Politics

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

>>>>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.
>
>I suspect you are missing my point, which is that the world looks different
>looking out than looking in. You know JCB better than I. However, your
>opinion is also colored by the schism in which you were a participant. My
>impression from my (limited) past discussions with JCB is that JCB does
>*believe* that he was a consensus seeker. Although you deny that JCB used
>consensus in decision-making, it appears that you (and others) *were* able
>to convince JCB to make some changes to Loglan before the 1984 schism.

I could flood you with quotes from JCB where he explicitly disavows
interest in the politics of mass consensus.  Lots of places, and in print
- not colored by my reaction to the schism.  Believe me.

If you look at the record of The Loglanist, JCB went through most of
TL1, TL2, and TL3 giving little feedback on any technical issue or proposal.
He DID adopt such ideas that he felt were appropriate, but there is no
record of negotiation.  Someone suggested, and JCB made a ruling.
In TL4/3 pc's Supplement to L1 was published,a nd it basically was put out
as canon, with no review by the community - probably on JCB and pc (pc may
be able to say otherwise if this is not so).  But of course in 4th edition
Loglan 1, half of that Supplememt was thrown out again, and almost certainly
NOT based on any discussions.

All communication in the TLI community prior to the schism was radial -
everyone wrote to JCB (or pc on some TL issues) and JCB responded if he
felt like it.  JCB certainly READ disucssions in TL,but rarely gave
feedback on the discussions, and almost always as pronouncements "from the
start-giver".

Yes, some discussions resulted in changes to the language, but individuals
working independently and largely in ignoranceof each other to urge changes is
not what most people would call "consensus seeking".

The first time when there started to be significant flow between reasonably
informed Loglanists that did NOT go through JCB was when the members' Board
of Directors started interacting in 1981-2.  These were the most expert
Loglanists anyway, and at times technical issues got disucssed.  In 1982
Bob McIvor circulated to the other Board members a critique of JCB's Notebook
2 (the GMR - Greatr Morphological Revision).  JCB objected vociferously to
this critique being circulated at all rather than submitted to him to
decide (and reject, which he did).  He objected tot he idea that the
Board had the *right* to discuss the technical design of the language.
Only JCB had approval authority.

>It might
>have been unpleasant, and you may have objected to JCB's leadership style,
>but as I understand it, you did wield some influence in introducing <y>,
>constructing the Loglan dictionary and in other areas of the language, as
>did Nora, pc and others. Am I wrong in my impression?

pc may have actually had enough influence on JCB through his expertise to
make an effect that might be called consensus - JCB did treat pc as a peer
for a while - until pc challenged him publically on an issue.

As for my contributions before 1986, amd Nora's before 1983, we did not
viewthe system as "unpleasant", since it did not occur to us that
"consensus decision-making" was an option.  NO one thought that JCB was wrong
in making decisions from "on-high" rather than "by consensus".  It was only
when JCB empowered a Board of Directors that was on paper supposed to be his
equal if not his superior that it ever occurred to anyone that there was an
alternative.  Because with JCB in total control of communications, there
really WAS no other alternative.

>>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 th
>>JCB kind, where there are winners and losers - we can survive consensus
>>politics, so long as we continue to be able to build consensus.
>
>Your definition of politics seems identical to what you claim is JCB's
>definition of politics. Both definitions seem to consider politics a dirty
>word.

I didn;t give MY definition of politics, just JCB's.  I specifically INCLUDE
consensus politics as an acceptable kind of politics for the Lojban community,
whereas consensus-building was not even in JCB's mindset as a possibility,
given his definition of politics and his actual practices.  (But I also
recognize that there are other valid forms of politics besides JCB's concept
and consensus-building, including good old-fashioned democracy and
 representative forms, but I do not consider either of these workable for the
 Lojban project.

>Generalizing from your TLI experience to conclude that politics must
>be eschewed is analogous to refusing to use paper because Mein Kampf was
>written on paper.

I did not say that politics must be eschewed.  i said that "Agonistic" politics
-that which seeks to have winners and losers - is to be AVOIDED where possible.
NOT because of what happened in TLI, but because the entire history of
major conlang efforts is riddled with schisms that were direclt related to
such politics.  I do not consider schism of the Lojban effort to be in any
way desirable.

>>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.
>
>You repeatedly have attributed opinions to me that I do not have and have
>not expressed. Perhaps you are confusing my statements with those of others
>who are discussing these matters. I was not the first to express concern
>about the issue of rebaselining. When I *did* express concern about the
>future management of lojban, I received three private e-mail messages from
>other lojbaners also expressing concern, and thanking me for discussing it;
>apparently, from excerpts I read on the list, you have also had private
>discussion of these matters with others. I did not start this political
>debate. My participation in this debate does not constitute a vote of
>no-confidence in your leadership. I have repeatedly indicated I appreciate
>all your hard work and *support* your leadership.


Please do not think that I am viewing you as an "opponent".  I may indeed be
confising your comments with those of others who have spoken on this matter,
including djer., jorge, and And.  I have focussed on your comments because
you of course are going to such length in your statements (and are thus
hard to ignore %^).  And you have continued to bring up the subject when
it really isn;t part of my current agenda.  This is NOT wrong on your part
especially if others are writing to you privately and agreeing with you.
It is clearly something that needs to be settled, preferably amicably.

There has been something in your words regarding the fuzzy logic stuff that
suggests to me that - in your sincere desire to get such things implemented,
that you will use the experimental cmavo as long as necessary and then
put it to the rebaselining committee you envision, at which time you presume
that you will gain a different sort of hearing from a presumably more
open-mionded-than-Lojban-Central group.  If I read you wrong on this, then I
apologize most profusely.  But if this is your view, then I do consider it
as contrary to the way I want to see the language develop.

I do NOt want it to be an assumpotion that the language will change in any
 formal way after 5 years or whenever.  I want that to be a decision made in 5
 years
by the people who have the right to make that decision in 5 years.  I believe
that ANY significant discussion of changes to the not-yet-baseline that take
place NOW are potshots taken at the very purpose of the baseline, which is
to give a sense of long-term-indefinite security as to stability of the design.
While changes MAY be made at some time in the future, there are people, indeed
the people most likely to vote no on a possible change, who will not learn the
language if they think that the predisposition within the community is stacked
in favor of change.  (Of course the reverse may be true, and people who are
pro-significnat-evolution in the future may be dissuaded from participating
if they feel that they won't get a hearing in the future.  That is why I
consider it an important duty to listen to you now if you are possibly one of
those people.  I want people to believe they will be listened to by me, even
if I cannot speak for the unspecified masses of future Lojban community.
But I do so knowing that the anti-change people right now heavily outweigh
the change tolerant people.  If indeed the change intolerant people become
Lojban users in significant nuimbers, then they will carry the weight of
consensus in 5 years.  If not, then it is a truly open issue.

>1. Baselining the language is important to encourage development of a
>community of speakers.
>2. Failure to achieve broad consensus regarding changes which are
>officially implemented in lojban after baselining may have a corrosive,
>destructive effect on the language.
>3. Formal change to the language after baselining should be very hard, and
>should be delayed for five to ten years after initial baselining.
>4. The future of lojban is best served by seeking a consensus among those
>who are most committed to the language, as demonstrated by expertise in
>using lojban, willingness to participate in projects involving lojban, and
>value of past contributions made.
>5. Some previous conlangs have been stillborn because of the political
>incompetence of their creators.
>6. "Those who do not remember their past are condemned to relive it."

Some minor rewqording and I would agree to all of these.  I would word
5 a bit stronger, and place less blame on the creator than on the expectations
 of trhe community.

>1. Slang lojban is acceptable in lojban utterances.

Agreed.  But I do not yet know to what extent the parser and similar tools will
be used, or desired to be used, by future LOjbanists.  So slang lojban may
be a severely stigmatized form in that people may not want to see it in JL and
Lojban books published by LLG, and may be ignored by large portions of the
community.  MY own bent based on what I have actually experienced in
Lojban use so far, is that manyif not most "slang Lojban" usages, and indeed
many usages that are valid but which push the edges of the permitted language
for no reason except the desire to push (e.g. And's fi-fa-fo dialect texts)
will simply be ignored by me - I find that if I get bogged down in thinking
about what something odd is supposed to mean, I lose all pretense of
fluency in the language, and have to resort to thinking slowly in English.
More often, i sismply lose all track of what the person is trying to say
(when this occurs in speech, that is), and I suimply am not motivated to
try if it is printed text.

Littel changes - the kidn that you aren't sure whether they are legal or not
without checking the machine grammar  (as with some of Jorge's recent
proposals) MIGHT fly perfectly fine as slang.  Others, where words are
used in ways that contradict my understanding of them, like Jorge's
use of ke'a , will be largely unintelligible to me (Indeed in Jorge's
comment the other day supporting discussions of changes taking place in Lojban,
he used a ke'a that I THINK was legit, but the sheer fact that he has so
lodly advocated the alternative caused me to look several times over the
sentence to make sure that it wasnt the other kind of ke'a - with the
result that I gave up understanding the sentence because I couldn't keep it
all in my head at once whil;e doing such analysis.)

Usage of Xvv and unoffocial gismu and rafsi will heavily depend on there
being SO MUCH context that their meaning is obvious in spite of the missing
grammar, OR they will need grammatical footnotes That are ugly and not
typically a feature of slang o rwill be limited to a small and very slow
growing subset of the community for a very long time.  Slang spreads mostly
by NON-conscious emulation and not by conspiracy (either zan-conspiracy or
malconspiracy %^)

I won't rule out these becoming well accepted, but it will not be quickly,
and I personally am poorly disposed towards almost all of the proposals
that see the light before the official baseline because I see them as
challenges to that baseline.  There is the POSSIBILITY that there might be
a couple of Xvv cmavo that are "experimental by intent" because we don't
know how we want the baselined design to work, and want to "let 1000 flowers
bloom" in order to see which version survives.  But our tendency in such cases
has been to take the easy way out and just assign a cmavo from the
non-experimental area, simply because I have so little confidence that the
undocumented experimentals will see a lot of  use unless they
arise naturally in the course of language use andnecessity.

>2. A formal apparatus of some sort (i.e., a lojban academy) will be helpful
>in assuring the future development of lojban.

We agree that we disagree %^).  ESpecially since the choice of the word
"development" to my engineering-oriented mind suggests a directed process
as opposed to "evolution" which suggests an undirected natural process.
Given my usage of the words, I believe that Lojban post baseline should be
"developed" as little as possible and "evolve" as much as natural use of the
language produces the necessary dynamics.  Directed processes to me are
unnatural, in the case of language, are prescriptive, and in the case of a
scientific experiment like Lojban rather akin to cooking the results by
changing the experiment until you get the results you want to see.

>3. The lojban academy will periodically survey problems with the language,
>slang usage in the community of lojban speakers, and advancements in the
>science of linguistics, and incorporate improvements and corrections to the
>official specification of the language where this seems advisable.


Here is where I read more into your statements than you may intend.  YOu say
 that we agree that no changes should be considered for 5 to 10 years.  If
 people,
specifically major players in the Lojban game are formally surveying things,
then we are not waiting 5 to 10 years to consider changes.  If we do wait
5 to 10 years, then I would hope that we would wait 5 to 10 years or more after
 THAT review.  So if by periodically you mean periodically every 5 years, my
objection is much weaker, even though I hope it is the entire community and NOt
some elite committe that does the review and consideration.  But surely with
such a long time span, each "academy" will in essence be a totally new
animal with significant turnover in its membership.  5 years is over a
full generation of Lojbanist these days, and will probably still be a
generational period of time in a baselined language (By generation, I mean that,
unlike natlangs where generations are determined by births, conlang
generations are determined when a person reach sufficientproficiency in the
language that they are the equal of anyone else, and thus can go out and
teach new Lojbanists on a par with the "more native" speakers.  In short,
"generation" is the time to full maturity as a speaker, determined by the
current standard of fluency.

If you envision an academy being constituted before the 5 to 10 years, then
you have to presume that this academy is making no decisions (or making
no decisions public) until the 5-10 year period is up.  Otherwise the language
starts to change offocially when the decision is made - people will be governed
by what is said unofficially as well as what is codified in official documents.
Indeed, by NOT constituting an academy until a rebaselining is to be
considered, we approach a natural situation, becasue you have no way of
focussed lobbying when you don;t know who will be on the committee that will
make the decisions.  In the case of slang and natural language, there is no
way of knowing what subset of the community will need to adopt the usage
before it loses its stigma.  The same should be true for Lojban.

>4. Politics is unavoidable wherever there is a resource, a threat, and more
>than two people. lojban central must acknowledge this, and plan
>accordingly.

We agree on this.  But the planning that I am doing is to try to minimize
any form of organized politics as a force for change inthe language.
Organized politics is generally prescriptive, and indeed generally proactive
- people organize when they want change or to defend against a change that
the dislike i.e. reactive.

I want NONactive politics - the kind that happens between individuals and
small groups that are not trying to implement a conscious agenda.

I can't completely avoid the other kind, but especially in such a strong-willed
community like the Lojban community, where there are many cultures, and many
different philosophies regarding politics, I want to minimize the "pull"
that tyhe proactives usually tend to have on the direction of focus of the
"community politic".  (Examples are the intense focus on AIDS research over,
say, cancer research, even though the latter affects far more people - because
the AIDS activists are noisier than the cancer activists.)

>5. "Dead battles, like dead generals, hold the military mind in their dead
>grip and Germans, no less than other peoples, prepare for the *last* war."
>(from "1914" by Barbara Tuchman, emphasis mine)

If I get the implication, then I point out that my own mind is neither well-
disciplined nor particularly military.  I am not preparing for ANY war.
I am trying to prevent war from coming about.

Lojban stands to be the first significant conlang to largely evolve in the
net community,and NO ONE knows what the effectthis will have on that community
or on the language.  I persoanlly see a lot of potential positives in it,
but i also see the disenfranchisement or stigmatization of those not on the
net, and I don't want Lojban to develop a severe class/dialect schism based
on net vs. non-net communication.

I see a LOT of such issues, and I would rather focus on them rather than on
"the last war".  But I need to keep people from repeating the known causes
of the last war so we don;t end up fighting the wrong battles.

>Again, there is no formal proposal regarding fuzzy logic in lojban. But
>there is slang fuzzyness, as suggested by & and enthusiastically being
>explored by some, which I am hoping you will not discourage. My slang will
>include the use of the experimental cmavo <xoi> and <xio>. When and if a
>formal fuzzy logic proposal is brought to the lojban academy, it ought be
>submitted in lojban

If it is being explored in the various Lojban texts that I am not reading
- well, I don't know about it obviously %^)  As for discuraging it - well
I think I have made nby general philosphy clear above.

>>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
>...
>There is no consensus that the refgrammer is complete. For example, IMHO,
>the lack of fuzziness is a serious, major flaw, which I will work to
>correct by whatever acceptable means are available to me.

The refgrammar is a documentation of the prescribed  portions of the language.
As there is no prescription for fuzzy logic, the refgrammar is NOT incomplete
to omit it.  The *language* may or may not be incomplete in that respect.
There is no particular evidence that a language is incomplete if it has no more
tools for fuzzy logic than English or Maori.

You contend that the language needs more tools for fuzziness, whereas I
and I think pc believe that there are plenty of structures in the language to
support fuzziness far more effectively than any natlang does.  My objection
is that the slang usages are being intentionally developed before people
have tried to make do with the langauge as designed.

Abd this I think is part of my attitude towards slang.  Just as people are
prone to borrow rather than lujvo-make, or to assume that there is no gismu
for a concept when there is (but it isn't reflected in the keyword), I think
that grammar and slang proposals are being introduced by people who do NOT
have sufficient command of the language to know what can be done with the tools
at hand.  I think that is a bad direction for things to take (and I won't
say as I am "surprised" by it - merely unpleasantly affected). That is why
I am less opposed to such discussions if they take place in Lojban than in
English, because the sheer necessity ofwriting in Lojban MIGHT produce the
needed expertise in those who would rampantly sling slang.  But I still hop
you will try the "15 syllable" fuzzy logic of Lojban for a fair while before
you commit wholeheartedly to whatever xVVs you have your mind set on
(I don;t know what the two you suggest are, since I haven't paid attention,
and in addition they are doubly "slang" by always being put forth in And's
alternate orthography.  As I have said, the use of such things as alternate
orthography mean that fewer people will read and paty attention to you, just
as overuse of slang will.  Keep things slow and introduce and gain acceptance
for one change at a time, and you miught stand more chance %^)

>>Oh certainly not.  But who can say what the nature of politics solely
>>expressed in Lojban will be like.
>
>Interesting point. Perhaps this will serve as a test bed of Sapir-Whorf.

It is an arena where supposed "Sapir-Whorf-effects" can beidentified.  But
there is especially in this arena and in the net-circumstances, absolutely
no way to identify and control variables, making it relatively useless from a
scientific standpoint.  Most people consider "political science" to be
an oxymoron.  For such an odd animal as the Lojban community, this should
apply to an extreme.

>>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.
>
>Extrapolating from a single datum is a hazardous endeavor, at best.

Indeed.  Butit is not a solitary data point, because we also have all the
failed conlangs.  We have ONE model for relative success and many models for
failure.  When in doubt I stick close to the successful variety.

>Regardless, you must certainly concede that the development of Esperanto
>was rife with political activity.

Yes indeed - but during Zamenhof's lifetime he kept it largely under control
insofar as it applied to the language itself.  I consider that "political
activity" OUTSIDE of the language development/evolution process is largely
none of my business as a community leader.  Only if the non-language issues
lead to personality conflicts do the political beliefs of community members
start to be my problem.  Hence
>During the American Red Scare of the
>1950s, esperanto speakers were even accused of being one-worlder
>communists

is an example of a problem that is NOt one of mine.  (ACtually, I've been
accused of being one of these within the last month and NOT because of my
Lojban activities, nor because I have any particular affiliation with
communism or one-worldism, but I have no intention of such accusations
becoming a community problem (not least because the person who used those
labels was a red-baiting flamer whose opinions are generally laughed at
by thos ewho read him %^).

> There has never been as
>carefully and well designed a conlang as lojban.

I'd like to think so.  But the ferment for continued change makes me wonder.
There was far less ferment for change in the Esperanto community inthe
first few years, although it was far less thoroughly designed, and the
data corresponding to our refgrammar was not codified until the language was
around 25 years old and had already unergone its major schism.

>The general point you are
>making here is that the leaders of a conlang effort ought to consider
>carefully the interests of their community of speakers. I agree.

Good.

>Some
>members of the lojban community do not agree with post-baselining anarchy,
>but support some formal structure for change management after baselining. I
>hope you will take their views into consideration.

Obviously by thsi discussion I am taking the views into consideration.
But we have two incompatibles here - people who view any formal structure
for change management as being a mandate for change they feel is presumptively
unwanted - and people who feel that change is inevitable and therefore must
be controlled in order to prevent anarchy.

Since mankind evolved language without need for committees, and the anti-
change forces are much more numerous (if not noisier) than the pro-change
forces, my presumption has to be towards the status quo.  have NO fear that
I will not be continually reevaluating the issue as time goes on.  I am
also reasonably sure that Jorge at the very least will ask that it be an
agenda item for the next Logfest,a nd that the issue will be formally or
informally disucssed in a forum that includes the most "noisy" of the
status-quo proponents.

>In this area lojban is richer than Loglan, with more and fatter gismu.
>However it is fascinating that neither language has a distinct gismu for
>"political activity"!! An appalling oversight. The apple does not fall far
>from the tree.

Could that not be because the gismu list creators were wise enough to realize
that there is no one definition of  "political activity" that could
satisfactorily and culturally-neutrally be incororated as a root of the
language.

In my book, politics is simply "ka cuntu" in its broadest sense, and
"ka jecta kei zukte" is "political activity" in its most common understanbding.

But to seethe difference between JCB and the Lojban community, look at related
words from your list - words we made as a paralllel to his:

><garni> [rule over...]        "govern"
><turni> [x1 governs people/territory/domain/subjects x2]

JCB is so autocratic in mind set that he does not see any other meaning of
"govern" other than "rule over".

I will note that all 6 words you cited for Lojban have a direct counterpart
in TLI Loglan.  And the Lojban for the 4 TLI Loglan worss you cited are
NOT "fatter"  ganli/ganzu are both 4 places, garni/turni 2 places
gunti/gugde 2 places and kamti/kamni 3 places.  JCB always leaves x1 out of
his paraphrased place structures.

>Seems to me that the rest of unused gismu space will be available for
>slang, so here goes:
>
><polti> [x1 is a political system (means of achieving consensus, resolving
>conflict or compromising) used by x2 for purpose x3 under authority x4]

I personally will NOT recognize coined gismu slang, notfor the least
reason that it inevitably will be malglico (don't tell me you looked up
your concept in 6 languages?)  Your suggestion ranks in my book as somewhere
slightly better than the Cowan-cited "terki", for the same reasons.

>(Yes, I know I could lujvo or fuhivla this. But what are the plans for
>unused gismu space? There have been a few other "slang" gismu
>proposed-obviously these were also not derived via the gismu algorithm. Is

There is to my knowledge only one other such usage of unused gismu space and
it was explcitly stated by its originator (Goran) to NOT be a change proposal
but rather more of a "localism" and intended to be dialectal.

The plans for gismu space are EXTREMELY conservative.  Words can be added,
but only after running a big gauntlet.  because of the tightness of the
associated rafsi space, the difficulty of doing 6-language research,
the pitfalls associated with malformation of words (impermissible
medials and single-feature differences from other gismu), and the fact that
Lojban is already believed to be too densely packed in it wordspace to
provide as much redundancy as we would like - all of these are very good
reasons for thinking 10 times before adding a gismu even if you do not
buy the anti-change bent of the community.

Given also that the change was proposed in English, in an English language
context to solve a problem that may exist in English and may not exist
in Lojban or even other languages, it violates the spirit of "lojban slang"
as discussed above.  I view continued coinings in this manner as a direct
challenge to my leadership.  I cannot stop you, and will hardly try, but
recognize that what you are doing is challenging me, whether that is your
intent or not, and it belies any words you say that you suipport my leadership.

making a list of such words for the explicit intent to use them in Lojban
text is again something that I can't stop anyone from doing, but the
very making of such a list in effect makes that list an alternate standard
for the language thatcontradicts the proposed baseline to the extent that it
is promulgated.

It is your choice.  I am NOT JCB and do not have or want autocratic control
over the language.  But I cannot strongly enough convey my repulsion that
you would advocate "organized slang" in the manner that you have.  And
I saw no implication of a smiley in your statement, alas.

pc is right - the posing of a political issue when there are people with
authority means that inevitably you have pros and cons, polariziation, and
the likelihood of consensus gets reduced all the time.

I'll keep listening, and hope you did not mean what I understood.

lojbab