SCIENCE AND SANITY - online book

An Introduction To Non-aristotelian Systems And General Semantics.

	lxx INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION
	Dealing with those tragic and painful collapses in civilizations, and eventually passing to another spasm of civilization, what interests us most in considering the problems of sanity, is the newest, psychopatho-logical methods of destroying sanity, not merely the organized orgies of murder, rape, arson, looting, drugging, and destruction under different dictators, mikados, etc. I mention the 'mikado' especially here as a tragic human example of the effect ofdefined terms, which in life application sway the history of mankind. By definition and/or creed the mikado is supposed to be some sort of a 'god', etc. By extension or facts, the best we know, he is probably a sort of a nice, supposedly educated, collegian. He has a wife and makes babies, but he is told about Japanese people, the behaviour of Japanese troops in China, etc., only as much as the ruling clique in Japan allows him to know. If he would be allowed to know what 'his' soldiers, and so his representatives, are actually doing in China with their governmentally organized murder, rape, looting, drugging, etc., I doubt if he, as a 'nice collegian', would approve it. However, if he would try to do something about it, he probably would be 'liquidated' by the ruling clique. From a historical, civilization, human point of view he must be adjudged responsible, as the head of his government, for what the ruling clique and the Japanese army do in China in his name. This applies to many other 'rulers', who seldom know what is going on extensionally because they rely on the use of defined terms in the reports of those who are in actual control. Ignorance in high places cannot humanly be an excuse. Imagine a British empire tolerating so long a Chamberlain in the government, or the endless petty, befuddling, deluding, etc., bickerings of political partisanship, which are good enough to wreck any system of 'democracy' (in practice anotherdefined term). It seems, however, there is at least one point the totalitarian and 'democratic' politicians have in common, best expressed by Kipling: "Ow the loot! Bloomin' loot! That's the thing to make the boys git up an' shoot t It's the same with dogs an' men, If you'd make 'em come again Clap 'em forward with a Loo! loo! Lulu! Loot 1 Whoopee! Tear 'im, puppy! Loo! loo! Lulu I Loot! loot! loot!'