ANSTHRLD - Grant question

Dr Tiomoid M. of Angle tiomoid at yahoo.com
Fri Oct 15 05:59:31 PDT 1999


- --- Amanda Lewanski <editor at texas.net> wrote:

> > Yeah, yeah, and it ranks right up there with Santa Claus and the
> > Tooth Fairy as a cute story to tell the easily-impressed, but it's
> > all whipped cream.
> 
> No offense, Tadhg, but Jan was there and you weren't.

No offense, Alisandre, but what he tells you (and what you tell us) and
reality aren't necessarily the same thing. In my MBA program we had a
fun little course called "Organizational Behavior" that gave us the
benefit of a lot of professionals looking into the subject full-time.

> > I've seen a lot of Lions given out; and some I thought
> > well-deserved, and some I thought Stupid Political Tricks -- 
> > much as with the peerage orders.
> 
> Well, jeez, of course.

Then there goes your whole argument, right out the window. It doesn't
matter a damn what the people who created the order intended, past
about the first two or three awards; what matters is how the order
operates today -- and that makes the whole mythology behind it just
that: mythology.

> I do believe that you can't judge any accolade solely by
> the people who receive (or give) it; it must be looked at in the
> light of its own standards.

That's nonsense. The actual "standards" of an order are to be found in
the sort of people in the order, not the sort of people somebody would
like to have you believe they want in the order. Actions speak louder
than words. Don't believe everything you're told .

> Look to your own profession--too many people judge lawyers by
> their experience with individual lawyers, and ignore the ideals of
> the position f "lawyer."

And rightly so (disregarding the fact that "my own profession" is
computer programming, precisely because the legal profession falls so
far short of its supposed ideals). Talk is cheap, and people correctly
believe those who put their money where their mouths are. (If I've
missed a cliche in these last paragraphs, it was unintentional.)

> > How this sort of thing serves a useful function I can't imagine ...
> 
> Ah, you have my pity. Why did you *join* the SCA?

Because I mistakenly believed that it had something to do with the
Middle Ages and Renaissance. By the time I found out the truth, that it
was just a bunch of social-fringe geeks who couldn't handle the real
world and preferred to live in FantasyLand, all of my friends (mostly
people like myself who had wandered in by mistake and foolishly
believed the advertising, as you would have us do) were in the SCA,
too, and it was play in the SCA or be a hermit. And I haven't really
made a final decision on that.


Tadhg
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