ANST - The trouble with rants

[Dennis Grace]

Salut Cozyns,

Lyonel aisai.

Rants are a fine way to release some irritation and invite commiseration, 
but beware:  we might not all agree.  Do not assume-- just because we all 
share a love of Things Medieval--that we all share a common philosophy.  I'm 
a knight and a baron in the SCA, but in the quotidian world, I'm a 
socialist.  I have friends on this list who are objectivists, libertarians, 
conservatives, liberals, and greens. We are computer scientists, writers, 
police, teachers, machinists, doctors, lawyers, carpenters, artists, 
technicians, nurses, IRS agents, and students.  Generally, we're a pretty 
damned diverse little pocket of society.  Sorry, I seem to be heading off on 
a tangent.  Short version:  post a rant, be ready to have someone disagree.

F'rinstance, Breandan Mac Aodha Bhui posts:

>Apparently, the message got lost in the text, so I'm going to explain this
>as simply as possible....if it's still misconstrued by some, oh well, I
>tried.

No.  The message was clear.  From the outset, Breandan, you were ranting.  
You even admitted that your initial response to Diarmaid's thoughtful reply 
was heated.  You have continued to maintain a level of heat from the outset. 
  You saw an historian on television offering a thoroughly unflattering 
version of a history that you cherish.  I think we can all relate to that.  
Most of us have been in that situation, and it hurts discovering that our 
heroes weren't quite as heroic as we'd been led to believe.

Still, that's part of growing up.  In the process of maturing, you simply 
have to understand that even heroes are human, and humans have quirks and 
foibles and selfish desires.  If we're lucky, we also find that they had 
attributes we can admire.  Thomas Jefferson was apparently something of an 
elitist, a bit of a lech, and extraordinarily arrogant. I still admire much 
about the man.


Breandan also says:

>Put aside the innate desire of a SCAdian to research everything to death 
>and
>the indignance when that is called into question (I'm working on a Masters
>in History, so I know how hard that is) and read the following, which is 
>the
>intended message:
>
>We should keep our legends alive (as legends), and strive to live the way
>they teach us to.
>
>That's it, that's the message.

And that message has a number of problems.  You say you're working on a 
Masters in history, yet you ask us to "put aside the innate desire of a 
SCAdian to research everything to death."  Ouch.  Freudian slip?
Do you honestly believe that research is destructive?

Also, your expressed desire to keep "legends alive (as legends)" does not 
correlate well with the following examples:

>Putting into an example, which would you rather have: a gang banger who
>knows that the first crusades was a rapacious invasion using religion to
>claim land and booty and has no role models, thus no problem blowing one of
>our officers away.
>
>or a 15 year old kid who was raised on stories of knights of old and took
>the chivalric code to heart and chose to live with honor rather than lead a
>life of crime.

You present these options as though we cannot possibly find middle ground.  
As Jovian expressed, we have many alternatives.  I, for one, knew that the 
crusaders were rapacious thugs by the time I was twelve years old, but I've 
never been a gangbanger.  I know many others with similar experiences.

Breandan adds:

>I have seen firsthand what happens to those who have all faith in their
>legends and in the Right way to live ripped out from underneath them by 
>some
>historian trying to astound the academic community with his "new finding",
>and it has directly (I kid you not) led to at least one death that I know
>of.

That is unfortunate.  Truth can be a devastating weapon.  Still, the hiding 
the truth doesn't solve anything.  Once a truth has been found out, it can 
be found again.  Hiding facts just creates social pressure.  You talk of one 
death.  How many have died in the name of keeping secrets?

>I had assumed that members of the Society, a society based on 
>re-introducing
>Honor and Chivalry into the world, would understand the message, and some
>did....others...well, they need to talk to a knight or two and ask them
>which is more important: Historically accurate knowledge, or living the
>Chivalric life

At a knight's circle in Midrealm a few years back, an argument broke out 
over a matter of ceremony.  One Count wanted to change a ceremony to make it 
more historically accurate, but the rest of the circle was refusing to give 
up their cherished tradition.  "But it's based on fiction," he argued. 
"We're a historical recreation society, right?  Would you all rather be 
William Marshal or Lancelot du Lac?"

The knights looked around at one another without speaking.  After a brief 
pause, they looked back at the count.  A duke replied, "We all want to be 
Lancelot."  Everyone else nodded.

We can create a sense of the ambiance of a chivalric romance, and we can 
hold to the better principles of those romances.  We can do this while 
acknowledging that, yes, we're re-creating a fiction--a lie, if you prefer.  
We do this with full knowledge of the selfish behavior of the medieval 
nobility, the rapacity of the chivalry, the sloppiness of the medieval 
scholars, and the hypocrisy of the medieval church.  Still, for the most 
part, we manage to have crowns who are not greedy,
knights and masters at arms who are honorable, scholars who study with 
Cartesian precision, and no church at all.

We can have our legends and our truths at the same time.  Why do you think 
we stress that we're re-creating the Middle Ages as they *should* have been?

lo vostre por vos servir
Sir Lyonel Oliver Grace


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