Message-Id: <199602040737.JAA19347@xiron.pc.helsinki.fi>
Date:         Sun, 4 Feb 1996 02:36:56 -0500
Reply-To: Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From: Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>
Subject:      Re: language committee
To: Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
Content-Length: 8318
Lines: 152

>>
>>While people may see my decision-making as autocratic, I know myself that
>>I listen to the community, and that the EFFECTIVE decision-making process
>>is by consensus.
>
>I suspect JCB feels the same way.

JCB DOES NOT feel this way.  He has specifically stated several times that
his opinions and decsions about langauge design will NOT be swayed by what
he disparagingly calls "the masses", and indeed that anyone who attempts the
political act of raising support among the masses for an idea is de facto
"Acting politically" and hence persona non grata in the ranks of those with
any power in the Loglan community.  Indeed this very argument was the
heart and soul of the 1982-4 dispute that almost killed Loglan and eventually
gave birth to Lojban.

JCBs definition of "politics" is an unusual one "agonistic behavior to
try to manuevere someone else into doing what you want them to".  He feels
that the language design process should be dispassionate and based solely on
reason. He eschewed politics, and when he found that giving members a say
in the organization (in retrun for taking their money for memberships)
meant that the members expected to be listened to or convinced to support his
decisions about the language, he immediately committed an act of politics
andmaneuvered the community into choosing between JCB and members-with-power.
Among the people caught in the middle of this were pc Bob Chassell, and my
wife Nora, who cast the deciding vote for JCB over the rest of the membership
because she felt that the language could not survive without JCB (which at
that point was almost certainly true).

I was out of the loop, though a voting member, at that point, but I sure
got the treatment over the next few years as I became technically active
in the project.  JCB's version of politics was SO painful and devastating
to the community that the entire leadersshiop except Cowan (who has read
the archives and undoubtedy feels as stromngly as the rest of us) are
traumatized to the point that many of us would be gone if that kind of
conflicted politics arose again in the community.  Lojban cannot be
politics-free for the reasons you have stated BUT politics must be eschewed
rather than embraced as the measn to solve problems.  At least politics of the
JCB kind, where there are winners and losers - we can survive consensus
politics, so long as we continue to be able to build consensus.

>A leader must embrace politics-it is the way
>things get done.

Well, I am arguing this issue with you so obviously I am not completely
eschewing politics.  But you may also notice that Cowan and pc and several
others are largely silent even though they are also leaders.  I am the
sacrificial stuckee for the political chores, having a strong stomach.
But "embrace" - no.  The leadership does not "embrace" politics.  It suffers
politics, as a necessity to avoid repeating JCB's folly.

>>Perhaps in this context it is easier to see why I don't go along with
>>Jorge's or Steven's ideas very easily, when I have a few people who have
>>expressed quite publically that they are opposed to further fiddling with the
>>language.  It takes more than a couple people agreeing to give me a sense of
>>consensus strong enough that I can carry the argument to the others and
>>expect them to comfortably accept it, especially if even one person among the
>>outspoken does NOt agree.
>
>I thought Jorge's best suggestion was that all discussion regarding future
>changes to lojban must occur in lojban. An inspired suggestion, if perhaps
>not a completely serious one.

Well that certainly is appropriate for post-baseline, and is welcome before
then so long as you recognize that someone needs to put it into English
to get it into the baseline.  But I was referring to the technical
proposals that you and Jorge have made in recent months.  I did not fully
understand the context of Jorge's proposals, and thus have made my peace with
 him %^). The strength of your insistence and the succeeding political debate
stemming from your proposal remains somewhat of an irritant because the
implication is received if not intended that you are voting no-confidence in
my leadership becauseof the differences in opinion.

>My
>understanding is the selmaho beginning with <x> are "experimental," so
>*somebody* anticipated the desirability for having post-baselining
>evolution of the lojban language

Me. %^)  And that is cmavo, not selma'o, thoughI think your intent is
understood.  But I did expect thatpeople would largely wait until after the
 baseline to start introducing experimental cmavo, and that such introduction
would be, after Jorge's (and mine much earlier) concept that such proposals
should ONLY be made in Lojban.

>If the initial baselining simply said
>that <xoi> and <xio> are experimental constructs that somehow deal with
>fuzzy logic, that would be fine with me.

It is intended that the baseline will say about the experimental cmavo ONLY that
 they are available.  Proposals made before the baseline starts for the use
of the experimental cmavo are not part of the baseline andprobably will not
be documented at all  (expcet for archival purposes), because it is their
introduction and use after the baseline IN LOJBAN that counts.

>My other suggestion is not about lojban but about how the language ought be
>managed after baselining. I do not agree with your assertion that
>acknowledging that the language is unfinished at the time of initial
>baselining will hurt the prospects for the use of the language.

My assertion is based simply on statements from MANY membersof the community
- more than are currently on Lojban List I suspect if I dug through the
archives and counted them - have explicitly stated that they will learn the
language when it is "finished" and not before.  Yes, even natural languages
evolve - but they do not do so as conscious acts of will by one or even
several users of the language, and to my knowledge all evolutionary languages
changes are not really "completeing" the language, but "changing" that which is
 already a complete and whole entity.

Yet on the other hand we DO admit that the language is "incopmplete" in some
areas - usage and vocabulary and style.  I have recruited people to be the
Chaucers and Shakespeares of Lojban history - the people who make the language
come to life, probably introducing and solidifying many changes through their
writings, but for the most part in fairly limited areas of the language.

>If the lojban creators are hell-bent on getting lojban out
>as quickly as possible, fine, go ahead.

Thanks.

>But acknowledge that there is no
>consensus that the baselined language is complete, and explicitly plan for
>another baselining in 5 or (better) 10 years.

The plan is thatthere will be a decision made in at least 5 years as to
whether a new/final baseline is needed.  The process for making that decision
is unspecified, and should be decided by the community of users of the
hopefully-then-living language, and not by people speaking in this alien
tongue of la gliban.

>It is imperative
>that you  understand and acknowledge that lojban is a political enterprise,
>that its political nature will not end at baselining

Oh certainly not.  But who can say what the nature of politics solely
expressed in Lojban will be like.

What we do know is that when the Esperanto world conference first managed to
conduct itself speaking solely in ESperanto (I think that was in 1904), that
it was THEN and ONLY THEN that people became convinced that the language was
truly "for real".  The strength of the Esperanto community -a strength that
has probably seen people die because they were part of that community - stems
largely from that significant moment.  (My source on this is Nick Nicholas
who has studied Esperanto history rather carefully).

Lojban is not Esperanto, but Esperanto is the only known "working" community
of an artificial language, and an argument based on the experience of that
community is thus quite strong against philsophical musings about what should
or what could be.  And we certainly have MANY examples of failed conlangs,
many of which failed because they could not control change and evolved
themselves out of existence, or out of the interest of most of their community.

lojbab