, it follows that people determine the course of how they think people, things and events SHOULD BE or SHOULD NOT BE because they know that it is RIGHT.

If it is WRONG, then, here is the condition for BLAME and INTOLERANCE. With BLAME also comes FAULT and then GUILT. In our work, we call these three, BLAME, FAULT and GUILT as ‘the deadly triplets’. It is also easy to see how, in a cyclic way, INTOLERANCE is sustained. In turn, it is projected, in a compelling way at what is WRONG. You would not be intolerant to any thing that is RIGHT.

If INTOLERANCE is a semantic reality in a person’s ontology, underpinned by one’s conclusion of WRONG, there is no hope for forgiveness.

However, we believe that psychologically if it was the Queen of England or the late Princess Diana who did WRONG to you, you would not sustain INTOLERANCE against them. You would, like us, not because you know that they are more important personages than you are. You will stance down and relent and forgive.

Therefore, the thing that will underpin INTOLERANCE is SELF-IMPORTANCE. Of this, Richard Bandler wrote:

The third disease is importance, and self-importance is the worst of all. As soon as one thing is "important" then other things aren’t.  Importance is a great way to justify being mean and destructive, or doing anything else that’s unpleasant enough to need justification.

Richard Bandler: Using Your Brains - for a CHANGE Real People Press 1985 page 97

We are completely in concordance with his conclusion that "self-importance is the worst disease of all." And in the reality of the A system, the conduits of identification and confusion of logical orders are the conditions for the reality in which the disease of self-importance is given incredible high value and premier significance. In this PC world that we are in today, if anyone scratches the self-importance of another, inadvertently and unintentionally, he is DOOMED and CURSED.

So, now, in this amazing way we discover that WHY is semantically co-anchored to BLAME, FAULT and GUILT and also to INTOLERANCE. With this WHY is also co-anchored to SELF-IMPORTANCE and finally the ontology of AVOIDANCE OF ALL SELF-RESPONSIBILITY.

A person who thinks in this way will never ever endure another besmirching him with the taint of blame. He will do whatever it takes to avoid it. It is for this that there are people who are truly experts in avoiding blame. If you try to bring to account such a person, you will find that, as if in a flash, you are the one who will be impaled with blame, fault and guilt. Such people have the expertise to AVOID ALL SELF-RESPONSIBILITY.

As we have stated, we are each created with the power to be self-initiating, self-actualizing, self-sustaining and self-supporting and that we are imbued with the power to actualize these faculties. We are free standing, autonomous and sovereign entities unto ourselves. However, if we all think and live by Causality¹³, i.e. the A system, we will be biased to the psychological attitude to AVOID ALL SELF-RESPONSIBILITY. This would mean that none of us could ever take on the mantle of self responsibility to live our lives. This is abnormal and deviant.

Thus, by 1991 we were able to map out the entire structure of Korzybski’s A system, i.e. Causality. We did it in the work Don’t Ask WHY?! and we then expanded its considerations in the work Power and Elegance in Communication. We decided to call the A system the Blame Frame. We applied this term because, as a thinking device or mental methodology, it was truly a frame. In that it was a frame it acted to constrain our way of being in a very compelling and powerful way. How it had this compelling power was indexed by Alfred Korzybski himself:

We do not realise what tremendous power the structure of an habitual language has. It is not an exaggeration to say that it enslaves us through the mechanism of s.r. and that the structure which a language exhibits, is automatically projected upon the world around us. This semantic power is indeed so unbelievable that I do not know anyone, even among well-trained scientists, who, after having admitted some argument as correct, does not the next minute deny or disregard (usually unconsciously) practically every word he had admitted, being carried away again by the structural implications of the old language and his s.r.

Alfred Korzybski: Science and Sanity The International Non-Aristotelian Library Publishing Company 6th Reprint 1980 pages 90 - 91.

As a frame it was clearly the generator of many ill-formed consequences. At one level of consideration, the most dreaded of them all in is BLAME. No child is taught to, but every one just knows that in the world we live in we have to cover our ass. This is life - as it is, and for us, this is INSANE that we have to do such a thing.

THE BLAME FRAME - A System

__ Å  Cause => Effect

__ Å  Makes X

                -->Should Be
__ Å Why
                -->Should Not Be

                -->Right
__ Å  Y
                -->Wrong

__ Å  Y <-- Justification

                       -->Self                      -->Self
__ Å  Blame --> Other <-- FAULT, Guilt
                       -->Thing                    -->Other

                                -->Self
__ Å  Intolereance --> Other
                                -->Thing

__ Å SELF-IMPORTANCE

__ Å AVOID ALL SELF-RESPONSIBILITY

__ Å MAD, MAD, MAD, WORLD

In this description of the Blame Frame or the A system, the ‘__’ refers to the different logical levels of the Blame Frame.

The "Å" represents the semantic co-anchors or s.r. that each logical level has with each other.

Each logical level of the Blame Frame is a semantic domain unto itself. However, each logical level of the Blame Frame, from another point of view is not a discreet and segregated semantic entity unto itself but is co-anchored to all the others. These co-anchors are clearly Korzybskian s.r.

However, each logical level is a meta state semantic anchor which drives, to varying intensity, its concordant ontology.

In Alfred Korzybski and Cause and Effect, Part IV we shall examine the consequences for failing to achieve:

A --> Non-A

References:

Alfred Korzybski: Science and Sanity The International Non-Aristotelian Library Publishing Company 1980

Dennis K. Chong and Jennifer K. Smith Chong: Don’t Ask WHY?! C-Jade Publications Inc. 1991

Dennis K. Chong and Jennifer K. Smith Chong: Power and Elegance in Communication C-Jade Publications Inc. 1991

Michael Hall: META-STATES Empowerment Technologies 1996

Footnotes:

¹s.r. stands for semantic reaction. It means the meaning of significant that we have in response to the sound of words that we hear.

²Cause and Effect has also other synonyms besides what we have stated here. They are Causal Modeling, Implied Causative and the Blame Frame.

³Miasma and insanity of the A system is an accolade of doubtful merit that we append to it because of the transderivations that Korzybski had himself determined - refer to Alfred Korzybski and Cause and Effect, Part II.

⁴Neuro-Semantic Programming: In 1993, at the very end of the work Power in Elegance in Communication page 357, the authors, by implicature, indexed that the pre-eminent issue for each of us is about our human sanity, i.e., our well-formed mental health and ability to adjust and function in life. It all is about how our central nervous system works. And that any corrections of deviations in its operations can only be attained by the application of well-formed Neuro-Therapy^T.M.. In turn, these matters appertain to Neuro-Semantic Programming^T.M. that the above work introduced.

⁵Semantic co-anchors are words that have, by their implicate structure, an equivalent meaning with each other. Thus, when you ask,"Why?" an competent native speaker knows you are looking for the "cause." A native speaker also know that you could be looking for the "justification." These 3 words are co-anchored to each other semantically.

⁶". . . in a cyclic way":
In logic, a tautology is not kosher. Yet we know from Korzybski’s work that augmentations are circular or tautological.

⁷"As a man . . . ":
This saying originally comes from Holy Scripture. It can be found in The Book of Proverbs. It states there that, "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." We take this to mean that as a man thinks by his emotions he will be so concordantly. However, this saying was based on the Science_1500B.C. We are now in Science_1999CE. It is clear that the ontology of a person can also be concordant with his mentation.

⁸Modal operators are the class of words that were known as the imperatives of the English language. They included ‘should’, ‘ought to’, ‘must’, ‘have to’, imperative, necessary and mandatory.

⁹Identify is a process in which two unique entities become one and the same in ALL respects. Clearly this is not possible. However, the mind can do this operation. As a result we end with such assertions as "I am a Catholic" or "He is unreliable." In this instance the "I" or "he" is identified with the other variable. We know that a given religion is understood in idiosyncratic ways even by the devout. As for the term "unreliable" what does it really mean? The identification is therefore, deviant.

¹⁰RIGHT and WRONG are matters that are highly idiosyncratic. In one epoch and in the same place, what is deemed right by one person is challenged by another. What is RIGHT in one epoch is denied in another. There is, therefore, no universality to this two-valued system.

¹¹Two-valued system of RIGHT and WRONG is universal in the world today. However, when the late Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran was alive, he imposed a one-valued system upon his nation. There was to be only RIGHT! Of course this RIGHT was as prescribed in the Law as indexed in the Sharia of the Koran. In this respect, we tilt to a one-valued system by our tendency to zero tolerance!

¹²Tocquemada, Tomas was a Dominican monk. He was appointed to be the Grande Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition. To his sole credit is the death of over 46,000 men, women and children. They were all burnt to death, often, after unspeakable torture was done to their bodies.

¹³Causality is has other synonyms. It is known as the A-system. However, it is also known as the Blame Frame, Causal Modeling, the Implied Causative and from the world of the Computer Sciences as C => E.

©1999 Dennis K. Chong & Jennifer K. Smith Chong. All rights reserved.