Well, the trend started way back, and certainly includes A&S awards -- for example, I would probably put the Order of Terpsichore (one of the first ones I received) as an error in retrospect, since many people have wound up treating it as a stepping-stone blocker before getting a Manche in dance. (A fight I find myself in from time to time.) Similarly, the kids' awards include at least one A&S variant, IIRC.
I won't deny that the martial side is where this tendency is worst, and I have a suspicion that that is an unfortunate side-effect of the original rule, dating back to the beginning of the club, that The Chivalry Are Different. But it does show up in a number of other ways.
Really, the larger point is that we have never, as a society, really given much thought to the award system as a *system* -- what it means, what we're trying to accomplish with it, what is good and bad about it. Instead, we've tended to treat each award individually, on an ad hoc basis. IMO, the end result isn't nearly as powerful and useful as it could be; indeed, I think it confers less social benefit than it once did. That rankles. But of course, that viewpoint is driven by my personal views of what it could and should be, as well as some counter-factual speculation of how it ought to have evolved.
The programmer in me desperately wants to refactor the whole bloody thing. Sadly, societies can't be tweaked and adjusted nearly as easily as software. So I am left with the constant low-level project of trying to encourage such change as I think is beneficial, and pointing out where I think a mistake is imminent...
no subject
I won't deny that the martial side is where this tendency is worst, and I have a suspicion that that is an unfortunate side-effect of the original rule, dating back to the beginning of the club, that The Chivalry Are Different. But it does show up in a number of other ways.
Really, the larger point is that we have never, as a society, really given much thought to the award system as a *system* -- what it means, what we're trying to accomplish with it, what is good and bad about it. Instead, we've tended to treat each award individually, on an ad hoc basis. IMO, the end result isn't nearly as powerful and useful as it could be; indeed, I think it confers less social benefit than it once did. That rankles. But of course, that viewpoint is driven by my personal views of what it could and should be, as well as some counter-factual speculation of how it ought to have evolved.
The programmer in me desperately wants to refactor the whole bloody thing. Sadly, societies can't be tweaked and adjusted nearly as easily as software. So I am left with the constant low-level project of trying to encourage such change as I think is beneficial, and pointing out where I think a mistake is imminent...