language committee

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>]

A thought just occurred to me regarding this committee issue.

I think some people are seeing this as a "democracy" vs. "autocracy" issue;
others perhaps as a "meritocracy" issue.  But there is still another way
to look at Lojban decision-making.

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.

One thing about consensus decision-making is that it tends to be very
conservative.  A "NO" vote counts for far more than a "YES" vote, because
a NO vote, especially one backed by some logical reasoning, means that
consensus does NOT exist, while a YES vote means merely that the person
is going along, and perhaps trying to convince others.

Thus if the presumption is that the existing language is ready for
publication, then making changes to a considerable extent requires that
naysayers to a change be satisfied, or the change does not get implemented.
It perhaps is possible that 10 yesses might drown out a single No, but
I hope it is seen that we aren't going to have simple majority democratic
voting, which is what I have understood the calls for a "democratic"
committee" to be.  I don't go to the extreme that JCB does and say that
any one person, even myself, has an absolute veto on any change, but the
presumption has to be that if there is objection, then there is not consensus.
A change that is not contradictory to the status quo can have a lower
standard - hence it is easier by far to get a change that doesn't render
anything currently acceptable wrong or more ambiguous than the present.
But any major change to the language needs a solid agreement.

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 don;t think that the language will ever be appropriately governed by a
democracy, if democracy means decisions by a majority. To throw some
numbers out, I would not expect the community to be happy if even 1/4 of
a committee objected to an extension of the language, though it might go along.
I would certainly expect that a change to the language post-baseline that was
NOT simply an extension would require better than a 3/4 majority of those
voting though I don't know what figure would work.

I think that in language issues "tyranny of the majority" is a real
possibility.  Language evolution does NOT take place merely because a
majoirty of a language community adopts a new usage - the new usage has to
become the norm for virtually ALL the language community, such that those
not using the change have to be seen as dialectal.  I suspect that for
grammar-level changes in English, a grammar structure that 75% use and 25%
reject is going to be stigmatized as non-standard.

Where the answer lies, I am not sure, but I feel real bad that some people
think that I am anti-democratic in opposing creating any formal structures
or committees to consider language changes.

lojbab