To say this differently, the generalization should make clear the qualifications under which the generalization holds.
38. The misuses of language: The pitfall of gullibility
The pitfall of gullibility is deep. We are not only gullible before the signs of others, we are gullible-plus, as Morris puts it, before our own signs. Here we jump into the deep piteyes closed.
We protect the self, even if we must delude the self to do it. We talk ourselves out of our uneasiness, out of our ineptness, out of our blunders; out of our fears, out of our frustrations, out of our tensions, our unhappiness, our failures. We do this with coercive signs. It is the rare one who can resist the seduction of his own flattering, soothing, felicitous signs. For this is the formula, it seems, for living with the inadequate self.
The antidotes to gullibility before the signs we use to protect the self are the antidotes we use to protect ourselves before the signs of others.
The first requisite is to establish the proper relationship between the uses of signs. It seems obvious to state that prescriptors should find their justification in worthy appraisors which rest, in turn, upon designators that denote.
First, designators Then, appraisors And only then, prescriptors
This is the antidote of Morris. Gullibility results from our failure to note that appraisors and prescriptors are used to persuadefirst toward an attitude response, and then toward a specific action response. The semantic necessity