[Regia-NA] SCA-style vs. Regia-style discourse

[Green Shield]

Here Here! Couldn't have made a better explaination so I won't. All I can 
say is that the last time I asked for authenticity help from a reenacting 
on-line group who knew I was in the SCA was "We don't like people in the SCA 
because all they want to do is steal our research."
(not saying it was this particular group)

Talk about frustrating.

Scott


Bravery is being the only one who knows you’re afraid.
— Franklin P. Jones




>From: Carolyn Priest-Dorman <capriest@cs.vassar.edu>
>Reply-To: list-regia-na@lig.net
>To: list-regia-na@lig.NET
>Subject: [Regia-NA] SCA-style vs. Regia-style discourse
>Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2003 10:21:05 -0500
>
>If someone is looking for solid factual documentation, and is frustrated 
>because she isn't finding it, it isn't helpful for her to be hearing 
>something like this.
>
>>But then, there isn't any solid
>>documentation for the existence of children, either. We know this, we have
>>three on site, and trying to explain them away is just the pits...:-))
>
>Nonsense!  There's plenty of solid carbon-dated evidence for the existence 
>of children of all ages throughout history, in the form of skeletons.  (No, 
>as a mother I don't like to contemplate the existence of dead children 
>either, but the truth is important and sometimes needs to be said.)
>
>It is more helpful to the questioner if the people who respond either 
>answer "yes, here's the documentation," or "X has the documentation, go ask 
>her," or "no, I don't have documentation."  Rhetorically phrased factually 
>incorrect responses don't do anything to either help or calm down the 
>frustrated questioner; they just inflame the situation.
>
>I have noticed this particular culture-clash problem repeatedly on this 
>particular list.  It simply is not easy to orient oneself to Regia's world 
>view and values from the remote location of the New World.  Kim has gone a 
>long way toward providing insight into the problem when he points out in 
>his most recent Regia-NA post the basic penury of Regia as an organization, 
>and how Regia can't often underwrite publication of members' research.  
>This accounts for the paucity of membership and/or organizational 
>handbooks, etc.  (I think I have a copy of every official Regia 
>document--handbook, bylaws, and fighting rules.  Is that it?)
>
>However, most of the results of research in the SCA are similarly 
>unpublished.  And however easy it is to take pot-shots at the SCA for its 
>base level of inauthenticity, the simple fact that serious high-level 
>researchers live, research, play, and produce documentation there simply 
>cannot be laughed off by anyone.  The SCA solves this problem by vigorously 
>promoting (and rewarding) discourse among the membership about factual 
>historic information they've found, in the interest of ensuring a more 
>authentic game.
>
>In the SCA, when someone asks for documentation it's because he wants to 
>make or do a more period thing.  It's not a challenge to the communal 
>knowledge of the entire SCA--it's a praiseworthy impulse seeking an outlet. 
>  When North American SCA people come to Regia, as I did, they seek to be 
>oriented to the knowledge base of Regia in just the same way and for just 
>the same reason.  They express this need by talking to the only populace 
>they can lasso:  the e-groups.  But I've noticed that many times what they 
>find is a baffling silence, a bewildering language barrier (it *seems* like 
>English, much of the time), or assertions about what is and isn't 
>historically authentic by people who get hostile when their statements are 
>probed for the underlying sources.
>
>SCA people need to understand that the rank and file Regia member does not 
>always know what the documentation is, because that's the express job of 
>the local Authenticity Officer.  (This is not a criticism!  I'm willing to 
>bet that the rank and file don't know much about what the local group's 
>ledgers look like either, for the same reason.)  But in the SCA, there is 
>no "Authenticity Officer" post.  Regia people need to understand that the 
>insistence of SCA people on sources of fact is not a challenge, but the 
>result of the deliberate "authenticity vacuum" in the SCA hierarchy.  And 
>both sets of people need to understand that if Regia-NA is to flourish we 
>will need to work toward creating some middle path that satisfies both Old 
>World operating methods and New World acculturation.
>
>Remember, the ultimate goal here is to have fun being authentic; that's why 
>we're all here, isn't it?
>
>
>Carolyn Priest-Dorman              Ţóra Sharptooth
>  http://www.cs.vassar.edu/~capriest/thora.html
>
>
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>list-regia-na mailing list
>list-regia-na@lig.net
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