ANST - What is a Peer?

[Marcus]

> > I'd like to add and elaborate here.   If they look like a Peer, If
> > they act like a Peer, If they do whatever  they do like a Peer, They
> > are a Peer, *whether or not the Crown EVER recognizes them for it*!!
>
> Oh, please -- I didn't wear my boots today.

> While this may be true in the Platonic Realm of Ideas, it is merely a
> popular myth in the Realm of Phenomena in which we live -- and popular
> chiefly among those who have been "recognized as peers"; nobody I've
> ever met who hasn't been "recognized as a peer" (whether they are a
> Platonic peer or not ... and I've known several) believes it for a
> minute. It's just a self-esteem Consolation Prize for those who don't
> happen to win in the Race For The Dangly. Let's leave this
> bromide with
> Santa and the Tooth Fairy where it belongs, and talk about reality.

Ok... here is reality. The dangly means nothing! The recognition of the
crown means only slightly more (no offence meant). The true joy I felt in
receiving a peerage was in finding out the work my friends had been going
through in order to arrange it (including people that I didn't even realize
were fighting for me)! And the looks on THEIR faces when I was made a peer!

I'm not one of the 'pretty peers'. I don't make friends easily. I am
opinionated, arrogant, self motivated, and a gem only in the most roughest
of possible terms. It took my friends and associates YEARS to turn me into
something even remotely resembling a peer (years in which many fights
occurred when my rough edges were being smoothed). But to find out that
these people thought enough of me to push, wrangle, and cajole, the other
peers as well as the crown to get me admitted as a member, well... It still
brings tears to my eyes, and a lump to my throat!

>
> > What makes having *any* award in the SCA worthwhile is *NOT* the
> > award itself.  It is the simple fact that people thought what you
> were
> > doing was cool enough, or important enough, that *they* believe you
> > should have the award.  If the Crown agrees or disagrees, you still
> > have the respect and regard of the people around you.
>
> The VERY FEW people IMMEDIATELY around you. Not the sort of thing that
> survives transport to another Kingdom -- or even another group. And
> lack of deserved recognition has lost us more "Platonic peers" than
> anyone will ever know, because when it happens it doesn't cause a horn
> to blow and a flag to go up.

What more do you need or want? I was playing with peers, and being treated
by them AS a peer for a good deal of time before the dangly. After the
dangly, there were a few people that I didn't know who all of a sudden
became my best friends in the world. But the people who had been and still
were my friends, they were the ones who's opinion counted.

> > I've seen lots of people make the enormous error of thinking that
> > having a Peerage of any flavor would *GIVE* them instant respect.
>
> What it does, however, give you is instant position -- a position that
> those not deserving of respect often misuse with a vengeance (no pun
> intended). It gives you position in a peerage circle, where ytu can
> more effectively block those candidates for "recognition" that you
> dislike, and push for the "recognition" of cronys who may or
> may not be

You will have to allow that I have never attended an Ansteorran peer circle,
but do you really have people in them that use the peer 'position' to block
others that are deserving from achieving a peerage? If they don't have
cause, why are you listening to them? Don't you have equal voice with the
crown? I know that if I tried any of that (expletive), my friends would
quietly take me aside after the circle and 'talk' some sense into me... and
I know they would expect the same from me if the situation were reversed.

> > My best advice is not to seek to win a Peerage.  If you do whatever
> > it is you do with love and with heart, and if you also embody the set of
> > diverse attributes that we call "the bearing of a peer", then someone
> > eventually will hang that Peerage on you.
>
> And, to anyone who believes that: I've got a great bridge to sell you.

then lets take a look at your bridge, cause I've seen this as a reality.

Marcus

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