[Bards] First Principles.
Jay Rudin
rudin at ev1.net
Mon Nov 6 18:07:01 PST 2006
Alden Drake wrote:
> Personally, I would argue that if we are going to be an organization (be
> it a college or a guild) that is associated with the Kingdom of Ansteorra,
> that our group should exist under the authority of the Crown, via the
> Kingdom Minister of Arts and Sciences, and/or his/her appointed deputy.
> It should be through that existing organizational channel that oversight
> of
> the college's adherance to Corpora, Kingdom Law, and the best interests
> of the kingdom should be maintained.
>
> I think it would also serve to better incorporate bardic representation
> with
> the A&S community as a whole by keeping as close a connection to the
> KMOAS as we can. We should want to improve our relationship with
> other artisans, not further distance ourselves behind the walls of a
> college.
Thank you for a clear-headed insight. I've been getting nowhere in these
discussions lately, because we're arguing over how to say something, when we
haven't yet agreed on what we're trying to say.
Michael Silverhands described it very well as the "as-yet only vaguely
described target ". I think we should spend somne time considering the
target, and try to describe it first. Our current approach is too close to
"Ready, fire, aim!"
I'm going to abandon the discussion of how to phrase things and try to get
us to discuss the first principles instead.
The biggest issue that several of us seem to disagree on is what the
organization should basically be. You categorized one point of view as "our
group should exist under the authority of the Crown, via the Kingdom
Minister of Arts and Sciences, and/or his/her appointed deputy. It should
be through that existing organizational channel that oversight of the
college's adherance to Corpora, Kingdom Law, and the best interests of the
kingdom should be maintained."
If that's what people want, then I won't get in their way, and I'll stop
arguing about what the charter should read, because I would have no interest
in that organization. I have no desire to add to the kingdom bureaucracy.
Certainly, if Gwyneth and her deputy Ihon want to set up such a group, they
can. Being nice, generous people, they would undoubtedly even ask some
bards for input on how to set it up. But they would do so out of choice,
not because they needed to. We would have no inherent right to input on how
the kingdom structure is expanded, any more than we had a direct say in
whether there would be a deputy for performing arts. (I'm not claiming
there was anything wrong with it. On the contrary, I'm maintaining that the
KMOAS has every right to set up her office as she thinks best.)
By contrast, I hope to set up a co-op -- a group of people agreeing on their
own to band together for mutual support. This would not be something that
the kingdom gave to us; it would *be* us -- owned and operated by bards, for
bards.
Before we can begin to discuss how a charter should be written, we need to
address this specific issue. Michael's and my disagreement on whether the
kingdom deputy officer should be an officer of the college is clearly merely
a consequence of this crucial decision. If it's a part of, or directly
responsible to, the KMOAS structure, he's right. If it's a group of bards
choosing to band together for mutual support, then I'm right.
So how about it? I'm asking everybody here, and I will spend the next
couple of months trying to ask the much larger group of bards who aren't
here: Do you want a group that will "exist under the authority of the Crown,
via the Kingdom Minister of Arts and Sciences, and/or his/her appointed
deputy" with "oversight of the college's adherance to Corpora, Kingdom Law,
and the best interests of the kingdom" maintained through this "existing
organizational channel", or do you want to join together in a co-operative
venture of bards?
Robin of Gilwell / Jay Rudin
[Note that I am using somebody else's words to describe the vision I don't
share, to avoid the temptation of characterizing it unfairly.]
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