„Mapa to nie terytorium” - wpływ „Semantyki ogólnej” Alfreda Korzybskiego na myśl Neila Postmana

Alfred Korzybski (1879-1950) was a controversial and influential Polish-American philosopher and scientist. He is best known for developing the general semantics, a theory and a field of studies exploring the connections between language, reality and human behavior. Although Korzybski is now somewhat forgotten, his ideas had a great and lasting impact on many branches of humanities and social science, especially: linguistics, communication studies, sociology, anthropology and cultural studies. Neil Postman (1931-2003) was an accomplished American media theorist and cultural critic. During his academic career, he developed an original concept of cultural conservatism as a narrative rooted in serious reflection on the condition of modern culture, a coherent theoretical approach firmly rooted in an intellectual tradition and a theoretical perspective to which Postman referred as media ecology. Due to his ideas on the influence of the technological progress, which he perceived as a moral and intellectual decline of modern western civilization, he stands as one of the most interesting critical minds of the second half of the 20th century. The article outlines the connection between Postman’s thought and work, and the philosophy of Korzybski. The main goal is to rediscover the importance of some of Korzybski’s notions concerning language, reality, and human behavior, and to explore their influence on Postman’s cultural commentary in its both radical and conservative incarnations.