(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

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

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

1) No, technically you can't. We don't have a lot of rules, but that is in fact against one of them.

Technically, you can't do this. Do you think there would be any difficulty whatsoever in practice?

As far as doing Burning Man without work, I was merely basing that comment on your statement, upthread, "It is possible to attend Burning Man without work, but is so prohibitively expensive to do so, that it is quite atypical." I think Pennsic is similarly possible (probably even cheaper), though also atypical.