cellio | SCA participation (ramble)

I've been thinking lately about my evolving participation in the SCA.

It's hard to balance SCA events and being a somewhat-observant Jew -- a fact I knew intellectually for a long time, but that's not the same as living it. I now go to very few non-local events, because it usually means taking Friday off from work to arrive at a hotel (with food) before sundown Friday, and I use enough vacation days for holidays and Pennsic that I'm not going to do that unless the event is very special. All events now get evaluated through the "is this worth sacrificing some of Shabbat?" filter, with the schedules of local events being compared to service times. I find that even for "just Shabbat", as opposed to a holiday, I'm reluctant to miss services. (I will still ride in a car on Shabbat if the car was going there anyway, in case you're wondering, but I am hesitant to drive. So a corrollary is that I'm not just going to drive to the event after services; Dani also has to be willing to follow that schedule.)

Shabbat restricts some activities that occur at events. An upcoming event is, essentially, a shopping event -- something I can't do on Shabbat. Since the event otherwise has little of interest for me (it's also a children's event, not my thing at all), I'm going to skip it. That means I'm skipping a choir performance, but it's just not worth $15 or so to show up just for that. It's not the money; it's the cost-benefit analysis.

And then there's the part that has nothing to do with Judaism: the SCA, institutionally, has gotten much less friendly and flexible over the years. We have a burgeoning bureaucracy filled with make-work. We have more and more objectionable rules coming down from On High. And we have fewer people willing to actually think about these issues and question them. We're getting awfully close to "how high?" as the response to "jump!", and that's not the SCA I knew 20 years ago.

I live in the home group of the "three bad peers" (so dubbed by the then-president of the corporation). We were some of the prominent folks who challenged the corporation to open its books during a period of questionable financial dealings. (And yeah, that's a personal "we"; I'm one of the three.) When the corporation made a particularly annoying rule, we were among those who found legal ways to dodge the issue. (We did not simply say "shove off"; we worked within the system.)

About a year ago the corporation reinstituted the same rule. This time, they even provided the workaround. (It's the same workaround we used before.) They have said explicitly that it's ok to structure events to avoid the new rule, using this workaround.

I expected to see lots of events take advantage of that. Instead, prominent people in the SCA argue that it is "dishonorable" to do that, and several autocrats within my own group have declined to consider structuring events this way. So far, only one autocrat has done an event that way, and she had implementation problems that had nothing to do with the policy itself.

I'm not saying all of this to start an argument over this policy. Rather, I'm disappointed by how much my local group has changed in the last ten years. I sometimes think that I'm the only person living here who actually cares about the larger picture. I know that's not true, but that's how it feels sometimes.

I don't work on events much any more. Autocratting poses Shabbat challenges (and I got a little crispy before that), but I would like to cook another feast if anyone were interested in planning a Sunday event (a rare thing, but not unheard-of). But there's another complication, too: I feel that I cannot do anything to actively support an event that follows this new rule, because I think the rule is that wrong, and as I've said, the trend in my group seems to be in favor of the objectionable policy. So while I used to show up at events and help out for part of the day, now I just show up. That should make things easier -- more time to have fun and less time to work -- except that I have a strong-enough work ethic that it's hard to just sit there and not help.

But I like the society part of the SCA, even if the bureaucracy gets annoying. I really enjoy Pennsic. I enjoy most events. I enjoy singing, and dancing, and other activities that are best done in connection with events. A lot of my friends are in the SCA.

I'm not going anywhere, but my participation is definitely changing and I'm not sure where things will end up when everything settles.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

A long, sad story. I've lived in this kingdom for twelve years now, and have resisted both actively and passively for most of that time. There comes a point at which it is simply more worthwhile to admit that you are playing different games than those around you and use the internet community to find a more closely allied set of people within your field of interest.

As someone who takes the concepts of honor and honesty very seriously, I find myself put in a nearly impossible situation when every peerage meeting begins with an group oath not to discuss the meeting outside of the meeting. Yes, it is indeed "peer pressure", but it is effectively wielded in this fashion within several kingdoms.

It is indeed a culture of doing what you are told. I do not know that change is possible. Certainly change is resisted. Probably, change is not desired.

But speaking of "three bad peers" do you have a current email address for Johann?

As someone who takes the concepts of honor and honesty very seriously, I find myself put in a nearly impossible situation when every peerage meeting begins with an group oath not to discuss the meeting outside of the meeting.

Wow. *boggle*

I've never lived anywhere but the East and AEthelmearc, and I'm guessing that shows. I can't imagine things going that far here. I mean, even if there were an understanding that we couldn't share information with other order members who weren't there, which is a stretch by itself, the idea of asking people to swear an oath to that effect at each meeting just would not happen. That sort of insult would get screamed about.

But yeah, when you find that your basic assumptions about what constitutes appropriate behavior are that far out of whack with everyone eles's, sometimes all you can do is withdraw. It's sad and frustrating and annoying.

Where did you live before the Outlands? (Or are you in the part of Colorado that's in Artemisia?)

But speaking of "three bad peers" do you have a current email address for Johann?

Sure. I sent it by email. (By the way, do I know you? The name isn't triggering anything.)

I've lived in various kingdoms over the past 35 years that I've spent in the SCA. First the West, then Caid, then many years in the East (before and after my part of it became Atlantia). But I had never lived in an Aten rite kingdom before coming to the Outlands, and am very willing to admit to culture shock - even after years of living here.

I think the point that I was making isn't that there are 'right' and 'wrong' ways to play SCA, but that very different ways are accepted as norms in different places. If you are lucky enough to be co-resident with a group that shares your way of playing, that's great. If you are not, then is it really fair to throw a tantrum over something that others are perfectly comfortable doing, no matter how outrageous it seems to you? In this age of the world we are lucky to have the freedom of the web that allows us to form communities of interest (and culture) that are separate from our geographical areas.

You know me a little. We have corresponded a bit about period cooking matters. But I'm not quite ready to "out" myself entirely on LJ at this point and am still clutching my wispy fronds of anonymity about myself.

Oh, I didn't mean to imply that there are absolute rights and wrongs on this -- I just meant that the idea is so foreign to me that I am really having trouble wrapping my head around it. All communities form norms of behavior, and there will pretty much always be some people who don't agree with the group view, but that doesn't mean they should win because then there would be other people who wouldn't agree. Sadly, this does mean that some people will get left out or pushed aside, and it sucks when you're the one in that position. (I'm sort of feeling a bit of the same thing with the society-vs-corporation issues as a whole, but I'm doing my best to not let them spoil my fun.)

You know me a little.

Aha. Thank you. I believe I have now assembled the clues correctly. :-) I won't out you.

SCA participation (ramble)

Re: Peerage lists

Re: Peerage lists

Re: Peerage lists

Re: Peerage lists