From @YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Thu Nov 11 09:05:00 1993 Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by NEBULA.SYSTEMSZ.CS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Thu, 11 Nov 1993 14:13:05 -0500 Received: from YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU by eli.CS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Thu, 11 Nov 1993 14:12:36 -0500 Message-Id: <199311111912.AA02866@eli.CS.YALE.EDU> Received: from CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU by YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 7221; Thu, 11 Nov 93 14:12:22 EST Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 5249; Thu, 11 Nov 93 14:12:01 EDT Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1993 14:05:00 EST Reply-To: protin@USL.COM Sender: Lojban list From: Art Protin Subject: Re: TECH: re'enai and the emotion classifiers (long) To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu Status: RO X-Status: [ while I concede that this exchange does have many of the attributes of a flame war and should probably be discontinued, I still find some things I want to express and suspect that they might be different enough from what has been said so far to justify saying them now] Rather than quote individual lines from lojbab's latest post and argue about little details, I will recount a story that I think has an analogy, and then try to express that analogy and with it my outrageous position. Two college classmates told of an unfortune teacher in their high school. This teacher was politically between an anarchist and a libertarian. The teacher allowed some of his perspective to flavor his presentations to the class. The students brought home some of that flavor to their parents. The parents, being "intellectually challenged", immediately "recognized" this non-mainline position as "communist" and had the teacher dismissed. I believe that community my classmates came from had two buckets that everything political came in, either it was "American" or not. In the forties, non-American was called "Nazi", and in the fifties and sixies, non-American was called "Communist". This limited vocabulary of the "intellectually challenged" (read as "educationally/intellectually HANDICAPPED") was never seen as a reason to allow myself or other thinking people around me to corrupt the meanings of our much richer vocabulary. I don't doubt that the intellectually challenged in this country have a similar two buckets for god-beliefs, either you accept the Judeo-Christian God or you are an atheist. THIS SHOULD HAVE LITTLE BEARING ON THE DESIGN OF LOJBAN. The "intellectually challenged" in this country do not even try to make good use of English, I expect that they will have no interest in lojban (as it is obviously a "foreign language"). I expect if lojban were to become the dominent language anywhere, such people living there would debase and underutilize lojban. I have no interest in cheating them of that role by precorrupting lojban by incorporating their handicap in the language. I am unwilling to give up total control of the English language to them, I even begrudge them their rightful vote on the usage of English, and I will not willingly accept incorporation of their limitations in a design process, that they cannot understand, of a language in which they have negative interest. [That was pretty outrageous, now, wasn't it? Hopefully this presentation of my (warped) views was sufficiently complete that I will not feel any need to further clarify it. It seems to be sufficiently close to first principles. As to the "correctness" of this view, you are all welcome to email to me directly all supporting (few I expect) comments as well as those opposing it (FLAMES). While I may have sounded angry (and definitely argumentative), all the hostility that I expressed is directed at ideas that I oppose and, to a much lesser extent, toward the nameless, faceless masses that embody those ideas. I like lojbab and lojban. I only argue about these issues because I care about lojban and I only argue with lojbab because I like and respect him enough to be candid.) thank you all (for you patience) Arthur Protin Arthur Protin STANDARD DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are strictly those of the author and are in no way indictative of his employer, customers, or this installation.