[Ravensfort] Fwd: Re: [Ansteorra] A social aside (was tractions and problems)

[L T]

A most excellent letter by Her Grace Willow

I just had to share

L
--- lanphier taylor <jonwillowpel at juno.com> wrote:
> To: ansteorra at ansteorra.org
> Subject: Re: [Ansteorra] A social aside (was tractions and problems)
> From: lanphier taylor <jonwillowpel at juno.com>
> Date: Thu, 1 Aug 2002 18:00:58 -0500
>
> Noblesse Oblige was codified by the Victorian. As were the Code of
> Chivalry and rules of Courtesy. Many of the "ought of beens" come from
> the writings about the middle ages that came into being during the
> Victorian period. But the Victorian notions were based on the writings of
> the middle ages.   It is true that the noble thought little about the
> average commoner but he did believe that he owed duty to his men of his
> own class. This just made common sense. When you went to war you needed
> your knights to back you up. If you didn't do your duty to your vassals
> they would do their duty to you. The untitled individual in Ansteorrra
> isn't a commoner. He or she is a junior member of the noble class. They
> are in the same situation that William Marshall was for 40 years. Then he
> became the most powerful man in England. Period wittings are very clear
> that you should be polite and do right with your underling because
> someday he could be your lord.
>
> When Ansteorrians  had strong personas Noblesse Oblige made a lot of
> sense. It was very interesting that Ansteorrian's nobles to go to far a
> way places and the fighters from Ansteorra would gather under the highest
> ranking fighting noble present. I got that honor once because I was it.
> Ansteorrians expected their nobles to do right with them. If they had
> problems with the marshalls they took it to their noble. If they wanted
> to negotiate for fighting they took it to their noble. Nobles and peers
> from all over the known world marveled at this.
>
> The old line Ansteorrian nobles took our jobs very seriously and Noblesse
> Oblige was thought to be very important. A ways back ,about 12 years ago,
> we had big increase in our population and  at the same time we lost a lot
> of our old people. Shortly after that we stopped stressing the role
> playing and historical aspects of our game and started to stress the
> dream. Many of our younger peers and nobles at the time hadn't done a lot
> of the same kind of work as the older nobles and peers had done. When the
> older peers and nobles stepped out of the picture the newer people didn't
> think it was their dream to do that kind of work. About this time we also
> started what I call "the grand experiment". This was a program built
> around the concept that if we got rid of standards then everyone who fall
> into the natural flow of the dream. Things would just happen. This didn't
> produce result everyone expected. The everyday person doesn't really know
> how to behave  in a medieval model. They have to be given information.
> Things don't just happen. A new movement started with the next crop of
> people trying to put the Ansteorrian culture back together again. We have
> made advancement but there is still confusion.
>
> You mentioned that you believed that the regular everyday person doesn't
> have a say in the patterns of behavior that the peers and nobles
> followed. This is not true. The expectations of the populace play a very
> important part in the makings of new peers. We, the peers, have learned
> from some very bad experiences that if the people do not think someone is
> worthy of peerage it goes very hard on individual. We have lost some good
> people because of this fact of life. Ever time we put a new peer into the
> circles it effects the combined philosophy of the circle.  Over time this
> can and has made radical differences. Regular people expression what they
> would like to see in a "good" peers makes a difference. You, the people,
> need to set high standards for our kingdom.
>
> Willow de Wisp
>
> >epts of Noblesse Oblige and knowing your place.  Noblesse
> > Oblige, in
> > case there are those who have not heard of this, is the Victorian
> > notion of
> > the obligations of the Nobility to those beneath them -- since the
> > Peerage
> > is superior to those beneath them, they have the obligation to care
> > for
> > those beneath them socially, as parents care for children (as an
> > aside, this
> > is the ultimate origin of the other 19th century concept of the
> > "White Man's
> > Burden" which helped colonialism so well).  Because your social
> > place is
> > assigned by God, that social position really can't change all that
> > much, if
> > at all. From that "a place for everything and everything in its
> > place"
> > culture, people were encouraged to "know their place", which would
> > help them
> > know what was expected of them, and what they could expect of
> > others.
> >
> > Now, in such a system, it is -unthinkable- for say, me, a Gentleman
> > yes, but
> > still a "non-noble" to even _approach_ a noble without some great
> > reason,
> > much less talk to them and ask them how to do something.  Not
> > because I
> > suffer from "peer fear" (since clearly I don't :) ), but because
> > it's
> > socially inappropriate to do so.  They can approach me and talk to
> > me to
> > their hearts content, and I can respond to that, but that's all.
> > [For the
> > record, this is how I -try- to play my persona -- although when
> > dealing with
> > my local peers, keeping my distance is harder]
> >
> > Now, in the US we try to pretend that we have no such social
> > distinctions,
> > and especially here in this part of the country, there is an
> > attitude of the
> > Hat's just a job, and when it's not on, I'm just like you all.  This
> > is
> > even, to a certain degree, implicit in the assumption that "we are
> > all
> > noble".
> >
> > The difficulties emerge since there IS a de facto difference between
> > SCA
> > Peers and non-Peers (that award), to the degree that I daresay that
> > many
> > people view the SCA Peers *as* the Nobility, and the populace as the
> > commons
> > [for which you might look at long standing disagreements over time
> > about the
> > names given the various awards and how they are viewed.  Also the
> > use of the
> > term "Peer" to refer to a specific subset of the Nobility when,
> > historically
> > this was not the case].  The fact that we have developed a subtle
> > parallel
> > isn't either surprising or singular (there are other parallels -
> > some far
> > more annoying from an educational perspective...).  Most people just
> > happen
> > to SEE Peers as being different and more important than they are.
> >
> > Over the years there has developed an uncomfortable dichotomy of
> > "are they
> > different from the populace or aren't they", "are they like medieval
> > peers
> > or aren't they".  And I know this makes some people uncomfortable
> > (to be
> > honest, most Americans find the whole topic of social class
> > distasteful and
> > tend to accuse those who bring it up at all of being "snobs").  We
> > really
> > want to be just "one of the herd".  This stress is made more
> > difficult by
> > the fact that different Peers have different views on the topic.
> >
> > Now, having gone through all this, I'd like to make a suggestion, if
> > I may.
> > You will recall that I said I wasn't going to tell anyone the
> > responsibilities of the peer, and I'm still not.  Yes, I have my
> > opinions,
> > but that's all they are.  I'm just going to point out that if the
> > Peerage
> > can't come to a consensus about how they should be viewed, treated
> > or
> > approached, the Populace certainly isn't in the position to do it
> > for them.
> >
> > Thank you for your time.
> >
> > Diarmaid O'Duinn/Marc Carlson
> >
> > _________________________________________________________________
> > Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger:
> > http://messenger.msn.com
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > http://www.ansteorra.org/mailman/listinfo/ansteorra
>
>
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