From: jtn@nutter.cs.vt.edu (Terry Nutter)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: Smelly steel wagons at Pennsic
Date: 28 Aug 92 19:33:45 GMT
Followup-To: rec.org.sca
Organization: The Rialto

Greetings all, especially Aryk, from Angharad ver' Rhuawn.  On automobiles 
at Pennsic, Aryk writes,

{description of various nastinesses deleted}

>Angharad suggested that rather than charging a user fee to bring a car into
>camp, the automobile regulations should be enforced by means of courts of
>chivalry and as a matter of honour and reputation.  The issue of the number
>of traffic violations such a court would have to decide is a matter for the
>planners of the War.  

I didn't really have in mind that everyone who does something naughty be 
brought up before a Court of Chivalry.  That was an afterthought, for those
of our people who are just conspicuously outrageously out of line.

>                      I would instead address the fact that honour is not a
>universal currency at the Pennsic War. 

Actually, this was kind of my point.  At least among our people, I would like
to see "honor consciousness" raised.  What bothers me most, I think, is the
flat assumption that everyone will be dishonorable, and that that is somehow
OK, we should just resort to some other means of control.  (1) People tend to
live down to low expectations.  (2) People are much more likely to live _up_
to a standard if that standard is openly ascribed to, and if it is openly
clear that not to do so does not make you clever, it makes you rude, crude,
and socially unacceptable.

We tend to be a very accepting group in terms of allowing for minimal or odd
socializations, etc., and I think that is a good thing.  But sometimes, we
cross the line from "It's okay if you come in not knowing all the social
rules" to "We can't say they can't {lie/cheat/break faith}, because that's
not an accepting way to be."  I think the difference between the two is
important, and that it makes a very real difference to how people act if
you assert the first, but vehemently deny the second.

{lots more good stuff deleted}

>                                                                the king of
>Kingdom A is going home in two weeks, and doesn't care what the people in
>Kingdom B think of him.

Actually, not always true: consider that there are royal peers with really
good national reputations, and a few with really bad ones.  I've met several
in the second class, and none of them are happy about being there.

Also, it's not just the people in Kingdom B who will know him for a dishonorable
lout; it's also at least some of those back home.

>Also keep in mind that not everybody at Pennsic is a socialised Scadian.
>There are a lot of people who are not in the SCA during the year who come
>to Pennsic.  

This, of course, is the serious problem with trying to use _only_ social
pressure.  My personal enforcement preference for persistent and egregious
offenders is to remove them from the site.  But that's not widely shared.
(And I do sympathize with autocrats who may not quite be ready to eject
royalty.)

{more deletions}

>The root of the car problem is that there is no consistent policy, and 
>enforcement is very spotty from one year to the next, even from one week
>of war to the next.  Are cars allowed on site?  Yes.  Are they allowed to
>stay in camp?  No.  How long is a car permitted to stay in camp?  An hour?
>A day?  Two days?  Nobody knows.  If you come to war early enough, you can
>keep your car in your camp every day for the first week, and maybe long into
>the second.  Then suddenly you find a piece of red tape on your window,
>and maybe they'll tow you.  Or maybe you'll take the tape off and move your
>car to the other side of your camp.  Are you allowed to have a garage tent
>in your camp?  No.  Is it routinely done?  Yes.
>
>I say:  Set a policy, make it workable, make it enforceable, then make it
>work and enforce it.  User fee?  Why not?  No cars on site during the war?
>Just make the carts available.  But for gosh sakes make it consistent.
>
>Aryk Nusbacher

Well, I'd hate to see someone try to use the carts to unload or to load 
my camping stuff -- or actually, I'd probably have a gas watching, so 
long as I didn't have to participate, and didn't know the poor souls who
did, so didn't identify with them  ;^/ -- but for the rest, yes, you are 
right: we need a consistent policy we are willing to enforce, and then the 
courage to enforce it -- whatever the sanctions.

I just hate to see us relying _exclusively_ on a class of sanction that 
assumes that we will all cheat.  It sort of makes a probable bad thing
certain.

Cheers,

Angharad/Terry