Don’t Change Your “Self” - Change the World

Doug Rushkoff: Here’s a podcast of the talk I did for the Institute of General Semantics last Friday night. The talk was about the biggest honor I’ve had as a public speaker: The 56th Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture at the Princeton Club in NYC.  The event was just written up by Brian Heater for the NYPress.

This put me at the end of a long line of thinkers I’ve long admired: Buckminster Fuller, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Gregory Bateson, Robert Anton Wilson, Abraham Maslow, Ellen Langer, Albert Ellis…you get the idea. It’s hard to accept the fact that I’ve grown up, and that most of the generation of thinkers before me have already moved on. But someone has to carry the torch, and that may as well be all of us.

The lecture has a lot to do with the subject of my upcoming book, Life Incorporated: How a business plan took over the world and how to take it back, which I just finished rewriting last night to include the current financial crisis. It’s the same book, except instead of warning that our corporatist behaviors will soon lead us into a financial crisis, I get to show how it all happened and how to get out. It makes the job of explaining the book or convincing people to read it a lot easier. I’m much less a Cassandra, now, warning of imminent meltdown - and I don’t have to spend as much time doing what might appear to some as naysaying or scolding. We’re all aware that we’re in a fine mess, now, and already interested in understanding what happened and how to fix it.

I tried to make this lecture provocative to the General Semantics people, in particular. General Semantics has over the years limited itself, I argue, to self-help technologies from NLP and psychotherapy to EST and self-hypnosis. All this focus on the self really started back during the renaissance, and coincided with some really dark presuppositions about human nature such as self-interest. And - as I show in the book - these are really just artifacts of corporatism.

The object of the game, I think, is not to change the self (which doesn’t even really exist) but to change the world.

... Complete entry

Posted by  on  11/20  at  12:26 PM

"Don't Change Your "Self"--Change The World" and "The object of the game, I think, is not to change the self (which doesn’t even really exist) but to change the world." Taking responsibility for the meanings I am giving to your words: It makes sense to me to think-feel-believe-act based on the notion that "I am not anyone else. And I am not identical with anyone else". I label this difference with the word "self" and "selfing" (to emphasize "self" as representing "behaving" rather than "thing"). So on that account I think-feel-experience-act on an awareness that whatever label I might give, I recognize an "X", some goings, a developing process etc. that I call at varying times "I", "myself", "myselfing", "me". This self-processing as I presently construe it, is constituted of "a remembered and awared of continuity of relative invariant ways of thinking, feeling, talking, attituding, valuing, re-acting, etc." In terms of a general semantics calculus approach, I believe a sense of self is a function of the frequency with which one is aware of one's being in the world. As Ouspensky noted 'We are more asleep than we think even while awake.' To the degree that there are gaps in our awareness of our be-ing in the world, be-ing with-for ourselves, being with-for others (Sartre) I believe we miss much of whatever that's going on that we-I call, "self". To the degree that we are conscious of our abstractings we have a more or less deeper "sense of self". In terms of generalized set theory. I see 'Selves' as members of the set of "world". I can set out to change the world. If I succeed in any however incremental way--as a member of the set "world" I have changed myself. But in terms of effectiveness, efficiency, a "principle of least energy", and a "principle of gradualness", I can also seek to change the world (not all of it, just my however small or large sphere of influence)--And this way I will also be 'changing the world'. But I prefer the "change me first" approach based on applying general semantics time-binding guidelines... Hard enough: But much less work and tribulation.

Posted by  on  11/24  at  03:59 PM

I believe that we do change the world by changing ourselves. Scientists are proving more and more that we affect outcomes based on our thoughts and expectations. They have also done studies where someone focused positive thoughts on a tissue sample held in another country and that tissue changed. The water studies that have been done recently have verified how positive words create positive change in large bodies of water. Much of our thinking arises from deeply held limiting beliefs in the subconscious, so the more we change those limiting beliefs and open to a more expanded self, the more we project that onto the world. And the world does change. Personally, I have been focused on both, most of my life, as an activist AND a deeply spiritual person dedicated to self-growth. You can walk into a room after someone has argued in it and feel the energy. Imagine what happens from how at war many people are within themselves, their families, their communities and then we wonder why there is so much war between countries. It all starts within us. We are responsible.

Posted by Milton Dawes  on  11/25  at  09:38 AM

Hi Seattle, We are in agreement as far as I understand your words. What I was concerned with was the behaviour and possible consequences related to "order" (a general semantics principle involving "what comes first"). If my goal is to "change the world", I will very likely forget the instrument (me) that is involved in attempting that change. If my goal is to "change the world through emphasis on changing myself first", I will behave differently--I am likely to be less arrogant. I am likely to discover how difficult it will be attempting to change just this little part of the world (me), compared to changing the much bigger world. I might discover things about "resistance to change", and be better able to meet the challenge-problems in the bigger world. I might discover many things about myself and through a fractal perspective, become more informed regarding the structure and functioning of the bigger world. In working on myself first, I might wonder if other also want to "change the world". I might ask myself: Do they want to change the world to be like the kind of world I envision? If not "How do I deal with the unavoidable clash of activities? How do I deal with the person,m persons, group or groups that might sabotage my efforts? In brief there are differences between seeking to change oneself and in effect changing a little part of the world, and wanting to change the world, and hoping the world will change me. I am part of a small organization (about 12 individuals). I have first hand knowledge and experience in the resistance to suggestions I have made over the years--And these were not suggestions that involved changing the organization. To apply a 'scientific approach', you might review your own efforts in the area of change. And check with close friends, acquaintances, colleagues, etc., regarding their experiences.

Posted by  on  12/02  at  08:51 AM

the article is written very well....... i was supposed to do a assignment on "self and the world". i was confused.so i started looking up for ideas and suggestions and after readind this piece of information i have thoroughly understood the topic..... thanks a lot.....

Posted by  on  12/10  at  08:25 AM

Listening and witnessing Rushkoff's animated talk is memorable. As an attendee and presenter of a paper in the symposium on the following day, I found the AKML 2008 presenting the broadest canvas on which presenters painted later, but only n corners and not a fillingly unitive design. Milton Dawes has pointed out significantly that ' Be the change ' you want to bring in the world too is a meaningful exercise. After all, the self is perceived as a pattern of behaving,feeling,thinking,etc. over a certain period of time,having continuity,and stability. For changing the world,can entail changing the self, the very instrument of change.

Posted by  on  12/12  at  09:21 AM

Doug wrote: General Semantics has over the years limited itself, I argue, to self-help technologies from NLP and psychotherapy to EST and self-hypnosis. I have a few times 'suggested' that 'The Institute' offer a conference "Where Are We Going As a Species". This for me is in keeping with Korzybski's concern for "The Sanity of The Race". Apart from one individual's respone "Cleveland" the 'suggestion' did not go any further.

Posted by mil  on  12/12  at  10:39 AM

Hi Devkumar, I also agree. I did not notice a fillingly unitive design. I have commented on this at other conferences I attended--with no noticeable change--so much for changing even a little part of the world.

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