X-Digest-Num: 71
Message-ID: <44114.71.400.959273824@eGroups.com>
Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1999 18:39:35 -0500
From: "Steven D. Arnold" <yami@dementian.com>
Subject: Re: Promoting Lojban [was Re: Loglan still alive?]
X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 400
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>>Ya, it's paradoxical here, again. Once Lojban has its own culture, it
>>shall never be culturally neutral.
>
> Why is this necessarily so?  Could not the Lojban culture embrace all world
> cultures as equals?  If the culture itself favors no culture including
> itself, it remains neutral.

Interesting question.  To me, we first have to define what culture is before
we can answer.  If culture is a particular way of doing things, then for
Lojban culture to embrace all world cultures, it would have to do the
specific things that all of them can do, equally.  This is hard for me to
conceive.

On the other hand, "embrace" may be meant more loosely, perhaps in more of a
"melting pot" sense.  I am sure that Lojban culture could include the useful
elements from a wide variety of world cultures, just as the language itself
does.

In the end, though, {pe'i} Lojban culture will /not/ be the culture of
America, or China, or Europe, or Africa.  It will be the Lojban culture, and
while its many sources may give it greater understanding of other cultures,
it probably cannot remain neutral.


steve