Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2003 04:46:03 -0000
Message-ID: <vmsvkbfgplica0@corp.supernews.com>
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In my article "The Hubbard is Bare" I explain that Hobbes (lived in the 1600s)wrote in his book Leviathan that people should be careful about how they define and use words and not to go past a word you don't understand. That was a few hundred years before Hubbard. Now I find in "Hsun Tzu: Basic Writings" [translated by Burtson Watson, Columbia University Press] that Hsun Tzu has a WHOLE CHAPTER on word clearing, and he wrote in about 250 BC! I believe this is the same Hsun Tzu who wrote the Art of War, and we know Hubbard read that. So he could well have read Hsun Tzu's "Rectifying names." Here's a quote:

"Hence to split words and recklessly make up new names, throwing the names that have already been established into confusion, leading the people into doubt and delusion, and causing men to argue and contend with each other is a terrible evil and should be punished in the same way that one punishes those who tamper with tallies or weights and measures." [page 140]

"The words of a wise man are easy to understand and easy to practice." [page 150]

Now also, http://www.hku.hk/philodep/ch/lang.htm has a long explanation of Confucius' writings on the same subject, and Confucius came BEFORE Hsun Tzu! So I'm wondering if we went back far enough we might find this idea back in Incident I.

Here's a quote from http://www.scientology.org/en_US/results/study/pg002.html

"In the years following L. Ron Hubbard's breakthrough on the importance of the misunderstood word, he developed a considerable body of technology which enables one to deal with the misunderstood words or symbols he encounters.

The relay of ideas from one mind to another mind or minds depends upon words, symbols, sounds, pictures, emotions and past associations. Primary among these, in any developed culture, are words. These can be written or spoken.

While whole subjects exist concerning the development and meaning of words, many of them very learned and worthwhile, practically no work was ever done on the effect of words or the consequences of their misuse or noncomprehension."

Blah, blah. He stole this from Confucius! So much for originality.

www.lisamcpherson.org

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