[MR] RE: Authenticity, Hospitality, and the SCA as a joke

[David Wendelken]

There are several different topics jumbled into this whole thread of
messages.
That causes confusion and bad feelings, because people spend their
energy expressing their opinion on one topic only to be misunderstood by
someone who has focused on a different topic.

Here are the topics, hopefully all "unjumbled":

1) Why do people leave the SCA?
2) Why do people join the SCA?
3) Why do people stay in the SCA?
4) How authentic should we want others to be?
5) How authentic should we expect others to be?
6) In how many areas should we expect others to be authentic?
7) What do other organizations and professions think of us?
8) What is the proper way to motivate others to be more authentic?

There are probably more.

1) Why do people leave the SCA?

People leave the SCA for a variety of reasons.
Basically, a few people leave because their current economic situation
prevents them from having a hobby.  Most leave because they find other
ways that deliver a better fun to annoyance ratio.

Given that the SCA can deliver more fun than most people have time for,
it's usually not a lack of "fun opportunities" that causes people to
leave.  It's that the annoyance required to have that fun gets to be
more than they can handle.
This is often caused by "bad politics" or burnout by helping out too
much.  It's also often caused because people don't feel welcome by
others.

2) Why do people join the SCA?

Gobs of reasons!
a) Love of history.
b) Want to do the fighting.
c) Want to do the arts.
d) Want to do the performance aspects of personas.
e) Like the surrogate family aspect of the SCA.

If I had known about the "pseudo-Arthurian free-love society" aspect
*before* I joined, that would probably gone to the top of the list!  If
I were single again, it might go back to the top of the list! :)

3) Why do people stay in the SCA?

People who stay often do so because they are having fun and they have
developed an SCA family that shares their interests.

4) How authentic should we want others to be?

Completely.  Top to bottom, a to z.

5) How authentic should we expect others to be?

Well, there's the rub.  People who want the general level of
authenticity raised express their answer in lots of different ways, but
they often boil down to this simple statement:

"As authentic as we are, because we're as authentic as we can reasonably
be, so everyone else should be this authentic also."

The flaw in that reasoning is that what's reasonable for one person's
circumstances is trivial for another's and beyond reach for a third.
It's also a moving target.

When I joined back in 1975, I lived in a cultural backwater.  Almost no
one in the group had any artistic or craft knowledge and what little
there was wasn't shared very well.  We thought getting bars braised onto
a freon can was the best one could expect (and that was if we were
lucky!)  Costumes were simple t-tunics.  Shoes were boots or moccasins
from Tandy Leather kits.  We, as a group, didn't have the slightest idea
that it was really possible to make stuff like they did back in the
Middle Ages.  Research was reading the books we found in the library,
totally uncritically, and believing everything we read.  I knew a bit of
French and found some Celtic archaeology journals in French at the
library, so I was a real literati!

When we got a second-hand barrel helm and spangenhelm pattern from
someone it was like we had been given a gift from the gods.
We couldn't imagine how someone had actually figured out how to do that!

Were we a joke, from an academic or authenticiy perspective?  You bet!  
But we had fun, and we learned.  (Dating a Laurel really accelerated my
learning process by the way.  I recommend it highly!  Rather like Sir
Richard Burton's language learning techniques. :)

Our standards have continually improved, but most new members still
start with zero equipment and near-zero knowledge.
For me to reach average standards back in 1975, I needed a t-tunic,
pants, buskins, a belt and pouch, and maybe a cloak.
Armor might be carpet covered with cloth or leather, a freon can helmet
and some knee and elbow pads.  Welders gloves for gauntlets.

What is expected now? 

Proper garb, including shoes.  Real armor (and lots more of it is
required, too), 
Tableware.  A pavillion.  Chairs.  The list goes on and on.

The cost of entry to those standards is much higher than it was when I
joined.  I've had 28 years to accumulate stuff, new members have to
start from scratch.  

Granted, the ability to find out how to do stuff has increased
tremendously!  We have the Internet, Universities, bigger groups with
lots of experienced members who routinely share their knowledge, many
more publications, etc.  

But it still takes free time and spare dollars to do it.  Free time and
spare dollars are the two hardest things for many folks to come by.

7) What do other organizations and professions think of us?

Some still see us as a joke.  Others are amazed at what we have
accomplished.
That will never change.  But the ratio will, and it has continued to
move in our favor thru the years.

8) What is the proper way to motivate others to be more authentic?

That's really the rub, isn't it?  Isn't that what all the fuss is all
about?
Some feel that the proper way to motivate others is by legislation and
enforcement, others by social pressure, others by education, assistance
and good examples.

Personally, I think a blend of all of them is appropriate.  Of course,
my blend may differ from yours!

What rate of speed in assembling the "appropriate minimum" kit is
appropriate?  As long as we want to accept members who have limited
means, we have to accept that the rate of speed will be slower than we
would like.  If we want to require that every person have an awesome
kit, then we have to accept that we won't have many members.
Personally, I would prefer more friends than more authenticity, but
that's my bias.

I would note, however, that the power of a good example joined with
assistance and education is very powerful, particularly in this
organization.  So, if a particular "lack of authenticity" is really
getting your goat, consider sponsoring workshops to fix the problem.  If
you make your workshops lots of fun to attend (and not too expensive),
people will start coming to them and sending their friends to the next
one.

The biggest problem with improving the overall look and feel of our
organization isn't free time and spare dollars, though.  It's ignorance
of how to do better with limited resources and time.  Work to fill that
gap in a fun way and you will make lots of new friends doing it - and
make the SCA a more authentic place.

Part of that education is destroying the myth that reasonable looking
gear has to be really expensive or hard to do.  Much of it isn't, unless
one just doesn't know how!  That's a perniciously strong myth and it
needs to be strangled to death.  I

I don't think we, as an organization, do a very good job of
communicating how easy and inexpensive it can be to make a good looking
kit.  Because of that, we don't reach our full potential as people and
as an organization.

I hope that all of you will renew your efforts to help all members, new
and old, to learn how much fun and how inexpensive and easy it can be to
improve their kit to more authentic levels!

That's my two ducats worth, anyway.

Andras Salamandra