Musing on psychic influences

[jducoeur]

So last night was the big schmooze on the subject of the Carolingian Boroughs -- a sort of combination debrief, philosophical roundtable and planning session for the fall. I thought it was quite useful, not least in that it got lots of new ideas on the table, both about why several of the boroughs have had specific issues in recent years, and things we might adjust to help.

One subject that came up repeatedly, though (and this is really the main point of this posting) was the little mismatches between implicit Carolingian assumptions and the way the typical college student thinks these days. For example:

-- The Touchy-Feely Thing. A point that was echoed by all of the younger members there was that the "hugginess" of Carolingia can be very offputting to a lot of potential members, especially female ones. On one level this isn't anything new, but it seems to be more striking now than it used to be, and a bigger problem. Many members of the Barony have spent many years internalizing a touch-oriented culture, while the student world has apparently gotten rather more conservative in this respect.

-- Getting Off Campus. When I was in college, it was pretty normal to wander afield -- Fenmere may have done so more than many social circles, but we weren't unusual in feeling that the campus was destitute of worthwhile things to do. Nowadays, though, it seems to be remarkably difficult to get students off-campus for activities like ours. A point repeated several times was that many schools are turning themselves into little arcologies, emphasizing that It's Dangerous Out There and trying to make themselves as self-sufficient as possible.

None of this is really intended to start a big Borough argument; these subtle shifts are simply things we're going to have to adapt to if we want to stay viable, and we had a useful discussion of how they might be addressed. (Hopefully with more success than some prior attempts.) But the examination of how we have to adjust to shifts in mundane culture did remind me of a speculation that's been running through my head for a while.

It would be really interesting to see how the ebbs and flows of mundane politics affect clubs on a mental level. It's hard to separate my own headspace from the larger scene, but I don't seem to be the only one who has observed that Carolingia, and perhaps the East in general, is just a little *crankier* these days than it used to be. And y'know, I'm forced to wonder how much of that is internalizing the external influences.

I mean, we are a fundamentally romantic club. Historical accuracy is a lovely goal, but the SCA was created mainly from a romanticised view of history, and most people who join do so with that sort of view in mind. But we do not live in romantic times. Certainly up here in Central Blueland, there's a certain grim tension underlying everything these days. Does that feed back into the SCA? Is it just a little harder to throw your heart into romantic notions when romanticism feels like an unaffordable luxury in mundane life?

I dunno. This is, as it says, an idle half-formed musing lurking in the back of my head, and there are so many factors in play that it's hard to separate them. But it does rather feel to me like there is some connection there...

Comments

[tpau]

hm... i would think that in times when the world blows, one uses romantisized escapism mroe not less?

[gyzki.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, I was putting my personal increased crankiness down to age and gout, two very respectable, traditional causes. I'll try to crank up my awareness of the mood of others, if you could elaborate a little on what you think you're seeing?

[jducoeur]

I can't, actually -- that's part of why it's hard for me to be objectively sure that it isn't illusory. I'm certainly *seeing* more "crankiness" in general than I used to. OTOH, my own position is far from objective, so it's entirely possible that my filters are simply different at the moment. I'm honestly uncertain...

[antoniseb.livejournal.com]

There is a fairly large University here in Bryn Gwlad, and the only student going there (to my knowledge) who is involved with this 200+ person Barony is a grad student formerly from Fenmere. I suspect that Carolingia is not alone in having lost ground with student life-styles and attitudes.

[hfcougar.livejournal.com]

That might explain part of why my old College appears to now be a Shire (good) but also seems to be made up of mostly "townies" with very little remaining student influence (good for them, bad for the College), a complete 180 from where it was 5 years ago.

Rural Iowa, to give a geographical point of reference.

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

Touchy-feely can be addressed directly, if not completely, by simply explaining it as a group culture thing which a new person does not have to adopt. If you tell a new person that Carolingians tend to hug on short notice, they'll know it's just that, not that they're being touched with a sexual agenda, or something. And if they're forewarned, it probably won't bother them as much. I suppose our roots in the counter-culture of the 60s are showing.

I can't answer the Campus Insularity issue well. Wellesley was fairly insular in my day (class of 87) but there was the regular bus to MIT, and I wasn't the sort to let that stop me from like minds. But I'm 40 now and the people you're concerned about are 20, and I don't pretend I understand what it's like.

[jducoeur]

Touchy-feely can be addressed directly, if not completely, by simply explaining it as a group culture thing which a new person does not have to adopt.

Problem is, as a few people pointed out, making such a comment itself has significant effects. If you tell your potential newbies (from their possible POV), "Well, there are some creepy people, but you can just ignore them", that isn't going to endear the club to them. It's a very tricky and subtle point to make -- doing so in a way that doesn't in itself act as a turnoff isn't easy...

[hfcougar.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, there are some that are touching with a sexual/romantic agenda, or who act enough like they are (and that is where it gets tricky, isn't it) that it makes people just as uncomfortable. I struggle with fielding this issue constantly because, frankly, one of the biggest "offenders" on the latter count is also one of my best friends. Groups like the SCA (or any groups in greater fandom) tend to attract the socially unskilled, and many people start out not knowing just how the flirting game is played.

It's a mutual thing - the new people have to be alerted to certain facets of our culture and how participation is completely optional, but the established people also need to be clued in that as far as borough folk go, the tide is ever-changing.

And some people will simply be too shy and fearful and unassertive to tell strange older people (especially younger women telling older men) to stop their behavior, especially if that behavior seems publicly supported by everyone else. I know this because I am one of them.

[jenwrites.livejournal.com]

My memories of being a Felding involve fleeing campus as often as possible (class of '90). Maybe those years were odd for Felding, but they shaped my impression of what it meant to be in a borough.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

This has been bugging me for some time. Wonder, openness, and romantic idealism seem hard to come by nowadays. My previous take on it is that the world really *does* work the way it does in the Shakespearean (or Greek, for that matter) tradition -- that uneasiness at the highest levels of government shake their way down to the masses, the weather, etc...

Mine is the only valid experience, right?

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

To address the borough things:

1. Touchy-feely. Keep the creepy guys away from the newbies! I'm just saying. But yes -- my young friends (relatives, mostly; 16-19 at this point) who confide in me have a very post-sexual-revolution attitude toward sex and touching and whatnot. Sex is another thing, and since it's somewhat out there, it's not as mysterious; having random people wandering up and touching you is not exciting or liberating or something, it's random people wandering up and copping a feel. So, yeah. I think we're back into what looks from here like a more prudish cycle, I think it's more like "been there, seen that on the 'net since I was 6, not interested" cycle. Or I could be overanalyzing.

2. Going off campus. I'm a generation of college-dwellers behind you, and I think at this point the newbies are almost a generation behind me; but In My Day, we didn't go off campus for hell or high water. There was a three month period, between Fall Break and Christmas, where I realized I hadn't been off campus at *all* (except to Denny's, and that was 50 feet off campus). If something didn't happen on campus, it didn't happen; we went to the odd event at Myrkfaelinn or something, but that was well after I was entrenched in the group.

Of course, I think it depends on the place. Obviously with, say, MIT, you can't avoid going off campus. My undergrad, it was a half-mile walk to the campus edge, or a mile if you wanted to get anywhere interesting.

[rickthefightguy.livejournal.com]

Romanticism is not a luxury.

More to the philosophical

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

when romanticism feels like an unaffordable luxury in mundane life?

Do people feel that way? I suppose they could, but I don't feel that way myself. I think it's more needed when I'm a little cranky! This seems to be supported at least by the popular media, who come out with an article about the sudden/surprise need for escapism every time there's a successful SF movie (ignoring that the exact same thing was said three years ago about the last happy SF movie.)

I wish the discussion could have been televised or something; I am unable to attend Council at present; John goes for Calligrapher's. Did y'all talk about the self-sorting that colleges do? Families that send their kids to big-names in Boston will tend to be more affluent, and those who have more money tend to be more conservative. This may mean that the student population leans a different political direction than those of us in the SCA overall, and especially here in BlueLand.

Re: More to the philosophical

[jducoeur]

Interesting observation. No, that didn't come up, and I honestly hadn't thought about that potential effect before. I *suspect* it varies from school to school, but I can imagine it as a general biasing effect...

[siderea]

*NNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!*

In what way has an unwillingness to leave campus new? I ranted about it for fifteen years. OK, more like a decade ending five years ago when it became clear that it was a long lost cause.

And the touchy feely thing? It's been a more-or-less continuous complaint from Feldings for at least a decade in my experience. It's a direct result of the "lack of gateway" problem. When someone has to learn the ropes by immersion, they have no way to tell if putting up with jerks coming on to them is part of the culture or not. Welcome to the problems of implicit acculturation.

Welcome to Carolingia.

Staying on campus

[metageek.livejournal.com]

In what way has an unwillingness to leave campus new?

Hear, hear--and not just here. When I was at Northwestern (86-90), most of us rarely went off campus for anything other than shopping. When we went so far as to go into Chicago, it was usually in groups. It wasn't that we were afraid, it was just that we weren't interested; there was too much to do on campus. I knew at least one person in the SCA at that point, but I never felt like going anywhere to try it.

Of course, very few of us had cars; I gather that's different these days at most schools. (Northwestern had very little student parking.)

[jenwrites.livejournal.com]

Back when I was a Felding, we complained all right. But it didn't stop the majority of us from getting involved. And hell, getting backrubs from the non-creepy guys was half the fun of the SCA! I wonder if we just had a better network back then of people who'd tell us, "You know, if that creep's bugging you, I'll save you."

As for getting off campus, maybe my Felding years were unusual, but we seemed to be fleeing campus all the time. Our main difficulty was transportation. Wellesley students pretty much all live on campus, so no one has a car. Could some of the problems with insularity be transportation issues? We seemed to do pretty well with rides, but I don't know if the atmosphere of providing rides for the carless still prevails in Carolingia.

[shalmestere.livejournal.com]

I wonder how much of the reluctance to go off-campus is a by-product of being part of a generation that grew up micro-managed and hyper-protected by their parents....

[jducoeur]

Yeah, that came up as well. I resisted the strong temptation of a rant about The Nanny State...

[cheshyre]

I am not a SCAdian, though many of my friends are and I attended a few events when I was a student at Brandeis ('87-'91)

Both your comments ring true to my memories of college.
While I liked the fact that my school was more touchy-feely-huggy than home, it's different getting huggy with other agemates than coming from older strangers, particularly when one isn't sure about the etiquette. Avoidance is often easier than rudeness

One other aspect not mentioned. I've often heard that Carolingia has a reputation for more rigorous authenticity than other parts of the SCA. May not be true, but that's what I've heard. Thus, while I was willing to borrow and wear garb, I was nervous about coming up with a persona for fear that I would get things incorrect and look foolish or ignorant. I don't know if the barony STILL has that reputation, but I like your comment about the romantic over accuracy, and it's one you may want to communicate more.

Just my two cents as an outsider looking in.

[jducoeur]

The reputation is probably still there. There's a measure of truth in it, although a bit less than is often assumed. I generally describe Carolingia's ambient attitude (which I actively promote) as, "Be as authentic as you personally feel is convenient." It's pretty self-defined, phrased more in terms of personal goals than absolute ones -- I think that fits with the SCA rather well.

It's a good point to keep in mind, although mostly only relevant to people who start out with at least half a clue. That's a smallish minority of potential members, although larger than it used to be...

[hfcougar.livejournal.com]

Thus, while I was willing to borrow and wear garb, I was nervous about coming up with a persona for fear that I would get things incorrect and look foolish or ignorant.

I've been here for two years and I still feel that way. So I just play to the level I want to play and try not to offend anybody.

As far as I am aware, most people here are tasteful enough to not pick on newbies, at least to their face. Their friends, maybe (I may kick the next person that complains about my head covering), but not the newbies. However, in order to know that, newbie has to get over the nervousness enough to know people, which isn't going to happen if the authenticity level is over-intimidating...

And asking people to be less strictly authentic is decidedly NOT the answer. Unfortunately, I don't know what is.

bubbles

[cristovau.livejournal.com]

It seems that the burroughs are active in bubbles. A person who is truly interested and vested in having an SCA group on campus gets active and somehow supercharged by the barony who wants that to happen. This person acts as a semi-permeable membrane for burrough members and encourages such activity in others. Because the person is there, the burrough members feel safer, and yet the person allows them to do things they wouldn't do otherwise.

The model for burroughs seems to be find the leader and get them to lead, turn them into the doorway. I'm not sure that is a good or self-sufficient model, but it seems to be how things have operated. We simply have hoped to sumble on enough leadership types interested in our game.

The physical closeness is a weird thing. I am not an extremely huggy person unless I am very comfortable with people. For the most part, others locally seem to respect that, so I wonder if this isn't specific predatory folks or a general culture thing. Additionally, newer people might see people who are 20 year old friends hugging, but not realize the cause for closeness.

Re: bubbles

[jducoeur]

Yes, definitely true. The presence of an enthusiastic and involved leader-type (whether the Provost or someone else) makes an enormous difference in how the Boroughs usually winds up running...

[dreda.livejournal.com]

I am always a bit mystified by the touchy-feely thing. Not that it bothers people, but that even after eight billion times there are people who Just Don't Get that it's not OK to invasively touch people you don't know.

And as far as it being a sheltered-girl thing - NOT. I showed up in the SCA (not in Carolingia) entirely aware of men, and the invasive touching wasn't creepy so much because I didn't know how to say no assertively. It was creepy because I had to say no assertively All The Damned Time. After too many rounds of barely swallowed, "I said don't touch me, fucker!" it becomes hard to get up the enthusiasm to go back into that environment again, no matter how juicy the other rewards.

I understand that the SCA has a disproportionately high number of oddly- or poorly-socialized people. It gets right up my nose that we make excuses for them like "oh, that's just the culture, get used to it."

oddly- or poorly-socialized people

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

Since I'm not as active as I used to be, or will be again, I don't know how many we're talking about. How many people can you identify (not names, I don't need to know that)? Out of how many Carolingians?

Maybe we need a public-information campaign within Carolingia (as I suggested above) "Don't hug the newbies!" or "Ask before hugging!" or something.

The last time I hugged someone without asking at an SCA function was several months ago, and he's about 10 years older than I am, I think. I don't think I've been touched without inviting it for years, but I'm not a cute young thing anymore.

[marysdress.livejournal.com]

-- The Touchy-Feely Thing. A point that was echoed by all of the younger members there was that the "hugginess" of Carolingia can be very offputting to a lot of potential members, especially female ones. On one level this isn't anything new, but it seems to be more striking now than it used to be, and a bigger problem. Many members of the Barony have spent many years internalizing a touch-oriented culture, while the student world has apparently gotten rather more conservative in this respect.

We were complaining about this eighteen years ago and ten and five and... I'm not sure if people have gotten more conservative or rather that the culture has changed so people feel more empowered now to express their discomfort without worrying about sounding like an uptight idiot.

[dreda.livejournal.com]

or rather that the culture has changed so people feel more empowered now to express their discomfort without worrying about sounding like an uptight idiot.

I would consider this very strongly before deciding that the "problem" is the putative conservativism of college-age women.