[ANST - A clarification (was Rant)]

[Screamin Gael]

>Please don't do anything you may regret later.


wasn't planning on it, was simply re-evaluating how much of my input I 
should share with the mailing list, if any. Was hoping to avoid people who 
will make an arguement out of anything on this list.


As for the following, thats exactly the point I was trying to make, and I 
appreciate your doing so in a more eloquent fashion than I.

PS: the gentleman who died comitted murder-suicide after a series of 
incidents wherin he watched the noble ideals he had attributed to a certain 
group he was a loyal (near fanatical) member of debunked and the group 
portraid as a corrupt satanic organization by a certain PHD'd historian 
bucking for tenyer.


>Human history has never been unalloyed.  Both good and evil have always 
>been
>intertwined in all human endeavors.  In the Crusades, I am sure there were
>people really motivated by religious zeal as well as those motivated by 
>hunger
>for land or loot.  That mix always happens.  It does not cheapen the value 
>of
>the things legends can teach us.  Even if we kow the truth of history, that
>doesn't mean we can't keep working for something better.
<snip>
>I think there is a different way to look at this matter:  Legends are just
>vehicles.  They are stories that convey, and reinforce, the really 
>important
>points.
>
>Find the central points of the legends, the ideas about what is supposed to 
>be
>right and good and noble, and take them as ideals, independent of the 
>legends
>they come from, and good and valuable of themselves.  Then whatever 
>historical
>research does to our view of the legend, people have the most important 
>thing
>still intact and usable in guiding their actions.
>
>I think that's a pretty good capsule description of what the SCA should do:
>Learn and acknowledge the history, but live by the ideals from the legends.
>If enough people do that then a millenium from now, history will read as 
>well
>as the legends do.
>
>Hope that makes sense.
>
>
>       Tomonaga
>
>------
>
>A long bow and a stong bow,
>And let the sky grow dark.
>The nock to the cord, the shaft to the ear,
>And a foreign king for a mark!
>
>      --  Stolen from "The Song of the Bosonian Archers" --
>                By Robert E. Howard, who should be
>                  the patron saint of Ansteorra
>
>____________________________________________________________________
Breandan Mac Aodha Bhui


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