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ID_DENTED


                                             March 20, 2021

  Alfred Korzybski, _Science and Sanity_ (1933, 4th ed 1958):

  "Identification, or the confusion of orders of
  abstractions, in an _aristotealean_ or _infantile_
  system, plays a much more pernicious role than the
  present official psychiatry recognizes.  _Any_
  identification, at _any_ level, or of _any_orders,
  represents a non-survival _s.r._ which leads
  invariably to the reversal of the natural survival
  order, and becomes the foundation for _general_
  improper evaluation, and, therfore, _general_ lack of
  adjustment, no matter whether the maladjustment is
  subtle as in daily life, or whether it is aggravated
  as in the cases of schizophrenia.  
  A _non-aristotelian system_, by a complete elimination 
  of 'identity' and identification, supplies simple yet
  effective means for the elimination by preventive
  education of this general source of maladjustment.
  Book II is entirely devoted to this subject."

  Section IV "Structural Factors in Null-A Language",
  Chapter XII "On Order", p. 187


It occurs to me that the "present official psychiatry" of the
days of the mid-20th probably regarded "identification"
as a key factor in "empathy", and a complete absence of it
would be a sign of a damaged personality, psychopathic
or-- in jargon of the present-day-- sociopathic.

              Delany's "Babel-17" might very well
              have been riffing off of this--           BABEL-17
              Korzybski wanted to *intentionally*
              create the original damaged form of
              the language Babel-17-- highly
              logical, but sans I/thou
              distinction, to facillitate the
              creation of guilt-free assassins.


                        Presuming I get-- I mean
                        *grok*, man-- what he means
                        by "identification".



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