Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Date: Sat,  9 Jan 1993 23:38:26 -0500 
From: David Schroeder <ds4p+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: SCA Update?

Greetings unto William and other good gentles of the Rialto,

As a preface I'd like to say that I don't feel this discussion is
"William _vs_ Bertram" or any sort of antagonistic argument.  For 
me it's much more of a friendly bull-session and opportunity for 
sharing perspectives.  If we were face to face I'm confident we'd 
find our common ground quite quickly, but the sequential and serial
nature of electronic mail does stretch the process out for a while.

William's last paragraph makes his perspective quite clear:

Excerpts from netnews.rec.org.sca: 9-Jan-93 William vs Bertram; authent.. 
by "]ke Eldberg"@meryl.csd. 

>The result I aim at is *not* a fully authentic system built on any
>time and place, but rather a romantic system founded on various
>authentic and typical western-European medieval traditions and
>systems -- and the reason for this desire is that the romance is
>enhanced by authenticity. If authenticity did not promote a medieval
>atmosphere, I would not be interested in it.

  I guess I got mixed up about the nature of the word "authenticity."
Putting together a patchwork quilt of customs from various times and
places -- customs that have historical antecedents rather than ones
made up whole from modern or fantasy-based cloth -- certainly has a lot
to recommend it, especially if the criteria for selecting the customs
is how much they individually and collectively enhance the romance of 
the Society.

I guess it's sort of like having garb and accessories that are
high quality re-creations of period clothes, pouches, etc. where
the leg-wear is from one century, the under-tunic from another,
the shoes from a third, and the headgear from a fourth.  So long
as the individual elements are authentic and the whole ensemble
looks "cool" then everything is grand.

I know the preceeding two paragraphs might sound a bit like I'm
poking _fun_ at William's position, but I'm really not.  I really
think that a smorgasbord of historical customs serving the cause
of romanticism would be a good thing -- and it's a lot like what
we're doing now (with certain large-scale exceptions).

I _do_ wonder at the use of "authentic" to describe micro-level
consistency that leads to macro-level inconsistency.  Perhaps,
like the gradiations of IBM-PC clones of old, we need subdivisions
of the term. (A bit tongue in cheek here, also a bit serious...).

    1. Level One authenticity means an individual self-contained
       item _looks_ somewhat like an historical model.  All the
       "loosely based on ____" stuff would be here.

    2. Level Two authenticity means the item is very difficult
       to distinguish visually from an historical model.
       This item "looks good."

    3. Level Three authenticity means the item would stand up to
       a more rigorous analysis than simply "looking at" it. 
         (Basically, the _subassemblies_ or materials the item
       was made out of would themselves be as authentic as possible.)

    4. Level Four authenticity means that things hang together at a
       still higher level of analysis.  The woman's _pouch_ is not
       only true to 14th century Burgundian models but her shoes and
       undergarments and overgarments and hairstyle and so on support
       the sense of 14th c. Burgundy.  If her pouch fits that model
       and her gown is from 16th c. Scotland and her shoes are from
       13th c. Italy then she just has a collection of interesting
       L3-Authentic stuff.  Likewise a crew of pikemen with 
       unquestionably L4-Authentic _personal_ garb and equipment
       may still not have an L4-Authentic encampment if their cook
       uses a Coleman stove instead of a woodfire. 

I don't know if trying to distinguish among various levels of authenticity
makes much sense, but I find it helpful.  Looking the categories over, it 
does seem that _most_ of the SCA settles for L2-Authenticity, "looking 
good," while a minority strives to reach L3 and various levels of L4.

My confusion with William was my expectation that he meant L4-styled
authenticity, a coherent whole, rather than a collection of interesting
and useful L3 items or customs that don't necessarily hang together.

What do you think, folks?  Do we have a common agreement on the
bounds of our use of the term "authenticity" ?  It seems like this
topology might help us think about the problems with archery that
Graydon's been weighing of late.  Where do we want to draw the lines,
pragmatically, between "authenticity" and participation. Is an L1
minimum "acceptible" or should we keep the barrier to entry in place
and not allow someone to become "an archer" until their kit is at least
at L2.  Perhaps the "Prince's Guard" archers could be the ones who 
had strived to reach L3 and the "King's Own" could be reserved 
for those archers who have crossed over into L5 territory.

How might the topology apply to issues in the on-going heraldic debate?

I'll look forward to our continued discussion.

     Thanks for reading -- Bertram

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
Bertram of Bearington                                      Dave Schroeder
Debatable Lands/AEthelmearc/East               Carnegie Mellon University
INTERNET: ds4p@andrew.cmu.edu                         412/731-3230 (Home)
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