[Ansteorra] WSID? was: WWSD? was: WWAD? was: WWMPD?

[Marc Carlson]

Or "What should *I* Do?"

I keep noticing that there seems to be a continuous bifurcation in the
dialogue.  This is not surprising, although I am noticing that the positions
of the participants move.

Some people like "Authenticity", some people don't.
Some people like to play "Persona", some people don't.
All the way down to:
Some people like "Chivalry", some people want "Common Curtesy"
and
Some people try to follow what their personae actually "would have  done",
while others prefer a kinder, gentler approach.

I think the problem is that we have a large number of overlapping circles.
Some of us really dig history and want to do historical re-enacting.  Some
of us are more interested in a romantic quasi-Victorian fantasy (and no,
that's not meant as a criticism - honest) approach that's developed over the
last 36 years.  Some of us just want to put on armor and hit each other with
furniture.  Other people have other reasons.  These are all good things -
and just because my thing isn't your thing doesn't make my thing wrong, nor
does it say anything about your thing, or his or her thing.  They are just
different.

For me (mundanely), I believe that helping other people is a good thing, if
they want help, and that pushing my help on them is presumptuous. If I want
help, I should, in turn, ask for it. I also believe that gender is
irrelevant (except in certain specific activities that generally only occur
outside the public view -- and the biological repercussions of those
activities).  This means that I am no more or less willing to help a woman
than I am a man.  Conversely, if you come to me and ask me for help JUST
because I'm male - if you're lucky, I'll laugh at you.  If it's been a bad
day, you'll get a ranting lecture on sexism, and the sexist BS that is still
going on today -- in both directions.  OTOH, if you ask for help because I'm
nearest to you, taller than you and you need to reach up, and so on -- not a
problem.  Someone jokingly suggested that she just bullies people into
helping her - if you're butch enough to try to bully people, you certainly
don't need my help.

Was I not raised to be a gentleman?  You bet I was, but the same people who
tried to teach me that women are precious jewels that must be protected at
all costs, also tried to teach me that social superiority (which is my
right) makes me ontologically superior to all women, people of color, poor
people, uneducated people, and anyone from a different country (there are
reasons why I cover social class so dilligently in the classes I teach on
the Medieval Mindset).  That's what they tried to teach me - what I came to
believe is totally different.

In persona, things change a bit.  As a non-noble gentleman living in the
14th century, if you have a problem and you need my help, I'll be happy to
help - let me get my man over here...  If he's not around, then ok, what
needs to be done?  Again, it would be presumptuous of me to try and force my
help on someone else -- especially if they are of a higher social class than
I am.  I'm really not in a position to TALK to them most of the time, for me
to tell them that their servants are insufficient to the task at hand would
be an insult.  If they or their people indicate that they need my help,
absolutely they can have it.  When we toss in gender, things become even
more complicated (I might offer to help an unaccompanied noble Lady, because
obviously there is something VERY wrong going on there).

For people of a lower class, of course, I'll help them out.  That's a social
obligation (although not as pronounced a one as it would become in the
Victorian era).  They need all the help they can get, as long as they don't
forget the order of things.

One of the things that has come up over the years is the fact that I don't
accompany my wife into court (unless she needs help carrying something in).
I never have, and I know this is an unpopular stance. Conversely, she
doesn't escort me either.  This is because she's not an infant -- if I
expect her to be as competant as I am in the family business if I fall ill,
I'm certainly not going to consider her incompetant.  Whatever reason she or
I are being called into court probably has to do only with whoever is called
up.  I get no credit for her successes, she gets no blame for my failures.
I have considered escorting her into court as her social superior, but
somehow I always felt that denegrated her, which in turn, lessened me.

Does this mean that "Chivalry is dead"?  Mundanely speaking, I hope so, at
least for me.  If you want to practice it, that's your business, not mine.
Persona-ly speaking, it hasn't been born yet (to Diarmaid, "Chivalrie" means
mounted warfare, that's all).

Someone recently said that the organization was changing, and maybe we need
to change with it.  I'm not sure that's true.  I think as long as everyone
is willing to recognize that we are all coming to this with different
perspectives -- some wildly divergent from yours or even mine, the
organization should do just fine.  At the risk of again being told I'm
"wrong" :) rather than waste time and energy being frustrated because this
person or that person doesn't play the game MY way, if I take the time to
remember that their way may not be my way, and try to stay polite to them
and be considerate of them, our differences will rarely intersect.

I'm sorry if this seems a little rambling, I've been giving this some
thought for the past few days.

Marc/Diarmaid





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