52
PARTISAN REVIEW
it applies equally to all the men we are treating. A few quotations
are necessary since this has been questioned:
" ... the older systems with their linguistic methods of handling our
nervous system led inevitably to 'universal disagreement.' In indi·
vidual life this led to pathological conflicts with ourselves; in private
life to family strifes and unhappiness, and so to nervous disturb·
ances; in national life, to political strifes, revolutions; in interna·
tional affairs, to mutual misunderstanding, suspicion, impossibility
to agree, wars, World Wars, 'trade wars,' ultimately ending in slaugh·
ter, general unemployment, and an unnecessarily great amount of
general unrest, worry, confusion, and suffering in different degrees
for all" etc.
(Science and Sanity,
pp. 45-46.)
The cause found, the solution follows:
"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 Aristotelian to a non·
Aristotelian system must be momentous. Such a change will mark
the difference between a period when the mystery of 'human knowl·
edge' was not solved and a period when it has been solved ... (it)
... will open a new era ... of sanity ... human general adjustment,
agreement, and cooperation. The dreams of Leibnitz will become
sober reality." (Ibid., p. 52.)
Nevertheless, Mr. Hayakawa, in his eager but confused account
denies, (not unequivocally! ) , "that semanticists believe they can
save the world." Korzybski, on the other hand, is confident of
· saving at least the white part of it. Nor is Korzybski alone. Stuart
Chase, with certain self-contradictory qualifications, would also
hold that Supreme Court battles, revolutions, wars, etc. are in large
part due to confusions in language. They are, so to speak, all
terrible
misunderstandings.
"Endless political and economic difficulties in America have arisen
and thriven on bad language. The Supreme Court crisis of 1937 was
due chiefly to the creation by judges and lawyers of verbal monsters
in the interpretation of the constitution. They gave objective, rigid
values to vague phrases like 'due process' and 'interstate commerce.'
Once these monsters get into the zoo, no one knows how to get them
out again, and they proceed to eat us out of house and home."
(The
Tyranny of Words,
p.
22.)
The explanation of war is a semantic specialty. Thurman
Arnold: "Most of the interesting and picturesque wars have been
fought not over practical interests but over pure metaphysics."
(The Folklore of Capitalism,
p. 90.) Jerome Frank: "Our own
Civil War was a conflict brought on by words."
(Save America
First,
p. 418.) Surely if most of our problems are in essence ver·
