Grumble, grumble, Order of Defense, grumble

[jducoeur]

So the movement to create a Peerage for fencing has reached the point of a formal proposal, out for comment. Do I send another letter to the Board?

On the one hand, I think there should totally be a path to Peerage for those who have had a major impact through fencing; I think that's true of every activity.

OTOH, I think this is the *worst* way we can possibly deal with that. Rapier *ought* to be recognized through the Chivalry, and I'm still cranky that that doesn't have a snowball's chance in Hades of ever happening -- the armored fighters hold the levers of power, and by and large they won't allow it. Failing that, we ought to reinterpret the Laurel or Pelican to be more accepting, or at the *very* worst, have an Order that is designed to be welcoming of all martial activities. As it is, creating a Fencing-Only Peerage means that we are inevitably going to have to create more and more Peerage Orders in the name of fairness. If we're recognizing Fencing today, we should absolutely have one for Archery, and then, I don't know -- Equestrian? Thrown Weapons? (And God help us when someone points out that excellence in execution and behaviour isn't the sole province of the martial arts.)

From an organizational-design standpoint, it's idiotic and damaging: the rise of Zillions of Specialized Awards is one of the worst blights on the SCA today, and I utterly hate the idea of it spreading to the Peerage. We like to say that our awards aren't just "merit badges", but that is certainly what they're coming to look like, and they get steadily less meaningful as they get sliced-and-diced more finely.

All of which said, we have a cultural problem: we are deeply failing all of the martial communities other than heavy list, and that *does* need to be fixed. IMO, the only thing worse than the current proposal is the status quo, and the proposal on the table may be the only politically feasible way to fix it.

Hence, grumble.

(I hate the name "Order of Defense" as well. Would anyone care to argue that "Order of Chivalry" is a name worth emulating? I've always felt that it was one of the more painfully mundane anachronisms we have. I wish someone would show the imagination and backbone to give this proposed Order a real name...)

Comments

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

For a slightly different opinion.

I think jducoeur was indulging in rhetorical flourishes when he said it was a worst blight. But I think he and I are in basic agreement that it is a problem, and it is an important but ignored and subtle danger.

Let me digress for a moment, and revel in YOU. You seem to have an unnatural sense of the right way to exist, and to play the game. You seem to instinctively avoid bad choices. I admire that, but I think the way the right thing is blindingly obvious to you, means that you may not appreciate that the right thing is not always so obvious to others.

That said: what do people who come to the SCA do within it, and why do they do it? It turns out that the award system can be both "something they do" or a too-powerful motivator for what they choose to do.

To expand and support that particular remit, is something I think Justin and I feel is a bad thing.

Ironically, for those who do not fall into that remit, when the award system gets too diffuse and complex, it ceases to have sufficient meaning. If I can't remember if "the yellow pony is for service to juggling or music", the fact that others have such a thing becomes meaningless. Plus, if the "juggler service" people are mentally subdivided from the "music service" people, we lose the cross-pollination and support we can provide one another, and perhaps even get a little tribal.

Award dilution not an existential threat, to me, but it's definitely something I think is Not Helpful.

That is different from how we feel as individuals about the rewards and awards we get. Which, again, are more explanatory of our maturity and personality than the systems which gave them to us.

[dreda.livejournal.com]

You are most kind.

I would submit that most if not all of these awards were created to address a gap that, when presented to the existing Order, was not found admissible. So the idea that these are being created as some sort of top-down fiat that is at odds with the populace is a bit disingenuous.

Interestingly, I find that the greatest number of new awards are for particular kinds of martial accomplishment. I do not see a great deal of splintering elsewhere - there is a newish subset of awards for the under-18, and they mimic the OHM divisions of the adults.

I will add one small piece of anecdata - that some of the loveliest forays out of my own little bailiwick have been when I did not understand someone else's award and/or regalia, and elected to go and ask them.

[jducoeur]

So the idea that these are being created as some sort of top-down fiat that is at odds with the populace is a bit disingenuous.

Yes and no. Some awards have been created due to real ground-level demand; indeed, the proposed rapier peerage is one of the best examples. But in my observation, many (perhaps the majority of) Kingdom-level awards have been, frankly, due mainly to the ego of various Royalty -- a desperate desire to Make Their Mark on the Kingdom permanently, which often shows up in new awards.

You can often recognize these by how rarely some of them they are actually given by their successors. There are some examples of dramatic successes that enhanced the award system, such as the Tyger, which are taken very seriously by each reign. But in my observation, they're a modest minority.

I do not see a great deal of splintering elsewhere - there is a newish subset of awards for the under-18, and they mimic the OHM divisions of the adults.

Well, yeah -- and that's one of the examples of splintering that most annoys me. We used to give the adult awards to kids. It was not especially rare to give an AoA or even a Silver Crescent to a minor when I started, but nowadays it is almost unthinkable: the universal reaction is, "Don't be silly, they should get the kids' award instead". I am *deeply* repulsed by that -- I think it damages one of the SCA's greatest strengths, which is the way we give actual responsibility and recognition to our kids -- and AFAICT it is a direct and immediate side-effect of this particular splintering...

[dreda.livejournal.com]

How do the kids feel about it?

(And again, I feel that most of the awards you are tagging as "splintery" are martial. Am I missing some?)

[jducoeur]

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...

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

Your last paragraph suggests the answer to the question you posed in your original post, does it not?

::wink::

[jducoeur]

Well, yes and no. I *already* sent the Board a letter when this proposal was originally floated. I probably wouldn't say anything different this time around. And I generally prefer to stick to Kobi's "new and different" rule in debates of this sort...

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

I'm looking across the Society, as much as at the East, and so when the East takes steps to do things that other Kingdoms do in excess, I have a different reaction.

I'm not as "inside the system" as I once was, but my historical view in the East informs that, in the past, most of these awards are not there to so much address a gap. Plus, of course, we have the awards/orders whose definitions have mutated over time, the many now-closed awards and honors and so forth.

I, personally, don't care for the under-18 "Junior Lite" style of awards. Our younger members often qualify for the real thing - I'd like to see that happen much more.

I happen to like your "anecdata", both for the label and the truth behind it. Sometimes I get the same result when I say "nice sweater" to someone at work. :-)