From: corun@access.digex.com (Corun MacAnndra)
Subject: Re: awards recognition
Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 03:45:05 GMT

In article <3391@creatures.cs.vt.edu> jtn@nutter.cs.vt.edu (Terry Nutter) writes:
>Greetings to all, but especially Dorigen, from Angharad.
>
>Dorigen asked about requiring courtesy in peers:
>
>>A member of my order (Laurel) recently said to me that if we weren't going
>>to use that requirement, it should be removed, so we wouldn't all be (or
>>appear to be) hypocrites.  I don't think we should remove it; I think we
>>should start taking it seriously.
>
>I must be weird on this subject, because the issues here clearly seem very 
>tangled to many, but they seem straightforward to me.
>
>As Bertram pointed out a while back, what you reward you tend to see more
>of.  Our peers are our primary role models.  We may reward excellence in
>fighting, service or the "arts and sciences", or we may reward courtesy,
>or we may choose to reward (at least at the peerage level) only the 
>combination of one of the first with the second.
>
>If we give our highest awards for excellence in fighting, service, or A&S,
>and in doing so create ill-behaved peers, we may expect to see many more 
>ill-behaved fighters, autocrats, needleworkers, and so on.  If we give our
>highest awards for excellence in courtesy (or some other quality of 
>character) only, we may expect to have a hard time identifying the right
>people, and convincing ourselves we're not playing politics, and insofar
>as we succeed, we may expect to see more folk who demonstrate those qualities 
>but who may not apply them to fighting, or to service, or to A&S.
>
>If we reward only the combination, we get fewer peers, which means that
>it will be more obvious (it is already true) that the chances of any given
>SCAdian ever becoming a peer are very small; we also have a harder time 
>convincing ourselves that we are selecting well.  But we already suffer 
>from injustices; and by this route, I think we wind up with more of the 
>behaviors we would most like to see.
>
>It seems to me that the real question is whether those combinations 
>really are what we want, and if so, whether it is worth the costs to 
>encourage them.
>
>In Service to the Society,
>
>-- Angharad/Terry

First let me apologize for taking up bandwidth by leaving Angharad's message
intact, but there was nothing I could delete and still keep the content of
the reply intact.

I think we need to examine the role courtesy plays in the SCA. I ranted about
this in another thread, so I won't repeat my quotes from the OED here. There
is nothing so distasteful as someone who is deliberately discourteous, unless
it's a deliberately discourteous peer. As Angharad says, the peers are supposed
to be our role models, and if a lack of courtesy is displayed then that's
what the majority of people in the Society will end up emulating, perhaps
not knowing better. I will always maintain that Honour, Courtesy and Chivalry
are the backbone of the Society, and that all other things stem from there.
If we do not reward courtesy, we cannot in all conscience punish it's lack.

I have heard of Courts of Chivalry, and banishments and the like, and have
seen them as only a cursory handslapping during the period of someone's
reign, or more accuratly, six months. After that period the person's rights
are fully restored. I have never heard of an instance where someone's awards
were taken away from them, and certainly not permanently. I will admit that
I am not an old timer and have only been officially in the SCA since 1984, 
so there may be occurences of this with which I am not familiar. I speak only
from my own experiences, and will humbly accept correction.

My point is that courtesy must be something that we should expect of each
and every member of the Society regardless of whatever else they have done
in fighting, service, or A&S. Certainly we should not reward *solely* on
courtesy, but it must be integral to our very fibre. I have the highest
respect for peers who have won their awards through hard work and good deeds,
and only loathing for those who have bantered the Society for an award, or
been given one through political machinations, or who fight only to wear
a crown and wield a power that is non-existent as if they were in fact 
descended from royalty and it was God's will they should wear that crown.

It is courtesy that will keep people from taking more land than they need,
and will keep the cars in the propler parking lots. It is courtesy that
will be the measure of who we are as human beings. It is the lack of common
courtesy in the mundane world at large that brings many of us into the SCA
in the first place.

I'm sorry, this seems to have turned into an impassioned rant. I hope my
point has gotten across despite that. I also apologize to Angharad. I know
it's not considered good form for a mere Canton MOAS to disagree with one's
KMOAS. ;-) But it does add spice to life. Still, I remain,

In Service,

Corun



-- 
===========================================================================
    Corun MacAnndra     |      But what if this hadn't been
  Dark Horde by birth   |        a rhetorical question?
    Moritu by choice    |                            C. Nelson