[Artemisia] SCA Mission Statement

[Bruce Padget]

On a couple of other lists where I play, I saw mention
of an SCA-wide survey of Asian personae.  Is that
being conducted as part of the Grand Council work to
which Therasia referred?

Some random thoughts and observations -- 

At the first Estrella I attended, another re-creation
group (Adrian Empire, I think) had a fairly large
encampment.  Rolling Thunder was...well, rolling. :D 
And yet, I felt a greater unity of vision at that War 
  than I have at recent Wars.  I don't think it's just
rose-tinted hindsight.  See, there was a battlefield
(though its specific site changed for various
battles), and that field was where the War was
decided.  There were lots of other activities, no
mistake -- but the War happened on the war field.

If you described what happens at Estrella now as a
meeting of the "Federated Societies for Creative
Anachronism," that would more accurately describe the
spirit of the thing than to call it an event of the
Society for Creative Anachronism.  From what I've
heard and read of Pennsic, the same would be true
there.  (I have a friend who identifies herself as a
Pennsic junkie, who has been to several.  She says she
has never seen any form of SCA combat -- ever -- and
she never cares to.)

If I had to choose between an SCA with a real focus,
and the FSCA, I'd favor the FSCA, but I'd be okay with
either choice.  The mischief comes from the fact that
we have failed -- and sometimes refused -- to really
decide which we are.  

I used to spend much of my time and energy
counteracting what I saw as bad influences in the
rapier community. I found that the worst influences in
the rapier community have one thing in common -- they
simultaneously demand freedom to drift away from the
mainstream of the SCA, and recognition at the top of
the mainstream ladder.  The current state of the SCA
allows, and even encourages, this approach.

A few years back, one of the arts war point categories
was European dance.  Several of my friends were
surprised that this didn't particularly please me.  As
I see it, making war points for activities that aren't
war fighting dilutes the vision of the war, and
shoehorns those activites into a war point format. 

I believe that some of the best things that have
happened in the SCA have started with, "[x] is cool,
let's do it!" Unfortunately, this tends to be very
quickly followed by,

We need to have rules and an office to govern [x]!
We need a competition format for [x]!
We need to have a war point for [x]!
We need to have awards/a peerage for [x]!
and for the really militant,
We need to have the option of selecting Crowns by [x]!

If we want an SCA with a unified vision, people who
participate in non-core activities have to accept that
those activities will not be recognized the same as
core activities.  The tempting response, "They're
*all* core activities!" is as meaningless as the
pointy-haired boss' claim that all projects are top
priority.  But as that seems to be the default SCA
response, we've become good at one thing -- devising
cookie-cutter structures to attempt to govern and
recognize vastly different activities.  (By the way,
virtually all of my SCA energy has been spent pursuing
what I see as non-core activities.  That has mostly
been by conscious choice.)

The Burning Man movement, so far as I can tell,
resists pretty much any attempt at a unifying vision,
and most of the burners I know see that as a strength.
 They do have some shared values, such as self
reliance, and I'm told they enforce those basic
values.  I'm sure some Grand Council folks have
already thought of it, but I believe the SCA has much
to learn from the experience of Burning Man.  (No, I'm
not saying we should copy what they do.  If I believed
that, I'd spend my Labor Day weekend at Burning Man.)

Just another opinion, and they're like...

Regards,
Niccolo
bapadget at yahoo.com