[Northkeep] (no subject)

[Marc Carlson]

"Acting appropriately and "Keeping the Dream alive"
Date: Wed, 06 Jun 2007 00:08:03 -0500
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Your Excellency,

While I agree with the intent of your postings, and appreciate that you have 
taken the time to post your thoughts here.  It certainly would be nice if 
people were to take others into consideration.  As we've discussed at times, 
while I find being blinded by flash photography during court far more 
distracting than people talking on the periphery, I can certainly see that 
carrying on conversations while others are trying to listen can be 
disruptive; and certainly people wandering about the public areas en 
dishabille, and even, if rumors are to be believed, engaging in public 
lewdness are not only disruptive, but can potentially lose us the use of a 
site we've spent a decade maintaining good relations with.

I do think that it's my obligation, however, to remind you that the SCA is 
not one thing, and that there are nearly as many different interpretations 
of what the SCA should be about, as there are people in the SCA.  I know you 
realize that we don't all have the same vision, you said as much.  You, 
however, then suggested that we "all" uphold specific respectful and 
romanticized behaviors including chivalry, honor, integrity and glory.  This 
doesn’t appear to be the case.  It should be obvious that not only are the 
terms chivalry and honor not defined the same way even by people who 
actively pursue those particular dreams, but not everyone is actually 
interested in those concepts, or their romanticized versions.  For some 
people, the SCA is all about the fighting, others really are only interested 
in the partying, and so on.  I am myself, as I'm sure everyone here knows, 
interested in studying, teaching and applying history, and supporting my 
community.  I certainly would prefer it if more people were interested in 
those things as well, but it is not my place to suggest that everyone really 
ought to pursue those goals, nor to imply that people who don't are in the 
wrong.  I couldn't care less for the romanticized goals of chivalry and 
honor, and have even less interest in glory – but that's me.  I'm perfectly 
happy that other people are interested in those things, and hope that they 
can find them.  As for integrity, it is certainly not for me to call into 
question other people's interpretations of that nebulous concept.

What I would like to suggest is that we should try to encourage simple 
courtesy and respect for others.  Some have suggested, when this topic has 
arisen elsewhere, that we as a group have failed to teach our new folks 
these concepts, and maybe that is true.  I do recall however that over the 
past few decades, this has been a recurrent issue, and that the current SCA 
is no less full of rude and egocentric folks than it has ever been.  There 
are just more of them since there are simply more people in the Society than 
ever before.  This is not to say that we shouldn’t try to encourage better 
behavior in both our new folks and ourselves as old timers (after all, no 
one is perfect).

I thank you for your time, and again, thank you for bringing up the topic.

Sincerely,

Diarmaid O'Dunn (MKA Marc Carlson)

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