On the one hand, this is a judgement call. On the other hand, yes, General Semantics failed. Although it inspired writers whose novels remain, General Semantics doesn’t do much these days. In David’s Sling, the Institute plays at the level of national politics, in The World of NULL-A, General Semantics affects the Solar System.
General Semantics inspired more then just novels it just that the fields it inspired are not mainstream. NLP is inspired by General Semantics. Ida Rolf studied a lot of General Semantics before she came up with Rolfing.
Eric Berne who was taught in it developed Transactional analysis. There’s influence on Gestalt Therapy. Albert Ellis went on to found Rational emotive behavior therapy.
There are others as well. The list of intellectual heirs is long. It’s just that many took different parts of it and General Semantics as a discipline itself collapsed.
It seems to me that the basic insights of General Semantics have been found again and again by CBT, meditation, Internal Family Systems, Nonviolent Communication, Foucault, good anthropology.
Saying that insights “have been found again” assumes that neither of those fields are intellectual heirs of General Semantics. Given the amount of strains of psychology that are intellectual heirs that seems to me no safe assumption. Albert Ellis for example is mentioned on the Wikipedia page for the roots of CBT.
General Semantics inspired more then just novels it just that the fields it inspired are not mainstream. NLP is inspired by General Semantics. Ida Rolf studied a lot of General Semantics before she came up with Rolfing.
Eric Berne who was taught in it developed Transactional analysis. There’s influence on Gestalt Therapy. Albert Ellis went on to found Rational emotive behavior therapy.
There are others as well. The list of intellectual heirs is long. It’s just that many took different parts of it and General Semantics as a discipline itself collapsed.
Saying that insights “have been found again” assumes that neither of those fields are intellectual heirs of General Semantics. Given the amount of strains of psychology that are intellectual heirs that seems to me no safe assumption. Albert Ellis for example is mentioned on the Wikipedia page for the roots of CBT.