fundamentalism

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Fundamentalism is a value held, orthogonally to hardlinerism, which states that the Lojban baseline (where it is unambiguous and has not been overwhelmingly trumped by usage) is inviolable, and attempts to revise it through proposal (or even, in extreme cases, through usage) are unwelcome.

The label fundamentalism, while jocular and alluding to schools of literalist thought, is actually intended as an allusion to the Fundamento de Esperanto, the Esperanto counterpart of the baseline, which has served as a similar rallying point in that language's history.

The antonym is tinkering or heresy.

However, people who dislike the baseline may still choose to adhere to it, and shouldn't be conflated with those who think the language must evolve unfettered by any baseline (which is actually pretty much Lojban Central's official position).

Counterexamples

  • ka is an example of a word overwhelmingly trumped by usage.

Discussion

  • .djorden.
    • Right after a statement close to that, however, And Rosta says "... I am in favour of anything that subverts the baseline ...". Can we use an antonymn along the lines of "saboteur" zo'o? Jordan DeLong believe Lojban Central's position is a bit closer to one of the baseline ruling until there are enough speakers (at level of fluency greater than any current speakers have) to allow a more natural (very slow) language evolution.
  • Jay:
    • Thats a reasonable, though heavily abbreviated of my actual position. I am, however, willing to entertain changes to the semantics which are pushed through usage. (Of course, to convince me of a meaningful amount of usage, you'd have to write at least a novella with your usage... Didn't say it'd be easy. :)
  • nitcion:
    • Oh, I'd say 'semantic change unwelcome' is an extreme flavour of fundamentalism. As in, heavy duty hardliner fundamentalism -- more hardliner than I'm prepared to go, too. But on some semantic issues, I can see some (possibly including me) saying "no, you can't start using that meaning, it's against the baseline." More of an issue for cmavo than gismu, of course.
  • As a result of the former paragraph, if someone resists a usage rather than a proposal that potentially violates the baseline, particularly where the baseline is at its quishiest (gismu place structures), are they being a fundamentalist - or insane?