(no subject)

[learnedax]

Catching up on the olympics, thanks to TiVo, has made me realize how many strong parallels they have with Pennsic. From the athletic core which revives ancient tradition (with champions contesting points ranging from archery to fencing) to the strong cultural representations of diverse homelands, there's a big cognitive similarity. When landscape-transforming temporary construction, ingrained rivalries, and a healthy dose of pomp and circumstance are taken into account, I begin to seriously wonder whether the two events serve similar psychological purposes.

This nicely dovetails into two longstanding discussions that came up again at war: first, is there any significant difference between Pennsic and a large sci-fi convention, and second, is the role of martial activity within the SCA truly a critical element, or merely a historical quirk?

Specifically, if fighting, as the Olympic tradition seems to, serves a higher purpose than being yet another fun thing that people do, it represents a qualitative difference between the SCA and other things that the counterculture does... And if it's just a diversion for a bunch of stick-jocks, then what is Pennsic but a themed con?

Thoughts?

Comments

[siderea]

When landscape-transforming temporary construction, ingrained rivalries, and a healthy dose of pomp and circumstance are taken into account, I begin to seriously wonder whether the two events serve similar psychological purposes.

Have they started doing product placements and corporate sponsorship at the War, then? (She asked, cynically.) I've just had the vision -- and I must share -- of some poor schmuck with a Home Depot(tm) shield.

This nicely dovetails into two longstanding discussions that came up again at war: first, is there any significant difference between Pennsic and a large sci-fi convention

Besides showers? I'm only half-joking. The living condition of Pennsic are part of its, er, charm. Completely aside from period-ness of period encampments, walking everywhere, period urbanism, etc. Pennsic is, culturally, a massive display of DIYism, practical ingenuity, physical labor and material culture which is quite different in that regard from Con culture, anthropologically speaking. While there are parts of Fandom which make physical and organizational labor central (the costumers, SMOF), it is not central to the ethos of Fandom the way it is to Pennsic. One of the things which is culturally quite different about Pennsic is how everyone works like a maniac, before-during-and-after (as pointed out to me by an outside observer, the Penn Pilsner masterbrewer). Whether a stickjock, a teacher, a party host, a dancemaster, a busker, a merchant... it's astonishing just how work-centered Pennsic is. Not to say it's not fun, but rather in that culture, work is considered fun.

is role of martial activity within the SCA truly a critical element

My hunch is that it is, but damned if I'm up to explaining why I think that.

[learnedax.livejournal.com]

Have they started doing product placements and corporate sponsorship at the War, then?

No, though snide comments about Nike-swoosh helms persist. The closest we have is craftsmen with distinctive marks to their work. ("Oh, Lucan uses a Tirlock helm? Maybe I should get one...")

Besides showers? I'm only half-joking

Actually, with the profusion of quite good showers throughout the war (and particularly in hardcore fighting camps like VDK, from whom we subleased, and who had major facilities so everyone could shower fast post-battle) I joked at one point that the difference is at Pennsic you know most people shower every day.

Your point about work/craft ethic is a good one (we reward that kind of stuff with peerages, after all), but I think we need to compare with other geek events of vaguely the same scale, e.g. Burning Man and WorldCon. Both of those have strong creativist ethics, and the former shares many of Pennsic's environmental distinctions. Of course, BM may not really be classifiable as Just A Themed Con either, but there the line becomes even fainter.

[siderea]

I'm drawing a distinction between "creative" and "work", and the fact of the matter is you can attend WorldCon with essentially no work, where as Pennsic you can't.

It is possible to attend Burning Man without work, but is so prohibitively expensive to do so, that it is quite atypical.

I'm also differentiating between the SCA and Pennsic. Many people at Pennsic aren't SCA and couldn't care less about what we do or don't reward. They work, too, making their garb, setting up their encampments, breaking down their encampments, holding parties, doing their thing.

So I'm also distinguishing between ethic and practice. It's not just a matter of SCA culture; it's a matter of the affordances and exigencies of camping out for a week+ in a western-PA cornfield in August.

The primitive living environments of Burning Man and Pennsic pretty much assure that work is the norm for everyone who shows up.

Depends on what you call "work", I suppose

[umbran.livejournal.com]

I'm drawing a distinction between "creative" and "work", and the fact of the matter is you can attend WorldCon with essentially no work, where as Pennsic you can't.

I'm not really sure about that. A number of years ago, I went to Pennsic on about 36 hours notice. My brother wished to attend, and his ride punked out on him. The family car wasn't equipped for a handicapped driver, so my folks told me that if I was willing to drive, they'd pay my way.

So, I tossed my garb in a bag, tossed my tent in the trunk, and we went. No prep work whatsoever. I didn't do anything particularly worklike while there either. It was just a spur-of-the-moment vacation for me.

Pennsic cannot happen without work, no doubt about it. And there certainly is a tradition of work. But given that they've already got equipment on hand, individual attendees can go without labor, and still have a reasonably good time.

Re: Depends on what you call "work", I suppose

[siderea]

my garb

QED

[siderea]

Of course, BM may not really be classifiable as Just A Themed Con either, but there the line becomes even fainter.

Actually, I very much disagree with this. BM is not part of the Geek Nation. It's not an offshoot of Fandom in any way shape or form.

And if it were Just a Themed Con -- whatever that means -- what would you say that theme is?

In any event, what is your question, really? There's an implicit.... something.... underneath it. What is "just" -- in Pirsig's words, that perjorative "just" -- about a Themed Con? What distinction are you looking to find or disprove?

I generally hold all things are both like and unlike all other things ("How is a writing desk like a raven?"), and these similarities and differences are more and less enlightening. To say something Either is Or is not like something else makes no sense. It's not a falsifiable proposition on it's own; it's not a matter of fact, it's a matter of perspective.

So what is it you're looking to find?

[learnedax.livejournal.com]

BM is not part of the Geek Nation. It's not an offshoot of Fandom in any way shape or form.

My knowledge of BM is purely second-hand, so I must bow to your experience.

what would you say that theme is?

DIY interactive art projects.

What is "just" about a Themed Con?

It's not that I consider Geek events in general a lesser class, it is that I wonder what Pennsic's value-add is that makes us endure its hardships.

So what is it you're looking to find?

Meaning. Why we (and in large part I mean I) do what we do. What's special about Pennsic? Could we get the same thing out of an event at a hotel? (Sure, it'd be different, but even keeping the level of authenticity (which I doubt is vital to the majority of Pennsic attendees anyway) there is plenty you can authentically do indoors with the same level of creative effort we currently supply. We ignore modern tents, hot showers, and trips to Walmart, why not ignore hotel rooms?)

I believe the answer is no, and I believe most of us would agree, but I don't know where the magic is. Fresh air? Pride of overcoming the environment? Perverse enjoyment of the heat? None of these seems remotely sufficient, though they all exist in some measure.

Maybe Pennsic is atomic, possessed of a gestalt we can't dissect, but I want to understand its magic, and I don't think that should be impossible.

[siderea]

*Ah*. OK.

Well, that doesn't seem like a mystery to me. The activities of Pennsic and WorldCon are quite different, and their societies are not so overlapping any more. For the first: As interested as I am in SF/F (and not at all in Horror -- when did they get let in?) I'm having trouble marshalling enough interest in WorldCon to go; at least Pennsic has lots of things which I like to do, better and more merchants, my kind of dancing and music, etc. As to the second: When I go to Pennsic, I wi ll see scads of friends from around the Knowne World, because that's the society I'm in. When I go to WorldCon, I'll see... some Scadians I know from around the world. :)

Pennsic is the Jerusalem of Scadians. If you're not going there to immerse yourse lf in your culture, then you're there for some more specific fun. WorldCon is the Jerusalem of Fen. I could go, but would only for specific activities or interests since it's not my social set. I wouldn't be going for the social scene. And I think the opposite is true for Fen who drop in on Pennsic.

Burning Man is very similar in that regard. It's more like Mecca, in that, you have to go, in that society. You can be a Scadian without going to Pennsic, but you can't be a Black Rock Citizen without g oing to Burning Man.

Each of these three events has other differences; deeper differences in the ways their societies organize, their norms and values, and so forth. It would take an army of Anthropology PhDs lifetimes to explicate them all. None of th ese differences is itself a make-or-break sort of thing, but in each case they add up into a gestalt of a society which is quite different from the others, such that Burning Man is not a Pennsic substitute, which is not a WorldCon substitute, etc.

When I said work is central, I'm saying something more than, and more profound than, "fresh air, pride of overcoming the environment, or perverse enjoyment of the heat".

Above all things, Pennsic draws people who want to be in a crowd of 12,000 other people who think being at Pennsic and doing the sorts of things one does at Pennsic is cool. That may sound trivial or tautological, but it's neither.

Pennsic is a gathering, perforce and by choice, of people who think spending their vacation workin g on things, particularly groovy-neato-things (for each person's own personal definition of groovy-neato-things), is cool. So people don't just show up to work, but to see and participate in what other people are working on. We do work as a performa nce art -- terracing hillsides and turning the Barn in to Chartres Cathedral; throwing together a choral performance in a week, or staging a 2000-person battle; turning pots or turning out archers for the war points; erecting gates and fountains, and thro wing parties and dances. We show off the armor we made, the garb we made, the mead we made, the oven we made. We recite the lines we memorized, we demonstrate the flashy dance steps we mastered, we throw the shots we worked on all winter. It's not just that we do cool things, or that there are cool things to see, but that it's a whole society of people doing cool things, for that definition of cool which is particularly Scadian.

At WorldCon, people are also getting together to be with people who share the same notion of what is cool, but it's a different notion of what is cool. It's, if I can extrapolate from the single WorldCon I attended 15 years ago, a notion of cool which is focused around wit and conversation and creative ideas and intelligent d iscourse. One goes, I gather, to a WorldCon to talk and to listen to talk.
[more]C

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

showers

It took me four read-throughs to realize that you probably meant that World-Con had showers and Pennsic didn't. See, I've met far more smelly, unwashed masses at cons than at Pennsic...maybe it's just that the outdoors doesn't hold scent in.

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

first, is there any significant difference between Pennsic and a large sci-fi convention,

No waiting for the elevators.

and second, is the role of martial activity within the SCA truly a critical element, or merely a historical quirk?

Totally critical. Without doubt.

[learnedax.livejournal.com]

Totally critical. Without doubt.

And... you would say its importance is....?

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

That is difficult to answer. Except that if you took it away, the SCA would be different (and I suspect inferior.) How do you define importance? (:-)

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Pennsic is a vacation. WorldCon is an event. Let me explain.

On vacations, people leave themselves behind for a while, to have a break. I have an article about this I should just post to my LJ. At Pennsic, you transform into a new context, purposely estranged from your day-to-day life, where even things as basic as eating, sleeping, and transportation are changed significantly.

Big Cons, in my limited experience, are very social experiences, but by and large most people bring themselves along for the visit. It's more like a slumber party than a new culture -- a side of themselves that people don't show as much in polite society, but more a lowering of defenses and less of a leaving behind of self.

Fighting is crucial to the SCA -- I would not have gotten involved without it. I am currently exploring my notion that my current ennui with the Society stems from a lack of fighting. We forget that it is our most obvious, loudest, and, in some ways, most unique draw for new members; I can knit/sing/make booze/whatever at home, but I can't hit people with rattan without some infrastructure, even if it's just "other people with sticks and armor".

[tpau]

i am not sure i agree. i _can_ do weavingand bobbin lace and such without the SCA but i proubably never would have thought of it. the SCA facilitates those things for me. if i wanted to fight peopeli'd go join amartial arts club that uses wooden sticks.

to me, fighting in the SCA is completly extraneous, it only affects me in one way, and that is it enourages my husband to do a thing i think is stupid and bad for him to do.

there are many great peopel in the SCA who are fighters, but i look at most fighters at pennsic and i can't help thinking that the place would be better without them. It's like saying we need frats in college or jocks in HS. _i_ never had any use for them. my HS experience would have been better without them. and i think my SCA expoerience woudl be better without the fighter-culture. i think i am very biased though...

[umbran.livejournal.com]

Well, think of it this way - would you be getting thousands of people out in that field for weaving and bobbin lace? How many folks would drive all that way if the fighting weren't happening?

Around the world, people will show up in droves for a sporting event. They visit museums and workshops in far fewer numbers. It seems reasonable to assume that SCAdians follow the general pattern - you'd get them hauling out there for the sport, but not for the Arts and Sciences.

[jducoeur]

I don't think I can buy this argument. Most clubs, whether formal or informal, tend to have a Big Jamboree of some sort. Indeed, I don't know any even remotely organized fun activities, from Masonry to Fandom to SCA to Gaming, that *don't* have some sort of giant central event. And most of them have no sport component at all. So I think the desire for a big event is some sort of universal, and the SCA would probably have one even if it didn't have fighting.

Mind, I do think that armored combat is central to the SCA on some subtle levels: it informs many aspects of how the club thinks of itself and its purpose. And I think Pennsic would be dramatically *different* without the fighting. But I don't think the event's existence is dependent upon it...

[herooftheage.livejournal.com]

is the role of martial activity within the SCA truly a critical element, or merely a historical quirk?

Evidence for the former is that we don't seem to be able to get the same effect without it. You want to build a yearly large scale event that draws people from lots of different kingdoms, and you need to have a "war." The large scale other things I know of - Known World Dance and the Heralds symposia - don't happen every year, and they don't do nearly as good a job of attracting people outside of their core activity.

If the fighting were a historical quirk, then we ought to be able to have a Pennsic-like (though smaller) event without it. To date, nobody has even suggested such a thing, much less had one, that I know of.

[jducoeur]

As I replied to umbran, I don't buy it. Every club has one gigantic central event that people come to from all over. But also oddly universal is the fact that there is usually *one* such event per year, per activity. Ours happens to be fighting-centric, which is because the club is fighting-centric. But I'm pretty sure the event would still happen if armored combat didn't exist -- it would just be a radically different event.

Consider also: the largest event in *this* Kingdom (Birka) isn't built around fighting -- it's built around shopping. The fighting is just one event there, not particularly more important than a dozen other activities...

[umbran.livejournal.com]

But also oddly universal is the fact that there is usually *one* such event per year, per activity

Interesting irony that the "Big Jamboree" term you used elsewhere defies that rule. The Boy Scouts of America have their National Jamboree only once every 4 years.

[herooftheage.livejournal.com]

But also oddly universal is the fact that there is usually *one* such event per year, per activity.

Three counterexamples off the top of my head: the American Contract Bridge League has four; the United States Chess Federation has three or four, depending on what you think of the US Amateur Tournament. The Boy Scouts have their big shindig once every four years - though you might argue that Philmont, North Star, Ten Mile River and the other mega-camps qualify as "nationals" - though going to Philmont is more like going on haj:one is only expected to do it once in a lifetime, though of course some people will do more.

But I'm pretty sure the event would still happen if armored combat didn't exist -- it would just be a radically different event.

That doesn't make the fighting at pan-SCA events an accidental cause, but the seed force for us. The point is that armored combat does exist in the central location in our group, and is thing that all the recurring interkingdom events have in common. I don't know of a single yearly inter-kingdom event that draws outside of its core constituency that didn't start with fighting.

Consider also: the largest event in *this* Kingdom (Birka) isn't built around fighting -- it's built around shopping. The fighting is just one event there, not particularly more important than a dozen other activities...

You say that because you are not a fighter. Take away the shopping - do you think the fighting would get affected one iota? Take away the fighting, and the merchants will start yelling as that fifth (or whatever percentage you think is right) disappears.

You'll also notice that people don't travel 1000 miles to Birka to go shopping. That is simply not a big enough draw, because there'll be something in their kingdom that compares, or they can use the internet, or the distance is too far.

But it makes sense for me to travel 1200 miles to go fight at Gulf Wars, because fighting scales up. 1000 fighters is better than 500, and 1500 is better than 1000; and though it isn't linear, it is certainly closer to that than any other SCA activity I know of, once you are past the small numbers. (50 fighters are a lot better than 5, but I suspect that is true of dancers and merchants as well.)

It is one of the things that makes fighting a particularly good seed: as it grows it attracts people from farther away faster than anything else we do.

Now it is certainly true that has an event grows, fighting is less of a percentage than at the start: back in the Old Days, fighters made up about a third of the Pennsic population: now they are about an eighth. I don't think that has started happening at either Estrella or Gulf Wars (though it has been a while since I've gone to Estrella), but in both of those cases, the sites are somewhat challenging, being either in a desert of a swamp.

[jducoeur]

Take away the shopping - do you think the fighting would get affected one iota?

No -- but about 75% of the attendees wouldn't go. Essentially all of Carolingia goes to Birka each year, and the *vast* majority are going for the shopping and court. The fighting is essentially a niche activity there. (Unlike Pennsic, where the fighting has a significant spectator component.) Birka without fighting would still be Birka, and would probably still be the largest event in the East.

The scaling point is valid, and I don't deny that fighting occupies a special place in the Society. But I do think that place is sometimes a bit overstated, and this is one of those cases. The desire to have grand gatherings is strong, and I think the Society would have them with or without fighting. The efficient-seed nature of fighting tends to often make it central to such gatherings (and *may* make them somewhat larger), but I don't think it's a necessary cause...

an additional question

[herooftheage.livejournal.com]

Is Birka really larger than GNE?

Re: an additional question

[learnedax.livejournal.com]

I would have said absolutely not, but hard data is hard to find (as is so often the case). 2003 Birka had 1600 (http://www.birka.org/merchants/FAQ.htm), and my impression was this year's was roughly the same scale, whereas GNE (a much more remote event) continues to grow, and I would estimate its attendance at 2000+, maybe higher.

Re: an additional question

[jducoeur]

That's the impression I've gotten, yes. I confess that I don't have the numbers to hand -- you'd have to ask ian_gunn to be sure...

Martial Arts

[cristovau.livejournal.com]

is the role of martial activity within the SCA truly a critical element, or merely a historical quirk?

The SCA accidentally recreates a society as it intentionally does. When I discuss the SCA, people in and outside society ask if I fight. It is a measure of what we do, AND it's what stands out. When looking back at history we do not carry myths about King Arthur and the Dancemasters of the round table or Beowolf the weaver. Martial activity is a predominant force in human history and cannot be ignored. The class structure and right by arms transposes a sense of medieval class structure on the SCA. Without fighting, we'd be much more like a con.

On the way back home Bess and I visited some homesteader friends and I recounted a statement I was told some 15 years ago before I joined. The SCA is considered by the government to be one of the primary groups that might survive a collapse of society in America because it has craft skills needed for survival, good internal communication/structure and a standing army. Without the last we wouldn't be who we are.