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.
Lance Strate received his BS degree at Cornell University where he majored in Communication Arts, went on to earn an MA degree from the Communication Arts and Sciences Department at Queens College of the City University of New York, and a PhD in the Media Ecology Program at New York University. He currently holds the position of Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University, where he has been teaching for 35 years (and counting). As a visiting scholar in 2015 he was selected as the Harron Family Chair in Communication at Villanova University, and was granted an honorary appointment as Chair Professor in the School of Journalism and Communication at Henan University in Kaifeng, China, in 2016.Dr. Strate has served on the Board of Trustees of the Institute of General Semantics since 2013, and as IGS President since 2020, having previously served as Executive Director from 2008-2011. He also served as a member of the Board of Directors of the New York Society for General Semantics from 2009 to 2012, as President of the NYSGS from 2016 to 2021, and currently serves as NYSGS Secretary. One of the founders of the Media Ecology Association, he served as the MEA President for over a decade and remains a member of the MEA's Board of Directors. Professor Strate joined the Academic Board of Direc- tors of the Global Listening Centre in 2016, served as Co-Chair of the Board from 2020 to 2023, and was appointed Senior Vice-President for Academic Affairs in 2023. Additionally, he served as President of Congregation Adas Emuno of Leonia, New Jersey for six years, from 2012 to 2018, and remains a member of their Board of Trustees.Lance Strate has received a number of honors, including being selected to deliver the 66th Annual Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture in 2018 and receiving the Sanford I. Berman Award for Excellence in Teaching General Semantics in 2024 and the J. Talbot Winchell Award for Service in 2022 from the Institute of General Semantics, receiving the Outstanding Research Award from the Global Listening Centre in 2020, the Distinguished Research Fellow Award from the Eastern Communication Association in 2019, the Marshall McLuhan Award for Outstanding Book in 2018 and the Walter Ong Award for Career Achievement in Scholarship in 2013 from the Media Ecology Associ- ation, the Neil Postman Mentor Award in 2019 and the John F. Wilson Fellow Award for exceptional scholarship, leadership, and dedication to the field of communication in 1998 from the New York State Com- munication Association, and the Proclamation by Mayor Wellington E. Webb, in honor of his keynote address to the Rocky Mountain Commu- nication Association, "that February 15, 2002 be known as Dr. Lance Strate Day in the City and County of Denver."Lance Strate has authored and edited 18 books, including First Letter of My Alphabet (2023), Concerning Communication: Epic Quests and Lyric Excursions Within the Human Lifeworld (2022), Diatribal Writes of Passage in a World of Wintertextuality (2020), Media Ecology: An Approach to Understanding the Human Condition (2017), Taking Up McLuhan's Cause: Perspectives on Media and Formal Causality (2017), Thunder at Darwin Station (2015), The Medium is the Muse: Channeling Marshall McLuhan (2015), Amazing Ourselves to Death: Neil Postman's Brave New World Revisited (2014), Korzybski and ... (2012), On the Binding Biases of Time and Other Essays on General Semantics and Media Ecology (2011), and Communication and Cyber-space: Social Interaction in an Electronic Environment (1996, 2003). He has also served as editor of the Speech Communication Annual, the General Semantics Bulletin, and Explorations in Media Ecology, a journal he founded and edited for 9 years. Translations of his writing have appeared in French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Hungarian, Hebrew, Mandarin, and Quenya.
