threadwalker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
threadwalker) wrote2010-08-23 10:28 am
threadwalker) wrote2010-08-23 10:28 am
Ah-HA!
The SCA has fully become high school. Not sort of like it, but just like it.
I feel like between math-club geekery and the service club where I help the elderly that I missed the big blow up back at school where the jocks and the cheerleaders had some sort of internal war. Now when I walk into the cafeteria everyone is sitting at different tables, they aren't talking and they are either pretending to ignore each other OR they are glaring at each other over their bright orange lunch trays. I didn't have time for this drama the first time around in high school and I don't have empathy or sympathy for it now. It's hard to respect the boundary lines and avoid getting dragged into it when you can't see them and you really don't understand why they are there. So I've been a bit bewildered for over a month with the rising tension. I even got LJ-unfriended and I think it was related to this. I could be wrong since no one sent a note saying why I was unfriended, but I'm guessing it's related to the political food fight in Hobby Land.
I respect that others are emotionally invested in their turf war, but I'm not emotionally invested in it and I expect my disinterest to also be respected. I spend my day making medicine that saves lives. Period. Then I go home and put my energy into my health and into my family. There is no room on this list for food fights in Hobby Land.
I finally got some of the scoop on what's been going on. I'm disappointed. I'm sure there's more because there always is. No doubt people are also already rewriting history as they start to look back and realize they've been behaving foolishly. Regardless of who threw the first banana slice in this crazy food fight, Hobby Land is supposed to be fun and I resent turf wars in Hobby Land because they ruin my freedom to socialize with all my friends without being labelled as a member of someone's camp. It also hurts everyone who doesn't want to get involved, especially new comers. Because believe it or not, some of us don't care about the turf war and are capable of having a fulfilling experience in Hobby Land without ever going to a football game. Believe it or not, the turf war makes going to Hobby Land less desirable and it makes hanging out with the people who are perpetuating this undesirable. It makes Hobby Land less appealing to new comers as well and that's a huge loss to Hobby Land. When the food fight gets this big and goes on for this long, everyone is hurt and there are no "good guys" or "bad guys", just selfish people who think their turf war should dominate everyone else's experience and whose egos won't set differences aside nor (frankly) grow up. I feel like I'm being bullied by someone else's agenda and I don't like it.
Looking down the lense into the future, I wonder how many more private events will start to spring up like Erinwood. As those of us who don't buy into this food fight throw up our hands and walk away, we take our energy and creativity with us, looking for new places to play. I'm sure I'm not the only one who doesn't need or want it or want to be near the political ugliness of it. What changes will happen to Hobby Land if everyone who resents the food fight just quits going to Crown events and coronations? The gate count at June was abnormally low. Fifteen years ago the Guilds were active places that drew in newcomers and used that newcomer enthusiasm to create fabulous gift baskets for the royals to hand out and at that time there used to be a lot of pride in the giving of hand-wrought items to the Crowns; times have changed and the Guilds aren't as active nor bountiful. Perhaps the exodus is already happening and we mistook it as the fall-out of a weak economy.
Does it matter who wins the food fight if the only ones left in the cafeteria are the jocks and the cheerleaders? Have fun with that.
"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?" -Ghandi
I feel like between math-club geekery and the service club where I help the elderly that I missed the big blow up back at school where the jocks and the cheerleaders had some sort of internal war. Now when I walk into the cafeteria everyone is sitting at different tables, they aren't talking and they are either pretending to ignore each other OR they are glaring at each other over their bright orange lunch trays. I didn't have time for this drama the first time around in high school and I don't have empathy or sympathy for it now. It's hard to respect the boundary lines and avoid getting dragged into it when you can't see them and you really don't understand why they are there. So I've been a bit bewildered for over a month with the rising tension. I even got LJ-unfriended and I think it was related to this. I could be wrong since no one sent a note saying why I was unfriended, but I'm guessing it's related to the political food fight in Hobby Land.
I respect that others are emotionally invested in their turf war, but I'm not emotionally invested in it and I expect my disinterest to also be respected. I spend my day making medicine that saves lives. Period. Then I go home and put my energy into my health and into my family. There is no room on this list for food fights in Hobby Land.
I finally got some of the scoop on what's been going on. I'm disappointed. I'm sure there's more because there always is. No doubt people are also already rewriting history as they start to look back and realize they've been behaving foolishly. Regardless of who threw the first banana slice in this crazy food fight, Hobby Land is supposed to be fun and I resent turf wars in Hobby Land because they ruin my freedom to socialize with all my friends without being labelled as a member of someone's camp. It also hurts everyone who doesn't want to get involved, especially new comers. Because believe it or not, some of us don't care about the turf war and are capable of having a fulfilling experience in Hobby Land without ever going to a football game. Believe it or not, the turf war makes going to Hobby Land less desirable and it makes hanging out with the people who are perpetuating this undesirable. It makes Hobby Land less appealing to new comers as well and that's a huge loss to Hobby Land. When the food fight gets this big and goes on for this long, everyone is hurt and there are no "good guys" or "bad guys", just selfish people who think their turf war should dominate everyone else's experience and whose egos won't set differences aside nor (frankly) grow up. I feel like I'm being bullied by someone else's agenda and I don't like it.
Looking down the lense into the future, I wonder how many more private events will start to spring up like Erinwood. As those of us who don't buy into this food fight throw up our hands and walk away, we take our energy and creativity with us, looking for new places to play. I'm sure I'm not the only one who doesn't need or want it or want to be near the political ugliness of it. What changes will happen to Hobby Land if everyone who resents the food fight just quits going to Crown events and coronations? The gate count at June was abnormally low. Fifteen years ago the Guilds were active places that drew in newcomers and used that newcomer enthusiasm to create fabulous gift baskets for the royals to hand out and at that time there used to be a lot of pride in the giving of hand-wrought items to the Crowns; times have changed and the Guilds aren't as active nor bountiful. Perhaps the exodus is already happening and we mistook it as the fall-out of a weak economy.
Does it matter who wins the food fight if the only ones left in the cafeteria are the jocks and the cheerleaders? Have fun with that.
"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?" -Ghandi
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The desire for home-schooling is getting stronger by the day.
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I have wondered about you question of private events, though. I wonder if there will be more private events because it's a way to have more control over the number of people attending and the interest level of those attending, not to mention the freedom of being independent of an existing organization's schedual (both calander-wise and thingsthathavetohappenatthisevent-wise).
I've also been musing lately on the relationship of local group participation and the fostering of recruitment and retention of newcomers. But that topic is too far afield of your post.
Overall, J/S and I and many of my freinds are still having fun and ignoring fu in the SCA. Call it our Happy Happy Joy Joy bubble or Pony World, but so far it's working for us. ;-)
?? Now What??
And this stuff is breaking my heart.
But I will say this: it is those who show up that in the end set the sails and steer the ship...
If we all just take our toys and leave, that which was the West Kingdom that we love will die. It's as simple as that.
Re: ?? Now What??
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Which has left me unhappy, because I miss my hobby.
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I've thought this for some time. It's nice to have the economy as an easy way to excuse our falling event attendance, because it means that the jocks and cheerleaders don't have to do any self-examination to see how they might be contributing to the drop in attendance. I firmly believe that people who like playing SCA will find a way.
People who are indifferent will find something else to do. There are many places and ways to get our history-geek on, especially here in the Bay Area. For so many of us, the thing that keeps us coming back to the SCA are the friends we have made here. But, you know what? I can play with my friends any time and don't have to be at an SCA event to do it.
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Yeah, I live under a rock too...
You can send a private message if you want to be discrete!
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Some folks will take their toys & play elsewhere. Others will stay & make the best/worst of it. Others will drift off. I've done each in turn in the past. I dunno, it's a fairly big cafeteria, we can all find our own places to play -- or hide out behind the cafeteria & eat junk food ;-)
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Even when it's true, most people don't respond well to being told, "You're being ridiculous; get over it." Sometimes especially when it's true. (I know I don't!) When someone feels that they've been wronged deeply and seriously, it's awfully hard to let go of, even when it looks like the proverbial tempest in a teapot to others. Since people in groups are inevitably going to clash with each others' values and beliefs, behaviors and choices, personalities and relationships, these situations are always going to come up.
What is there to do?
People can try to talk other people down off their outrage. It rarely works, given how deep the hurt usually goes - whether "merited" or "appropriate" or not, how people feel is now they feel and they don't let go easily. People can band together and get down to bloody warfare, hoping to win by driving the other "side" off the field. That *never* works. Those who see only a tempest in a teapot can leave the field to the combattants. That works for those who leave, but a lot gets left behind.
I'm saying this from a genuine place, because I don't know the answer either. I only know that from what I know about people, this kind of thing is cyclical in groups of people and there's no way to prevent it. If there was a way to handle it better when it did erupt again, we'd have a better chance of a better outcome.
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In general, though, Kingdom and Principality and branch events are open to everyone: the good part is that anyone who wants can hear about them and go, the not so good part is that people you'd rather not see come too. Private events -- as well as household events or fighting team events -- aren't open to everyone who wants to come. So if there come to be more private events, then there's more potential for people to miss out on a good time (or potentially get their feelings hurt) because they didn't get invited. And you don't get many newcomers there either. This isn't a new problem and there's no easy solution.
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Thing is, there's no single drama here. There's many dramas, most spinning off of an underlying cause, and you know, we've been vaguely addressing this on LJ for well over a year now and nothing has stopped it. It's like we all go to an event, see shit getting flung around everywhere, perhaps engage in it ourselves to various degrees, and then we come back home and fire up LJ and write about how we should all just get along. And yet, nothing changes.
I've been asking myself why hasn't anything changed if we're all aware that something's rotten in the Kingdom of the West, and I think it boils down to this: When shit gets stirred, no one stops it -face to face-. I know I fail at stopping shit stirring because I am highly emotional and when I am incited to feel anger about something, boy howdy, I go for the jugular before I even know what it is that I'm pissed off about. So, I need to be really on top of my game to not react before I think, and sometimes, heck, often times, that is hard for me.
So, I guess what I'm saying is that if nothing is appreciably changing in my SCA experience, then the issue isn't with anyone else, it's with me. I need to stop, think, delay my reaction and if that means walking away or telling someone to stop talking to me about whatever rage-provoking thing they are telling me, and risk hurting their feelings or be seen as the opposition, then so be it.
Also? Talking about it on LJ doesn't do squat. It's like screaming into a giant, sucking void, and at the end of it, you've exhausted yourself and nothing has changed. You start to look at the SCA like it's the problem, when really, you have to make it what you want it to be. No one else can do that for us.
I'm hella stubborn and I refuse to let the West Kingdom go down the toilet.
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All of our information in that regard is pretty much anecdotal, but even that has an effect: if we believe the numbers are decreasing we act on that belief.
That said, I don't hold it against anyone who is turned off by all this mess and awfulness and plays elsewhere, not at all; but I have to say that I respect those who stick it out and set good example, and do great things around and in spite of the Group Hairball du Jour.
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Part of why we don't want to play right now is that we don't want to be caught up in the food fights!
If I am going to put that much energy somewhere, it is not going to be a place I go to have fun and relax! (That is to say, I am not going to play with an exploding bomb and try to keep it together after the explosion is already in progress!) I have lots of other great places where I can put my energy and feel like I did some good!
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I agree with several folks that those that show up are the ones that drive the bus. I would encourage those that can't stomach the Kingdom drama to focus on their Principalities and Local Groups. Something as simple as attendence by experienced folks at local meetings, A&S nights. fighter practices, and events frequently means the difference between success and failure of the local group. It's also a great place to meet new people and indoctrinate them into whatever your dream is of the SCA.
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crucial conversations
Link
(note that I have not read the book or taken the class but get value from the newsletter).
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