Flights from ‘reality’ and those who profit of – Alfred Korzybski

« It should be realized that in the Aristotelian system of evaluation many individuals profit in various ways by what amounts to distracting* the attention of mankind from actual life problems, which make us forget or disregard actualities. They often supply us with phantom semantic structures, while they devote their attention to the control of actualities not seldom for their personnal benefit. If one surveys the Aristotelian situation impartially, one occasionnaly feels hopeless. But, no matter how we now conspire one against another, and thus, in the long run, against ourselves, the plain realization that the difficulty is found in the standards of evaluation, establishes the necessary preliminary step to the escape.

It is well known fact that, in a large proportion of ‘mental’ ills, we find a semantic flight from ‘reality’ (multiordinal) when their reality becomes too hard to endure. It is not difficult to see that different mythologies, cults etc, often supply such structural semantic ‘flights from reality’; and that those who actually help, or who are professionnaly or otherwise engaged in producing and promulgating such semantics flights, help mankind to be un-sane, to deal with phantoms, to create dream states, etc… There is no longer any excuse in the old alimalistic law of supply and demand -that, because there is a demand for such flights, they should be supplied. That argument is not held to apply to those who peddle drugs or wood alcohol. The flights from reality always have the earmarks of ‘mental’ illness. Very often such actively engaged individuals are themtelves ill to the point of hallucinations; they often ‘hear voices’, ‘see vissions’, ‘speak tongues’, etc… Very often other morbid symptoms occur which are similar to those shown by the ‘mentally’ ill of the usual hospital types. It is not generally realised that, although the patient suffers intensely, he usually shows marked resistance to any attempt to relieve him of his semantic affliction. Only after he is relieved by semantic re-education does the patient realize how very unhappy he was.

The situation is very serious. There is a powerful well-organized system, with enormous wealth behind it, based on Aristotelian and pre-aristotelian standardsof evaluation which keeps mankind in delusional semantic states. Its members do their best, better than they know, to keep mankind un-sane in flights from ‘reality’, instead of helping to revise the Aristotelian standards of evaluation and to reorganize the horrible ‘realities’, all of our own making, into realities less painful. The comparatively few psychiatrists are naturally not a match for such vast numbers of well-organized men and women who, in their blissful ignorance, work in the opposite direction; and all of us pay the price. »

Alfred Korzybski, « Science And Sanity », fifth edition, p199-200

*music, movies, best of all series, mangas, comics, even newspapers, never-ending TV games etc… are never enough to DISTRACT us from real problems ‘they’ don’t want we stick our nose in…

RAAAHAHHAAAA… DISTRACTION !!!

NB: I am who highlights by bold characters.