From: jtn@nutter.cs.vt.edu (Terry Nutter)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: land allocations/hidden agendas?
Date: 28 Aug 92 15:48:10 GMT
Followup-To: The Rialto
Organization: SCA

Greetings all, but especially Jessa d'Avondale, from Angharad ver' Rhuawn.

Jessa writes,

>Angharad, hold on a minute.  You're uncovering sub-texts and "hidden
>agendas" that I just don't see.  

I hope you are correct that they are not there; I certainly don't assume
that they are consciously intended.  I only commented, because I could
see other responses on the net that seemed, to me, to be responding to 
the same subtexts, and I thought it might be useful to evade misunderstanding
by clarifying that out if (as I sincerely hope and believe) it was _not_
intended, and making it explicit and discussed rationally if it was, so
as to avoid the unnecessary heat that often accompanies responses to
subtext as opposed to text.

>Concern #4 did not necessarily contain a hidden agenda to get rid of period
>pavilions, and certainly was not directed against you and Hossein!  (How
>many of us even knew what kind of tent you had at Pennsic?)  

Of course no one intended us personally!  The problem is this: there are
no generic people in the world.  There are only specific, individual people.
If someone criticizes a group, s/he is criticizing the specific, individual
people in it, whether s/he knows who they are or not, or s/he is not doing
anything.  More to the point, the real, specific, individual people who
place themselves in that group _will_ take such criticism as applying to
them, and are justified in doing so.  This is something to bear in mind
before tossing out critical generalizations, else it _will_ come home to
haunt the tosser.

>Once you start camping in any reasonably sized group, it is easy to fall
>within the limits.  There just isn't enough room at Cooper's Lake for every
>2 people to have their own kitchen, tent, canopy, courtyard and firepit. 

Absolutely true, except that groups like the Enchanted Ground have inherent
problems, especially if (as this year) a strip of their ground turns out to
be unusable ditch.  (I mention this, not because I think the group was ill-
treated, but because I don't see any way to avoid problems of this kind, 
so they should be taken into account.)

But I also think we should bear in mind that there are people at Pennsic
from far away, whose friends couldn't come; there are people at Pennsic from
"No Man's Land" areas, who do not live near other SCAdians; and generally,
it may be difficult for many to find people of complementary needs to camp
with, for reasons that in no way reflect on their courtesy, honor, or other
personal qualities.

In terms of my previous posting, I obviously wasn't clear, and I am sorry if
I seemed to be attacking people or caused hurt by what I said.  To try to
clarify: I don't think anyone said anything that they meant as an attack on 
any particular people.  But there were things said that could reasonably -- 
though I think wrongly -- be interpreted as having disturbing subtexts.  Since 
subtext interpretation is largely unconscious, and since I not only found 
myself responding to such subtexts -- even though when I noticed them consciously,
I was fairly sure they were not intended -- _and_ I thought I also saw signs of
other folks showing incipient smoldering in response, I just wanted to bring 
the business out in the open so that misunderstanding of this kind could be
explicitly avoided.

Cheers,

Angharad/Terry