That was MY point.

>therefore you can't just fault the Agile manifesto for its supposed "ambiguity".

You absolutely can. They didn't have to write it in an obtuse, ambiguous and metaphorical way that practically required people to project their own meaning. They deliberately chose to.

Scrum is a clear example of a methodology that is relatively (not completely) unambiguous. It's describing (in theory) a much more concrete form of "aspirational agile" and as such is at a lower risk of becoming all religious.

>On the point re: how laws and contracts are different -- sure, these things have gotten more precise over time, but if the language of law was inherently precise then we wouldn't have a need for judges and courts and congresses. Heck, even mathematics isn't safe from the problem of the imprecision of language. Wasn't there a time just in the last year or two when people were debating about the correctness of the statement, "one plus one always equals two"?

It's a sliding scale. Flirting and poetry is way over on the far left with the agile manifesto. Scrum is further to the right. Legalese is further still to the right. Math further still. It's fairly self-evident that the level of specificity required in the language used varies depending on the task. Being too specific when you flirt is common sitcom grist and nobody's ever made poetry out of a shopping list.

>Which, really, brings us to the ultimate question, which also happens to be my response to your last sentence: So then is it a problem with the manifesto or with the people?

It's the manifesto.