A sect, Esperanto?
A sect has a guru. Esperanto has
no dictatorial leader and no unitary "church".
A sect
collects money and its leaders are not paupers. Esperanto
societies and clubs have very limited means.
A sect
is united and monolithic. Esperanto speakers have extremely
divergent opinions on everything, including Esperanto's
function.
A sect
has a definite outlook on life. Esperanto speakers include
atheists and spiritualists, marxists and liberals, bishops
and freemasons, Christians and Moslems, Buddhist and
Jews, plus members of all kinds of other religions and
ideologies. The only thing they share is the language.
If they
sometimes overreact, it's understandable. The language
they use successfully in their international relationships
is constantly calumniated, ridiculed and misrepresented
by persons who have no idea of how it works in practice.
This attitude deprives the world of a very cost effective
and human way of overcoming the language barriers. Isn't
it normal to feel frustrated and angry at such an unwarranted
attitude? Of course, it would be better if they could
control their frustration and anger and always be moderate.
Many succeed. Others can't. What do you expect? They're
human.
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