SC - questions/kinda long, sorry
david friedman
ddfr at best.com
Fri Jun 16 10:56:15 PDT 2000
At 1:09 PM -0400 6/16/00, KallipygosRed at aol.com wrote:
>In a message dated 6/15/00 11:24:31 PM US Mountain Standard Time,
>ddfr at best.com writes:
>
> > What evidence do you have that the cooks in question actually knew
> > anything much about period cooking--other than their claiming they
> > did?
...
>In this neck of the woods, they made up the guild. They were considered, and
>are considered, the experts in feasting period. They are the names I was
>given as the "go to" people for assistance at the time. As a newbie myself I
>can only go by what I'm instructed by the peers as to their "expertness" or
>not. But the peers here explained that they were, and I had no reason to
>doubt the peers.
Other people's recommendations are one thing to go on, but not the
only thing. One very important skill to cultivate is the ability to
judge sources of information on internal evidence.
Exampla gratia: Last Pennsic, I discovered a merchant, I think from
An Tir, whose swords, although no fancier than anyone else's, were
more beautiful. I started a conversation with him. I asked him (with
malice aforethought) what evidence he had that period scabbards were
made, as his were, simply of leather. His reply was that period
scabbards weren't made that way, that he would be happy to make
authentic wood scabbards covered with leather for a customer willing
to pay extra, but most were not. I concluded that he could be trusted
and that, as I had suspected, his swords were more beautiful because
he was taking more care to make them correctly. I ended up buying two
very lovely (and very authentic) knives from him, one for my wife and
one as a gift for a friend.
Suppose he had answered, as many would, "of course they were done
that way. I'm an expert, and I tell you, and you have no business
questioning me." I would promptly have discounted anything else he
said--including his explanation of why he chose the particular wood
he did for the handle of one of the knives I bought.
The fact that I already knew something about period scabbard
construction helped, but it wasn't essential. To a considerable
extent, if you cultivate an ear for such things, you can separate the
real expert/enthusiasts from the fakers without actually knowing the
subject.
On the question of what happened in the thread, Lars has already
conceded that he made a mistake and offered a generous apology.
I think it is worth, however, pointing this out as an example of the
way the standard anti-authenticity urban legend gets created and
reinforced--since it has just happened under our eyes. It is simply a
computerized version of the old game of telephone, with the facts of
what happened changing from one step in the chain to another, in the
direction of what people expect to happen. People expect, for various
complicated reasons, that those who know and care about issues of
authenticity will be rude about it, so as the story develops it
incorporates "facts" confirming that expectation, even though they
didn't actually happen.
One advantage of doing it on a computer is that--provided you keep
old posts--you can look back and check the evolved version against
the original.
In a later post, Lars writes:
> I was backing up someone who said
>about Balthazar, when Bathalzar was being debated, something along the lines
>of, "What Balthazar meant was that we appear in some posts...."
Or in other words, you were deducing what A must have said from what
C said about B's comment on A (I think I've got that right), not from
looking at what A actually said (which may have been before you came
on the list, or something you didn't read, or ...). Thus illustrating
my point above.
David/Cariadoc
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/
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