Hmm. Fair point, although that's not how I intended it.
I usually describe the Barony as best envisioned as a very large Venn diagram, made up of many circles representing various activities, interest groups and social circles. That's natural, and even at its healthiest the Barony was always structured that way. AFAIK, there hasn't been a time (since I started, anyway) when *anybody* knew everyone in the Barony, much less was friends with all of them.
The interesting question, though, is how much those circles overlap. Complete overlap is unrealistic, and very likely undesireable -- social circles just don't scale that way. But I *think* (and a number of others have made the same observation) that those circles have been drifting apart over the years, with the amount of overlap reducing over time. That's a dangerous state for any community to be in: without a lot of friend-of-friend relationships, things tend to fray and consensus is increasingly difficult to achieve. Basically, it starts getting hard to get anything done.
(I will note that we are by no means as bad as we could be: I've known branches that were far worse-off in this regard. But the trend line worries me.)
That's not something that can be simply forced back into its old configuration; even trying to do so is probably quite harmful in its own way. But nudging things towards more social overlap between circles is likely to pay good dividends. That's a very slow process, made up of many very small (and typically rather indirect) steps that build ties. But working gradually in that direction is likely to produce more of a sense of Carolingia as a whole being a meaningful community composed of social circles, rather than being a wholly artificial construction from a social perspective. (Which it is dangerously close to now.)
So yes, I'm advocating community-building within Carolingia, but not as a desperate project. I'm under no illusions that that is something that can be rushed, nor can it be imposed artificially, but it's worth thinking about the little steps to improve things...
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Date: 2012-01-26 09:38 pm (UTC)I usually describe the Barony as best envisioned as a very large Venn diagram, made up of many circles representing various activities, interest groups and social circles. That's natural, and even at its healthiest the Barony was always structured that way. AFAIK, there hasn't been a time (since I started, anyway) when *anybody* knew everyone in the Barony, much less was friends with all of them.
The interesting question, though, is how much those circles overlap. Complete overlap is unrealistic, and very likely undesireable -- social circles just don't scale that way. But I *think* (and a number of others have made the same observation) that those circles have been drifting apart over the years, with the amount of overlap reducing over time. That's a dangerous state for any community to be in: without a lot of friend-of-friend relationships, things tend to fray and consensus is increasingly difficult to achieve. Basically, it starts getting hard to get anything done.
(I will note that we are by no means as bad as we could be: I've known branches that were far worse-off in this regard. But the trend line worries me.)
That's not something that can be simply forced back into its old configuration; even trying to do so is probably quite harmful in its own way. But nudging things towards more social overlap between circles is likely to pay good dividends. That's a very slow process, made up of many very small (and typically rather indirect) steps that build ties. But working gradually in that direction is likely to produce more of a sense of Carolingia as a whole being a meaningful community composed of social circles, rather than being a wholly artificial construction from a social perspective. (Which it is dangerously close to now.)
So yes, I'm advocating community-building within Carolingia, but not as a desperate project. I'm under no illusions that that is something that can be rushed, nor can it be imposed artificially, but it's worth thinking about the little steps to improve things...