[Ansteorra] New article from Willow

[willowdewisp at juno.com]

Here is my new article. This came from a realization that i need to do more. The fact that if our peers and nobles do not start the teaching process by modeling proper behavior it is hard for our grants and Lords and Ladies to know what they need to do. 
For Behavior to be useful as a teaching agent it must be noticed. We do not have a Bardic class whose role would be to give word fame so it is the duty of all Ansteorrians to give word fame. 
This was one of the Maxims that the kingdom was based on.
We had noticed by looking at the Dark Hordes efforts that negative word fame wasn't curbing bad behavior. It seemed that the more the Dark Horde made people infamous with their great songs the more people behaved badly. We realized that negative word fame was still word fame. It became the policy of the people who shaped the Kingdom to do a lot of positive word fame and when someone was in the wrong to just stop encouraging them. 
There are some  important things about this political technique.
1. People can shut you up but them can not make you applaud them.
2. People and things that are improper are just forgotten. 
3 This method makes for a better club, but many people have to be doing it for it to be effective.  Also people have to be giving venues to express their approval and if you allow the people to freely express their approval then they might also disapprove. 
Changes starting about 20 years ago made this political technique  go away. I believe it is time again for the people of Ansteorra to raise our voices again in praise for those who make our "Dreams". You can see that this concepts was the seed that "The Lions" grew from. It was also seen in the "Dream Bags" and the "Spear of Honor".  You don't know what these last thing are? Come to Winterkingdom and take my class and see the spear on the History table. 
(You might have noticed that I use "proper" and "improper" behaviors and political techniques. I do this because early in the kingdom people told me that evil or wrong or unethical were words that implied a judgment of people and their method. It is improper to judge individuals. It is proper to look at what they are doing and judge it as it's worth to the organization. Are their methods of getting thing done making Ansteorra grow and are they making people happy. Of course some political methods are not proper or improper they are simple inept.)
Oh, Here is the article
Making “the Dream” real<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
Duchess Willow de Wisp OP, Lion of Ansteorra
 
In a recent meeting someone said” you cannot legislate good behavior.”  I agreed with that statement. Written Laws or Secondary reinforcements as we call them Sociology are not very good at shaping behavior, but that does not mean that behavior cannot be shaped. 
 
Human beings change all the time to fit into the groups that they are involved in. The World Health Organization ran studies after WWII and discovered that many leader types are Amoral. That means that they will use any and all political techniques that the values and norms of the group will allow them. People like to please other people and they like to fit in. 
 
People adopt the values and norms of the groups they join. This is especially true of groups like ours which appear to have values that encourage courtesy and honor and fairness. Why would someone join our group to be “evil” when there are role playing groups out there that reward the “dark side”?
 
If people are behaving in “mean” ways to each other in the SCA we need to look at what we are teaching our new members because if we have people behaving in ways that destroy “the Dream” then we are teaching them somehow that such behaviors are OK.
 
In groups like ours the first two things people notices are our written face and our behavior toward them. Our written behavior should stress our beliefs in being the best we can be. In Ansteorra we have believed in the “knightly virtues” and we have believed that every one of us needs to be striving toward the virtues. These beliefs were the “ought to been's” of the period we are studying.  Yes, in historical reality they were not lived up to most of time, but as a famous writer once said it is surprising that people in such a horrible age lived up to the value at all .  Throughout our period we can find times when individuals lived up to the dreams of the period. 
 
We need to stress Courtesy and Honor as virtues we believe in and strive for. This is not’t a law but a “should of and ought to”.  We cannot make people do it but we can suggest it as something that would be nice. 
 
I know many people do not want to be political and they view stating “should of’s” as political, but would you think teaching a child to behave was political? Teaching new people what is expected of them is no more “political” than teaching a child good behavior. It is even less political than potty training behavior because the adults we are working with can always walk away. 
 
The SCA is based on us behaving as Ladies and Gentlemen and since that concept is not fully explained in the world around us it is important to explain to people what that means. We need to take the time to explain the courtesies and to explain Courtesy in how it translates to our behavior within the group. 
 
The second thing people look at to shape their behavior in a group is how we behave to them and each other. If our behavior doesn’t live up to our written values then the person will walk or will gleefully behave badly. At fighter practice or at any social group that an individual can watch our behavior make sure you are acting with courtesy and fairness. Do not say things about people that imply that they are cheating. Do not stress the times that people have failed to live to our values. Please talk about the good we do. I know telling the horror story of the Laurel from Hell is fun, but is that really what you want to become the accepted behavior.  We are all human and we all make mistakes, but let the mistakes fall into the dust of the past and let us remember the good things. 
Welcome new people and show a willingness to share information. Think about what you are saying and if it is running counter to our public values.  No matter what we say or write individuals will base their understanding of our values on what we do.   
 
Starting with bottom level and going up the hierarchy new people will look at behavior and judge what they can and cannot do.    For example, the people in my area put me to work cleaning tables where people could see me. I had been working in the background. They did this because if an old Duchess is willing to work then everyone should work. Even though I am old and hurt if I sit around and do nothing then it is OK for them to do nothing.  That is why we used to put the term “rights and responsibilities “in award scrolls because each level of awards carries its own expectations that are unseen and not written down. For example, people believe that Knights should set behavior in regards to helping out with ladies baskets.  New men in a group will look at the behaviors set by the knights and will act accordingly.  Grants in the Kingdom are well thought of because of the White scarfs and people will be upset if one of the Grant level members do not live up to the standards of the White scarfs. This is somewhat unfair because the White Scarfs set their values as high as peerages and the others have no such requirements.  The regular member doesn’t know this and when they see a Grant level person acting petty they believe it is “OK” to act that way. 
 
Remember people judge by what they see. Again many people believe that publicly showing behavior is a form of politics and they do not do politics.  If your good works are under a bushel then they have no impact on individuals. We need to let people see that people that they respect or simple know are trying to live to Ansteorra’s values. It is OK not to live up to everything all the time, but if they see you are trying they will try also.  We are having trouble with people not volunteering for work. It is very important that we talk about people who work and show newcomers that our workers are not forgotten.  Some of our older members cannot work but we can give word fame to people who are newer and doing the jobs we used to do. Remember all awards come from the Crown, but reinforcement can come from all of us and “should”.   
 
You can tell me that you are a nobody and no one looks up to you. Please Remember that everyone who is in the group before someone joins is Somebody to them. The longer you are in the group the more new people look to you to help them figure out what and what not they should do.  In fact, if you have no awards they will look at your behavior as models for their behavior more than a person with a title. 
 
If we want to modify behavior we need to set clear cut “ought and should to” and we “should” back it up with visual behaviors of the behaviors that show what noble behavior in Ansteorra looks like. We need to point out good behaviors to each other and reward people with word fame. While doing anything to shape behavior is political; teaching and encouraging people to be nice to each other and to help each other is “good” politics and is necessary if we are going to have health SCA Chapters. 
 
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