Ethosism Governance

This document defines the first public governance layer for Ethosism: how canon, practice, Ethra terms, and community use change without losing coherence.

Authority Layers

1. Canon: source texts in books/ and the core Ethos chapters.
2. Practice: worksheets, scripts, session formats, and applied guides in practice/.
3. Language: Ethra specs, corpus, lexicon, dictionary, style, and governance files in the Ethra repository.
4. Publication: website, print outputs, release packets, and handoff evidence.
5. Local use: study groups, households, facilitators, and institutions applying the material.

Lower layers may adapt to context, but they must not contradict higher layers without proposing a change.

Change Status

Every substantive proposal should be labeled with one of these statuses.

• Draft: private or early work, not relied on publicly.
• Proposed: ready for review against canon, evidence, and practice use.
• Experimental: usable in bounded trials with clear review criteria.
• Accepted: incorporated into the relevant source of truth.
• Deprecated: retained for history but no longer recommended.
• Rejected: reviewed and declined with reasons.

Canon Changes

Canon changes require:

1. A statement of the problem.
2. The affected files and passages.
3. The proposed replacement.
4. Reasoning from Ethosism principles.
5. Expected practical consequences.
6. Compatibility notes for related books and practice materials.
7. A review record.

No canon change should be accepted merely because it sounds better. It must clarify truth, duty, consequence, repair, formation, or stewardship.

Practice Changes

Practice changes require:

1. A concrete use case.
2. A failure mode the practice addresses.
3. A short version usable by newcomers.
4. Boundaries and referral conditions.
5. A feedback method.

Practices should be small enough to complete, specific enough to review, and humble enough to revise.

Ethra Term Governance

Ethra terms should be governed as part of the language project, not improvised by popularity.

Term proposals should include:

• English field or concept.
• Proposed kind: root, derived term, compound, particle, register rule, corpus entry, or style rule.
• Domain and register.
• Components and etymology.
• Example sentence.
• Cultural function.
• Collision check against existing roots, compounds, and terms.
• Review outcome.

The Ethra CLI already supports governed term proposal packets. Web-facing proposal forms should collect the same information before a term enters review.

Community Governance

Local groups and facilitators may host study, practice, service, and repair sessions. They may not claim ownership of Ethosism, invent binding doctrine, require confession, sell spiritual authority, or override professional/legal/medical processes.

Facilitators are responsible for:

1. Clear session boundaries.
2. Text-grounded interpretation.
3. Non-coercive participation.
4. Protection of private information.
5. Referral out when a matter exceeds the group's competence.
6. Transparent correction when they mislead, overreach, or mishandle harm.

Versioning

Use semantic language for public releases even when the repository itself has ordinary Git history.

• Major: changes that alter doctrine, canon structure, or governance authority.
• Minor: new books, practices, Ethra domains, or public workflows.
• Patch: corrections, clarifications, links, metadata, and non-doctrinal edits.

Each public release should identify the canon commit, website commit, Ethra version if relevant, and any practice/governance changes.

Review Questions

Before accepting an ecosystem change, ask:

1. Does this make reality easier to see?
2. Does this clarify duty rather than hide it?
3. Does this reduce avoidable harm?
4. Does this improve repair when harm occurs?
5. Does this preserve memory across time?
6. Does this resist personality cults, coercion, and vague self-help drift?