[Artemisia] deep inner meanings of weirdness

[no1home at onewest.net]

If I could, I would like to turn my brain off somedays – the damn thing
never stops thinking, regardless of whether I want any time off or no
 
Today the fool thing read the “weird” thread, and while I was chuckling,
the brain was pointing out that mainstream American Culture has assigned a
meaning to the word weird that is essentially a negative one.  Just ask my
10-year old niece, weird is probably bad.  On the play ground at school,
it’s the height of uncoolness to be weird.  As one of those weird kids
growing up, I know all about the agony of weirdness from the perspective
of K through 12.  I think it gets wired in at a young age for most of us
that weird is not a good thing to be.  Therasia’s halluncination of Prof.
Helm-Clark knows that weird is just a another word for atypical, but
Therasia’s Inner Weirdo who is still quivering on the playground after yet
still another humiliation for being weird knows better


I don’t think I’ve ever stopped being weird in all the different ways one
can be weird in this world, and I’m okay with that today – but that is
very much an adult’s view of the world.  I don’t think my inner weirdo got
ok with it until my late twenties – and the acceptance one encounters in
the SCA for all sorts of folks is the basis of a lot of my fondness for
this particular assortment of interesting and unusual people, even if the
historical aspects are occasionally a bit sideways.

It is an unfortunate truth that while we do not have to accept the
unthinking devaluating  assessments that many have assigned to us for
“weirdness,” that doesn’t mean those assessments can’t do harm.  And that
is exactly why recruiting the unwise (just my opinion, mind you) for
sensationalist TV shows just because they are in this “weirdo” group
called the SCA is not a good thing.  But then again, I remember the
mauling the SCA went through on Unsolved Mysteries in the mid-80s.  Geez -
talk about be made out to be a bunch of off-the-wall weirdos!

Therefore, while it not within the SCA’s legal power to prevent any
individual from appearing on a TV program, it is not at all unreasonable
based on the SCA’s past experience with TV shows to take any reasonable
measures to prevent the harmful disparagement of the membership at large
and the organization by such sensationalist “entertainment.”  Reputation,
credibility, respectability, and standing within the community are
intangibles but under the system of torts in common law, these things
indeed have value – and that it why things like slander and libel and
disparagement can become matters of civil proceedings.  It’s more common
on this side of the ocean to sue for damages though it is equally as
valid, as is the case in many libel and slander proceedings especially in
the birth place of common law, England , to sue just to set the record
straight plus court costs and maybe token penalties of a few pounds.

I’m not saying it is in the SCA’s interests to sue over something like a
couple of folks appearing on this rather tasteless TV show – especially
when it hasn’t even been shown yet; I just want to make the point that the
mainstream world doesn’t look at being “weird” as even neutral and that it
is not unreasonable under current conditions of nasty American reality-TV
programming for the SCA as an organization to consider and apply any of
the standard measures available to preserve and defend our credibility as
an organization promoting medieval-period living history activities and
education (and yes, the self-education of the membership indeed does
qualify all by itself to satisfy our “educational foundation” status as a
not-for-profit under the tax code, as was determined in a legal proceeding
brought against the SCA in the early 1980s and heard in a US court in
Arizona for allegedly being in violation of exactly that status).

So that niece of mine accused me of being weird when we first met last
year.  And my reply was: “Yeah?  So?  What’s your point? I’m weird.  Cope,
kid.”  I’m weird and lots of my friends are weird too – and you should
meet that weirdo I married!!!  We all know a little oddity, and in some
cases, a lot of oddity, is not a bad thing whatsoever.  I do feel a little
left out that I actually own more nice business clothes than
decent-looking garb, but I can console my Inner Weirdo here since for the
SCA I’m awfully strange in that my armour is my best garb
  But that’s not
the point.  The point is that the SCA can be and has been portrayed by the
tacky and unthinking mainstream as a bunch of weirdos.  And for a group
that’s all about courtesy and honor and knight errantry and learning about
history and “having fun in a medieval manner,” such portrayals do us all
harm – and while we all can use the affirmation among ourselves that our
non-mainstream-edness is good and okay, our Inner Weirdos know that
circumstances like these are indeed things to worry about.  I hope to God
that SCA couple on the tasteless wife swap show (now, why can’t it be
husband-swap, eh?) doesn’t end up doing us harm.

ttfn
The Grumpy Therasia