Subject: Re re sis-boom be: literalism

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2000 12:26:57 EDT

lojbab:
<<No one forbids anything.>>
This is technically correct; no one has the power to forbid anything and, 
most especially, Lojban Central does not and has not, by and large, exercised 
even the appearance of such power. But practically, some people do, by what 
they say and how they say it, cast a chill over certain kinds of 
considerations. Their licenses to speak authoritatively vary, but this does 
not affect their effect -- nor are these licenses checked with any regularity 
by the bootstrappers behind them. A "no" or a "malglico" or even an "I 
suggest instead" from one of this groups amounts to a death sentence for 
whatever is being considered, even without an explanation and certainly 
without a careful examination. There is no rule that compels this, of 
course, but so far there has also been no serious effort to combat it. I 
suspect that the wielders of this kind of power are themselves often unaware 
that they have it and would be (have been, I notice) shocked at these 
accusations. On the other hand, they have not modified their approach to 
issues and are not likely to unless called to account. Consider this a call 
to justify attacks on (and support of, for that matter) new words in terms of 
effectiveness, not merely conformity to some rule or other, nor possibility 
to be used in another way, nor possibility of finding another form, etc. 
(None of these are ireelevant, obviously, but none is decisive either).