HOW IDENTIFICATION MAKES PEOPLE STUPID

In the last few Neuron posts about Korzybski and the foundations of NLP and Neuro-Semantics, I’ve been writing about the un-sanity of the process of identification that leads to semantic reactions. When you identify one thing with another thing and you will create an unsane map about the world. Why is that? Because there is no sameness; nothing is the same as something else. Similar? Yes. Absolutely the same? Of course not. Well this past week we had a great example of un-sanity created by identification.

It all began with the burning of the Koran by the unsane person in Florida and then that was followed by more unsane persons in Afghanistan as they created the riots in the streets. Two examples of un-sanity. Two examples of people being the victims of identification due to their un-sane frames.

The pastor’s unsanity shows up in how he thinks that the book he burned which has the words, “The Koran” on it is the Koran. And the rioters who are hurting themselves and others and having a big destructive tantrum in the streets are also unsane because they must think that what he burned is the Koran! Both the pastor and the protestors are identifying something and having a fight over that identification and rapidly spreading stupidity around the planet that already has plenty of stupidity to go around.

Now whatever message that a group of people acknowledge, honor, and use to guide their lives and that they consider special, holy, and sacred — that message is more than the words that carrying the message or the book that contains those words. There’s a difference between the idea and all of the expressions of those ideas. And all of us have certain ideas that we find special and even sacred— that touch us, that move us, that inspire us to be better than we are. But the words that convey that message—whether it is poetry, or music, a song, or some prose— those words that inspire us and capture our imaginations and move us to what we call “the sacred” in life is just an expression of some inspiring idea. All this is good. It is our innate self- actualization drive moving us to a higher level of experience.

What’s not so good is to confuse any particular form or expression of those ideas that the words are pointing to and a symbol of with the reality. “The map is not the territory.” The menu you study and use to choose your meal is not the meal; please don’t’ bit into the menu, it will not do your digestive system any good. It might, in fact, make you very sick. The beautiful pictures of the holiday get-away is not the holiday. And while you can induce yourself into a nice state as you thumb through the brochure, you still have not left home!

The book that the pastor burned is just paper and ink and binding glue. It does not reduce “the Koran” one bit. If someone decided to burn the pastor’s Bible, well, it’s just a book made of paper and ink and binding glue, that’s all. It doesn’t reduce the inspiring ideas that the book records and conveys.

But people who confuse symbol with reality, who confuse map and territory, who identify one thing with another then create for themselves all kinds of unsane semantic reactions. And then those semantic reactions evoke other semantic reactions and eventually there’s a semantic war. And in my opinion, this is a complete waste of energy, understanding, compassion, and all of the sacred values that the two holy books, the Koran and the Bible preach — love, peace, serenity, understanding, brotherhood, etc.

So the stupidity is this: people start behaving badly to protect the inspiring ideas of love and peace! They hurt, threat, get aggressive, get nasty, condemn, judge, act hateful ... all in the name of a God of love and peace. Is there something wrong with this picture? Am I the only one who thinks that somebody needs to slow down and exercise some other “spiritual” qualities like patience, understanding, kindness, and so on?

Semantic reactions ... people reacting, getting their buttons pushed, treating symbols as if they are the same as the reality that they point to — all initiated because they have identified and confused map and territory. Korzybski we still need your processes of non-identification and semantic silence so that we can have more thoughtful semantic responses and cut out all of the non-sense of our unsane semantic reactions.