[Ansteorra] RE: the Attack of the "Authenticity Police"

[L T]

There's a difference between a arse and a clueless idiot...
That was a clueless idiot...she probably wearing bad metallic polyester renfair bely dance
costume and smoking cigarrettes...and drinking a coke in a can...when she walked into your
residence and insulted you...

If you remember the event and the person...e-mail me privately...

Lorraine



--- Chass Brown <chass at allegiance.tv> wrote:

> Ahh but see there are people in the S.C.A. who like to be arses. Like the 
> Wench who came into our encampment to tell me that my wheelchair was not 
> period, that it was ruining her  "Ambiance" and that if I couldnt get around 
> at events without my wheelchair then I shouldn't attend. Now why did she do 
> this? To be an arse. Did I take it as so? Aye damn right I did. Did it hurt 
> my feelings? Yes because I am still new to being stuck in this wheeled 
> monstrosity, but I got over it and tend to give her a piece of my mind when 
> next we meet since she aparently has no mind.  Does this tend to be the 
> norm... in no way nor shape. I will say those who tend to be this way huddle 
> together in little groups.... which everyone knows who they are.
> 
> 
> Chass aka Charinthalis Del Sans
> Muddeler of Mead, Ailment of Ale, Whiner of wine
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Marc Carlson" <marccarlson20 at hotmail.com>
> To: <ansteorra at ansteorra.org>
> Sent: Thursday, July 14, 2005 10:50 AM
> Subject: [Ansteorra] RE: the Attack of the "Authenticity Police"
> 
> 
> Just a warning, this is one of those kinda rambling messages, but if you
> take the time and bear with me, I think it actually goes someplace.
> 
> The problem with things like this term "Authenticity Police", and its
> related terms is that they are labels intended to elicit a specific
> knee-jerk response, as well as being labels meant to diminish the other
> person's position to an object that can simply be dismissed.  In short, they
> encourage people to just say things without thinking.  For example, while I
> made the point yesterday that I am not offended by terms like troll, -ocrat
> terms, etc.; being called a "nazi" -is- offensive to me (and many others),
> and my knee-jerk response to it tends to be becoming deeply and aggressively
> unpleasant to the speaker/writer.   "Authenticity police" does not offend
> me, it's just inaccurate since the SCA has no rigid authenticity standards
> there is nothing to police.  It's even more inaccurate to me since I make
> such a fuss about NOT telling people that they HAVE to do x, y, or z   (I
> mean, I guess I could, but what would the purpose be?).  "Authenticity
> Maven", is still a label meant to diminish the other person's position to an
> object that can simply be dismissed, but at least it's not inaccurate in
> most cases.
> 
> Now, I -have- been called an authenticity Nazi by someone who I'm quite
> certain was meaning it as a compliment, because all she'd ever heard it used
> for was as something interchangeable with authenticity maven.  And so she
> was understandably confused when I did not take it as a compliment.
> 
> I have also been called an authenticity Nazi by people who knew exactly what
> the term meant, because they wanted to be insulting.
> 
> Ok, as has been discussed here, it is believed that there are some people
> who want to push their views on authenticity onto others, and make them toe
> the line, become more authentic and so on.  Is this true?  I'd be stupid to
> say no, it never happens - I have weekly conversations with people who think
> this is actually a good idea, but are frustrated since the SCA offers them
> no recourse.  I daresay, the fact that there -is- no outlet for regular
> authenticity is a prime reason that many people leave the SCA.
> 
> This is different from saying that there are people who stalk the
> unsuspecting, jump them and beat them over their head with "what you are
> wearing/doing/whatever is wrong so stop doing it".  Now, again, this happens
> certainly (the first event I ever attended I had the then crown stop me and
> dress me down for not being attired to his level of accuracy, something I
> find highly amusing these days but at the time really made me angry).  Is it
> common?  Without finding someway to do a broad research study to actually
> test the numbers, I can't say, but my belief is that it isn't as prevalent
> as is believed.   What -is- common is to have people who are very bad at
> giving helpful suggestions on the one hand, and others who are overly
> defensive on the other.
> 
> I once had a rather interesting disagreement with William Blackfox when he
> tried to explain that something I was wearing was inaccurate.  Now, William
> was a really great guy and a brilliant artist and such, but was not always
> the most elegant in face to face discussions, and what he was saying could
> well have seemed to be criticism had I chosen to take  it that way, when in
> fact all he was really trying to do was be helpful.
> 
> Now, honestly, I have many examples of people being defensive -- for example
> the guy who took offense just because I told him that I liked his boots - he
> assumed I was being snide; or the guy who told me that I was being critical
> of what he was wearing just by being dressed more accurately than he was.
> People are going to find offense if they want to see it.
> 
> The issue of course is that no one likes to be told that what they are doing
> is wrong, and there is often an unspoken assumption that if a person is told
> that what they are doing/saying/wearing is wrong, that there must be an
> implicit "stop doing that".  This becomes a problem when in fact this isn't
> actually the case.
> 
> If I were to take the position that "Byzantines are not really European,
> they talk that funny Greek language, not good real Latin, and should just be
> barred from the SCA;" Xene, and others, would be well within THEIR rights to
> disagree.  We might then proceed to array our arguments, and debate the
> issue.   This might leave us ultimately with just continuing to disagreeing
> on the matter  [as an aside, I have nothing against Byzantines - except that
> they don't have enough archaeological data on shoes available to me in a
> language I can read. *mutter*].    Now it really doesn't matter how good my
> arguments are, how much better I think being an Irishman trapped in England
> is over any of that Byzantine stuff - by the way the SCA is structured (and
> I expect always will be), there is no way I can force anyone to not be
> Byzantine.   The only thing I can do is show by example that I think it's
> better, and why, and hope for some sort of understanding.
> 
> Now, we come to the really interesting part of this.  Remember the guy who
> said I was pressuring him just by being dressed better than he was?   This
> is not as stupid sounding as it first seems.  Once upon a time, there were a
> lot of people who were interested in Authenticity, and they did their thing
> quietly and alone, and it was generally accepted by the people who just
> wanted to not have to worry about that sort of thing (unless of course they
> tried to step out of their boundaries and threaten the status quo).  They
> had no real way to communicate with others, or even know if there WERE
> others who were interested in the same sorts of things they were [BTW, this
> is written somewhat hyperbolically, but I'm trying to make a point].  Then
> came the Internet and that changed - authenticists got the chance to start
> to exchange information and see that they were not in fact alone.  And you
> know what?  In the past 10 years or so, the level of attire has gotten more
> accurate overall.
> 
> Except that as more people become interested in doing things more
> authentically, there is an increased level of peer pressure (pressure from
> one's peers, not pressure from the peerage, although there is some of that
> too in some cases) on those people who really have no interest other than
> doing things the good old SCA way.  Now, those of us who aren't interested
> in doing things the good old SCA way but want to do things more historically
> accurate experience the same sort of peer pressure as well.  The use of a
> standardized tradition based argot is one way of enforcing that peer
> pressure, so that every time we get hit in the face with terms like "troll"
> or "garb" or whatnot, we are being told, you are not one of us, you do not
> belong to OUR group unless you conform and use our terms.  Once upon a time,
> this worked great, but now there are enough of us that we ARE a threat to
> what people who are not like us want to do, just by our own presence - just
> as they present a continual presence we have to contend with and avoid in
> order to do what WE want to do.
> 
> So is this an insurmountably polarized diad?  I don't think it has to be.
> First, most people aren't strictly one OR the other, but rather fall
> somewhere in the middle ground.  Second, we all _have_ to accept that the
> SCA, like all social structures, has to evolve to a certain extent, however,
> with the more conservative traditionalists slowing down that evolution - and
> that conflict isn't necessarily a bad thing.  Growth and chance is good, but
> unrestricted growth and change is potentially cancerous.   The SCA's lack of
> authenticity standards is not, as some might argue, a bad thing - it's a
> good thing.  That lack protects those of us who want to do MORE, just as it
> protects the traditionalists who aren't interested in doing historical
> accuracy.
> 
> Tolerance isn't just learning to accept that others are there; I suspect
> it's more learning to just not care about what they are doing, and still
> doing what you want to do.
> 
> To those who want to stick with the traditional SCA stuff, I'm glad to hear
> it.  I respect what you are doing, but I expect that same respect.  I will
> try not to insult you, if you will stop insulting me.  I understand that you
> can feel pressured, so do we.   I am not going to stop doing what I am doing
> just to please you, nor do I expect you to change what you are doing to
> please me.  If you can't learn to live _with_ me, and accept that we are not
> going to agree on this (and vice versa) we are both going to lose.
> 
> Marc/Diarmaid
> 
> 
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