Not A, Not Be, &c is not just another collection of essays on general semantics. Not that it is not exactly that, a collection of essays on general semantics specifically, and on what Neil Postman described as general semantics writ large, aka media ecology. Or to use the designation adopted by the Balvant Parekh Centre in Baroda, India, this is a collection of essays on general semantics and other human sciences. Or, simply put, this is a colorful collection of six essays and an introduction, complete with illustrations and indexes, on human communication and the human condition.
Alternately, this is a book devoted to essays in a non-aristotelian vein, which is what the first not in the title, Not A, refers to. Non-aristotelian is Alfred Korzybski's neologism, providing a name for a category of perspectives, and approaches that would include human sciences such as media ecology, information theory, cybernetics, systems theory, semiotics and, of course, general semantics. And the second not in the title, Not Be, refers specifically to the general semantics critique regarding our use of the verb to be, which also relates to linguistics and orality-literacy studies. Following the two nots, &c, an abbreviation of etc., itself an abbreviation of the Latin phrase, et cetera, represents one of the three main extensional devices recommended by Korzybski, the intent being to counter the illusion that any statement can ever be complete or final and to instill a sense of humility in all of us by reminding us of the limits of our knowledge, and our ability to communicate.
The title, Not A, Not Be, &c, also alludes to the ABCs, and consequently to the alphabet, a reference to the field of media ecology, as scholars such as Marshall McLuhan, Walter Ong, Jack Goody, and Eric Havelock have discussed the pivotal role that alphabetic writing has played in the development of western culture. It follows that Not A, Not Be, &c is not not a book about media ecology. And Not A, Not Be, &c is most certainly not not a book about general semantics.
Topics covered in the book include negation, the contrast between alphabetic and electronic cultures, a new tree of life model, understanding different types of symbolic form (i.e., words, images, and numbers), problems and possibilities regarding the copula and conjunctions, the nature of imagination, and coping with and changing the world we live in.
