Is it that year already?

[hobbitomm]

A survey just got e-mailed around canvassing for opinion about a 4th SCA peerage. *sigh* What is it, every 2 years it goes around?

Comments

[loupblanc.livejournal.com]

Lemme guess, they've re-opened the "white scarf" debate?

[sharikkamur.livejournal.com]

Maybe they're just recirculating it until they get the 'right' answer - for the current board's value of 'right'.

It's not even a well-worded survey. I had to re-read one of the questions several times to work out what it meant. I'm still not sure if my interpretation is right. It would have been a lot easier to understand if they had said Do you believe that practitioners of Non-Chivalric-Combat should be eligible for elevation to the Order of the Chivalry

[pogbody.livejournal.com]

Perhaps some people are optimistic that if they ask often enough they will get a positive majority response?

[hobbitomm.livejournal.com]

If only it was that simple.... tbh, I think the White Scarf debate won't be a debate next time it comes up. Drachenwald will, eventually, join the growing band of Kingdoms with an 'Order of the White Scarf of.... X' award. Right now, I think it's just us, the East, and the Midrealm who don't (not sure about the West)... plus Calontir, of course. So... yeah. I think that is one we can just wait, and it'll resolve itself.

[hobbitomm.livejournal.com]

It's actually the '4th Peerage'... the.... "Should we create another Peerage for non-Heavy martial arts, or should we admit them to the Chivalry?" debate. You know... the one which annoys absolutely _everyone_!

[hobbitomm.livejournal.com]

It doesn't seem to be official, so my suspicion, FWIW, is that someone has avoided previous mudslinging, and has wandered into a minefield with the cheerful innocence of a mushroom gatherer who's misinterpreted the trenchmap....

[hobbitomm.livejournal.com]

Well, they usually will! Those really not interested, and the majority of those vehemently opposed won't answer.... particularly as it seems to have been circulated on rapier, archery, and gunnery lists.....

... talk about selection bias!

[loupblanc.livejournal.com]

yeah that's what I mean by "white scarf debate". I've heard this stuff before it's:
- Oh but fencers should be allowed to be knights too
- but knights are heavies only
- yeah and I'm an archer, what about me???
- So let's make a white-scarf-type peerage which isn't a white-scarf
- But archers don't play with swords
- *facepalm* shoo, just go be a laurel or something
- Shut it, I'm doing combat just like you, why should I get a stinking laurel when I too could a *knight*? (cue Monty Python Camelot music)
- So what about that not-so-white scarf, maybe call it Blue Feather(*)...?
- Hey that works we could wear it on our hats :D

...

- Hello ladies...

(*) Reference intentional ;)

No?

PS: If that makes you feel better we've got some pretty serious politics in our group at the moment as well, thankfully a) I'm not involved and b) it's not dividing the group since it's between us and another organisation :)

[hobbitomm.livejournal.com]

Oh, I've come to regard it as just one of those things that turn up every so often. I thought you meant, 'Should the Order of the White Scarf be an SCA wide award, of whatever level'. To which the answer is, 'It more or less already is. The rest will happen naturally'.

I'd be quite happy (actually, I'd faint, but you know what I mean) to be offered a laurel in rapier combat. All the Peerages are equal anyway. Why make the Heavies unhappy by trying to join their gang?

[bend-gules.livejournal.com]

I think the gradual kingdom-by-kingdom acceptance is a more 'organic' one.

Hopefully, if a K&Q approve WST for their lands, it's because there's been demand/interest/movement within the kingdom. No guarantee, but it's unlikely to have Come From Above, the way a BoD decree can (or at least feels like).

A kingdom going from non-White Scarf to White Scarf will still doubtless raise hackles internally, but complainers can vent spleen (or nurse your grudge and sulk) at people w/in your kingdom, rather than at nameless faceless folk 'somewhere in California'.

Ealdormere doesn't have white scarves. It has a fencing academy with its own tests, as does Drachenwald, and has historic fencing favins. The top fencers match dons when they meet them at Pennsic. I don't know how they feel about the WST - I think they command respect w/in the kingdom for their art, regardless.

Re:

[hobbitomm.livejournal.com]

This is kind of what I mean- I think as the number of White Scarf Kingdoms increase, gradually there will be a move to standardisation from within. That's how I think it will happen, anyway. Eventually, I suspect, D'wald will either join the Whitescarf Kingdoms, or will sign a Treaty of Equivilancy. I think eventually we'll feel like 'the odd ones out', as it were.

Although it's important not to confuse the Academy and it's awards with the ODS, or similar. That would be like saying, 'We have a Guild of Caligraphers, so we don't need an award for Caligraphic Excellence from the Crown.' (Or at least, similar!) The Academy, at least in D'wald, is a Guild, and the ranks are entirely internal. The ODS is an award given by the Crown.