SC - General rant (started out as coffee/tea, then was rose sekanjabin)

[david friedman]

At 2:44 PM -0800 1/30/98, kat wrote:

>	But all this is just picking nits, and taking me further and
>further from my initial point, which is:  Simply because people aren't
>doing exactly what *you* (the generic you, NOT a specific you) are doing
>does **Not** mean they aren't trying as hard as you are.  And they don't
>like to hear that they aren't trying at all, or that they have "given up,"
>or that they are being lazy, etc., etc.

I may have gotten confused about the origin of this thread, but the
comments of mine to which I think you were responding were not in response
to someone who said that something was impractical due to cost, but to a
post by Mordonnade where she said:

>I can just see what would happen to me if I did not have the coffee and hot
>tea ready for my fighters when they woke up.  If I offered them a pill
>instead, I'd be fired as cook.  I agree that coffee and hot tea are not
>precisely period, but neither is Kydex armour, nor shrinkproof cotton.
>Perfectly medieval might be a joy to contemplate, but it is not practical in
>the Current Middle Ages.  We all do the best we can with what we have to work
>with, and if we do not allow the lack of what we could have done if things had
>been different to ruin the fun we have we actually enjoy this game.

And I replied:

"I can well believe that the people you cook for would object to that
particular element of authenticity, and I agree that, within broad limits,
each of us has to decide what elements are worth doing.

I do not agree that that particular dimension of "perfectly medieval" is
not practical in the SCA, however. Lots of people manage without tea and
coffee at events. I even manage without diet coke and internet browsing.
And, of course, lots manage without Kydex too."

And I went on, in another post, to argue that while it might make sense to
do inauthentic things, it did not make sense to conclude that being
authentic was "not practical" and therefore to stop looking for ways to do
it.

Or in other words, my point is not that the failure to be perfectly
authentic is evidence you are not trying--none of us is perfectly
authentic. My point is that explaining the failure to be authentic in some
particular dimension with "it is not practical in the Current Middle Ages"
(which is not equivalent to "it is not practical for me at the moment")
implies that you have given up trying in that particular dimension--and
that doing so is a mistake.

Perhaps Kat could go back and find the post (if it isn't this series), by
me or someone else, which implied that " Simply because people aren't doing
exactly what *you*... are doing  means they aren't trying as hard as you
are" and said "that they aren't trying at all, or that they have "given
up," or that they are being lazy, etc., etc." Perhaps I am misunderstanding
her, but it looks to me as though she is responding to an insult that
nobody has made.

>	And 59 cents for 2 liters is the price of generic soda pop...  :-)

And twice the cost of sekanjabin.

David/Cariadoc
http://www.best.com/~ddfr/


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