I've nearly finished reading this amazing book. I have to admit, the title doesn't make it sound like the most entertaining book in the world. It's not a narrative. It's literally a book about how the words we use to describe and to classify things, leads humanity into every kind of false judgement and ultimately into all the horrors we humans seem fond of. I have never read a book quite like this. It is not a book about spirituality. In fact, it really is about human language. But there is a strain of "spirituality" throughout it, in the sense that I am filled with love for my fellow beings, and humbled by all the times I've fallen into language traps that have molded my interactions with other people in negative ways.
This is a little golden nugget of wisdom, wrapped in an inexpensive cover, disguised as a regular, if not deeply boring, textbook.
It's only $12 on Amazon right now. If you're looking for something strange and interesting, check it out. Click on the picture of the book, and you'll be re-directed to the book on Amazon.
If our ideas and beliefs are held with an awareness of abstracting, they can be changed if found to be inadequate or erroneous. But if they are held without an awareness of abstracting-if our mental maps are believed to be the territory-they are prejudices. As teachers or parents, we cannot help passing on to the young a certain amount of misinformation and error, however hard we may try not to. But if we teach them to be habitually conscious of the process of abstraction, we give them the means by which to free themselves from whatever erroneous notions we may have inadvertently taught them.
Citizens of a modern society need [...] more than that ordinary "common sense" which was defined by Stuart Chase as that which tells you that the world is flat.