ANST - Diarmaid on Documentation

[I. Marc Carlson]

<"=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Don_Christian_Dor=E9?=" <jtc at io.com>>
>On 15 Feb 99,, Gunnora Hallakarva wrote:

Just to be anal, she re-posted...

>It might even show us something that none of the rest of us know. 
>When it does, that's really cool. Better yet, it may disprove 
>something that we all "know".

Yup.  All things I am usually happy to see done.  Ok, to be honest, nobody
likes seeing something we've believed to be true to be shown to be
incorrect, but if it is, that's what we're here for...  For example;
I was recently sent a dig report on a Roman dig in Mainz that, if my
German is correct (and we aren't dealing with later era intrusions), 
calls into question some of the things I've been teaching about the
origins of lasts and turn-shoes.  *Trust me*, if that happens, I won't
be a happy camper, but that'll be just toughies on me and I'll have to
get over it.

I wonder...  Pardon me if I digress a bit, but I need to think through
something.  I have an aquaintance who is a Master shoemaker (Non-SCA and
has the paperwork to document the title), who is acclaimed by some to be
an authority on historical shoes.  Now, when he makes an assertion that
I find either unlikely or a lead to new and more information, I ask to
see his documentation.  He isn't offended by the fact that I won't just
take his word for it, he just accepts that you shouldn't make assertions
without something to back them up - even if you ARE an "expert" (Just as
a note, his field of expertise is 1600-1800 era shoes, so discussions are
educational on both sides).  This is pretty much how things work in Academia,
also.

Now, if I can throw out some thoughts here, there is also a (general) 
impression in Academia that "SCA-scholarship" is a joke (I am aware there 
are some people who are working to change this, but in general, these 
efforts are not enough to perform overnight miracles).  There is some 
thought that in the SCA, "We are not academics, and shouldn't be held 
to academic standards".  There is a widespread belief that since "We live
history", "we know more about what happened back then than scholars do
anyway."  And because of these things, our Experts (that's those leafy 
types over there) are as good, if not better than the Experts in Academia.

Now, it seems to me that these add up to a picture of recognizing (whether
validly or not) that academic standards are more strict than "mere" SCA
standards, and since obviously (at least according to this mindset) the
SCA can't hope to compete on the level of Academia, we ought to set up our
own "highest degree" and build up a supporting mythology that strengthens
their authority in contrast to the authority of Academia.

The problem with this is, that I see, is that it's predicated on two flawed 
basic assumptions: 1) that SCA people are stupid and incapable of handling the 
rigors of academic evaluation and 2) if you call a pig a pidgeon often enough,
it will be able to fly (and no, I am not calling Laurels pigs).  Now, it
is true that SOME people in the SCA *are* too stupid to stand the rigors of
academic evaluation, but I believe they are very, VERY few in number, and
there are SOME "experts" in the SCA who actually know more than the academics,
and may in fact BE the "Expert in the field".

Ok, so what this means is that some people may see documentation as being
a pointless bit of work, since they feel that their material really doesn't 
matter as much as, say, a paper published in an academic journal.   But is 
this true?  I don't think so.  A&S things are doing one of two things --
displaying a person's level of understanding of a topic in sort of a status
quo thing, or, showing a new thing to those who would be interested.  And
even if the former is a bit banal, the practice needed to not screw up the
latter is often the basis for publishing a research papers :) .  I know that
when I wrote my shoe site (and the reason that I'm redoing it now) is that I
wrote it with the unconscious feeling that it would be seen only by people
who were interested in an easy aid for making shoes, and the people who were
wanting to do "real research" wouldn't even bother to look at it.  Now I know
this is not true, and I'm trying to clean up the documentation, among other
things.

It seems to me that the only way to overcome the belief that the SCA can't
do academic level things, is to look at those standards, say "ok, that's
not brain surgery, I can do that", and do it.  Eventually, the Academics
who sneer at the SCA will lose the targets they've got to aim at.  But we
can only be treated with as much respect as we treat out own work.

This does leave the whole question of those people who don't want to mess 
with that "much work" since to them the SCA is only a game, and they don't
care about accuracy and such.  I'm not sure what to suggest there.  

I'm sorry for rambling...

Marc/Diarmaid
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