(Long reply regarding chivalric philosophy) Re: Alexis'

[James Crouchet]

As someone who participates in a similar system, I have a few 
comments to add.

This system is not fair. In fact, no system is fair. Democracy trods 
down the minority. Anarchy downtrods the weak. Monarchy downtrods any 
the sovern does not like. So long as our system contains people it 
will be unfair. Grace exists in striving to be fair anyway.

Remember, that any "bad guys" in the system don't see themselves that 
way. They believe they are doing what is best, just as the "good 
guys" do. So what can you do? Fight those efforts you see as wrong, 
try to get the "bad guys" to see what is wrong with their approach, 
and try always to understand their point of view -- it might occur to 
you from time to time that you are one who needs to change your view.

It never ceases to amaze me how surprised people are when we have 
similar problems to those experienced by people who lived in the 
middle ages through the victorian era, just because we are using 
similar methods. But people are still people and the closer we come 
to copying period (or post period) practices and institutions, the 
more our problems will resemble the people we copy. I would suggest 
that that is part of the flavor and we would be poorer if it were not 
so. The value lies in striving to be better, to re-create the good, 
but not the bad. In knowing we will always fall short of that ideal, 
we know that future generations of SCAers will always have something 
to strive for.

Don "Savein" Dore'