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Re: Against change: Language and Limits
On Mon, 2 Jun 1997, Kenneth Broda-Bahm wrote:
> My argument however is that a rough guide is exactly what we are looking
> for. And a directional action term provides a better rough guide than
> does an explicit omni-directional term like "change."
>
> Pat notes,
>
> >the bottom line is that increase and decrease do not restrict a topic
> >any more or less than change does. Case in point: Oceans
> >
> >on this topic which included the verb phrase increase development, we
> >saw such cases as stop fishing, install turtle-proof nets, [etc.]
>
> Right. 'Increase' needs to modify something and that term needs to have
> some identifiable meaning. On the oceans topic the community quickly
> decided that 'development' should mean 'make more useful or beneficial,
> improve' and the topic was functionally reduced to "Resolved that we
> should go snag ourselves some advantages in the ocean!" The
> directionality promised by 'Increase' was quickly quashed by
> 'development.' "Development" is at such a high level of abstraction that
> it didn't carry _a lot_ of meaning to say "Development Bad" as a story.
>
Actually I think Pat's argument here is best answered by the fact that the
oceans topic directly concerned the VERY VERY ambiguous term "resources".
While the topic called for an increase in the development of resources the
topic committee/framer's/powers that be, didn't think about the way that
this might be interpreted. Many people simply removed human intervention
into ocean ecosystems thereby allowing "resources" such as fish, sea
turtles, etc to regenerate or rebuild themselves without the problem of
human pollution etc. The problem was NOT the nebulous nature of the term
increase, rather it was (as Ken points out) the words it modifies.
.02,
Jason
WFU
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