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[lojban] Re: OT: all cultures equal?
mungojelly@ixkey.info wrote:
Quoting Bob LeChevalier <lojbab@lojban.org>:
Perhaps the error is in the word "equal" as well. To say that all
cultures deserve respect does not necessarily require that all cultures
get equal respect. Rather, it means that the range of respect that is
granted should always be above some minimal value, arising from the sum
of the minimum value of the respect due each individual person in that
culture merely for being a human being.
coi lojbab .io
.i doi rodo
We need not do all cultures the respect of uncritically accepting their
ideas (not hardly!) but here the respect we are discussing is the basic
respect of being honorably named, and I will proudly stand again behind
saying that we as a community should offer that without hesitation to
all peoples on this Earth.
What constitutes being "honorably named"? Or dishonorably named?
Is the discussion is about names? Or is it about brivla, or even more
specifically gismu?
Those were chosen NOT for "honor" but merely for pragmatic usefulness.
If anyone thinks "softo" was in the least bit an attempt to honor or
even "respect" the Soviet Union, they are simply wrong. It was to
provide a word for a concept that a lot of people, including the 250
million people then in the Soviet Union, used, based on Helen Eaton's
research that said that one of the most frequent concepts in language
was [name of speaker's culture/language]. Pragmatics, not respect.
If the argument is what I think it is (and I haven't looked upthread),
my response is not based on "respect" but pragmatics as well.
We cannot give every culture a name in gismu space - there aren't enough
possible words, and there are multiple cultures that would share the
same Lojbanization. Realizing that there were people who wanted more
cultures covered than would fit, we came up with the experimental form
of 6-letter fu'ivla that can be used in lujvo, but so far as I know, no
one has even tried to make use of that reserved space for its intended
purpose.
If that is not enough, or if people of a culture would feel disrespected
by the mangling of their chosen name into Lojbanic form, we have type
III fu'ivla (I remain opposed to the use of type IV fu'ivla at this
stage of the language's usage).
The decision as to which cultures get words in lujvo-fu'ivla space
should be based on pragmatics - what words do Lojbanists use and need,
and not based on any concept of "respect" or "disrespect"
lojbab
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