Quotable Quotes and Politics

[femkes_follies]

Looking for something completely different, my Google-Fu lead me down some interesting roads today.



I give you a few quotable quotes from the Northshield list, just after their advancement to Kingdom:

"If the question had been clearly
stated in any poll "Is it your wish for the area known as Northshield
to split off from the Kingdom of the Middle to become the Kingdom of
Northshield?", we might still be a part of the Middle asking that
question today without a clear consensus. What the question did was
allow people to come together from differing agendas and live under one
roof ie a principality. The question when that new roof was constructed
was how we would live together and how we would interact with the rest
of the Kingdom. As was the case with Calontir and Ealdormere it seemed
that the prevailing culture of the Midrealm really wasn't prepared to
allow for a clear sense of limited autonomy for Northshield. This has
lead us to the road where we are today some 7 months away from the new
Kingdom of Northshield. No doubt as HE Raito and HE Caradoc have
pointed out there are those of the mind that always sought for a
separate Kingdom of Northshield. I do not blame them for where we are
today or hold them as accountable in any negative sense ie betrayal.
The majority of Northshielders came together to create a Principality.
This we did. Once done we strove for the best Principality that we
could be. This is something that we all should be ferociously proud of
for we all contributed to it's success. Unfortunately, such a life long
relationship with the Middle was not possible as is the case with the
Principality of the Mists and the West Kingdom."

And another interesting thought:

"Actually, I think the word 'separatist' does not describe well what had
happened in 1986. I was working closely with the Kingdom Chronicler at that
time. I spent all my spare time for 2 and a half weeks every month as Lady
Edwina put the newsletter together and I remember the letter from the King
that she had to print at that time. What that letter said did not explain
the background of the circumstances that generated the statement from 'His
Majesty' that the Middle did not have regions, they were 'administrative
constructs'. This letter was not directed at Northshield though I know that
at the time a lot of people thought it was. The letter was directed at the
region of Ealdormere. They were holding a warlord tourney for the region,
following the path of Calontir, to lay the foundation of an identity of
playing together for the region. Apparently 'the lady' of the warlord in
1986 did not understand that the honor of leading the troops of Ealdormere
did not extend to her. She demanded recognition, special treatment or
something and foolishly thought that if she petitioned the crown they would
agree with her. His letter was directed at Ealdormere and caused them to
organize into a Principality. The side effect was to create resentment in
Northshield which had been trying to develope a identity that could be built
on to become a Principality one day, but we were not his target. I don't
think that the thought of regions organizing into principalities so they
could become kingdoms was ever on his radar."

An especial Favorite of mine (especially at the end):

"Seriously, the poll to go principality was just that-a decision to go to
Principality status. Principality status was also, conveniently, a
necessary step toward going kingdom. Some people saw principality
status as an end goal. Some number of people certainly saw
principality status as a step closer to kingdom status, rather than an
end in itself.

But the poll questions were always strictly limited in scope; voting to
go principality was not an endorsement of going kingdom, although many
people did vote for principality status with the goal or expectation of
eventual kingdom status in mind.

(As I suspect some people voted for Kingdom status with the idea of some
part of Northshield soon becoming a principality in turn...)


Old joke: How many Midrealmers does it take to change a lightbulb?

Change? CHANGE!?!? That was *Cariadoc's* lightbulb!!!!"

More thoughts from these interesting folks:

"But the point is that Calontir is small enough that the Crown could
visit every group, every year, between the summer and winter reigns,
even with a shorter heirship. The Heirs don't have to make up the
Crown's travel slack.

Northshield is small enough (in terms of the number of groups) that our
royals could do that, too. There is no real need for a long heirship
for Nortshield; it is mostly just convienient logisiticly. (except for
the Heirs, and they don't have to jump in with both cars, either.)

But for the Midrealm, it's pretty much impossible for the Crown to get
to every group, every year. Or even every other year. Which I think
is a good sign that even after we leave, the Midrealm will still be too
large for good governance."

And from the Stallari minutes from 2000:

"HE Fiona reported on behalf of Mistress Libbet that there were more participants in the Northshield regional A&S Faire than in any other region ; Northshield had 80 entries and Pentamere, for example, had 15.This is typical.All of the Pentathlon entries at Kingdom will be from Northshield.There were approximately 125 attendees at the Faire"

Which makes me wonder: Does Northshield have more talented people? Or was the Principality Faire conducted in such a way as to garner more interest - in short, did A&S faire matter more in Northshield? And why?

*ponder*

Comments

[mistressarafina.livejournal.com]

I think we have a plethora of talented people here, but the faire is not relevant enough for a mass of people to be interested. I think there have been enough negative experiences with not enough payoff in general for lots of people to just not participate. We have many other venues for sharing one's talents

[femkederoas.livejournal.com]

True. But it did sort of highlight all the things that were so very wrong with the last Faire season. Well, the last few Faire seasons.

And you did have to like the lightbulb joke.

[mistressarafina.livejournal.com]

It was funny. I did indeed chuckle.

[femkederoas.livejournal.com]

From my perspective it would be even funnier as "That was *Moonwulf's* lightbulb!!"

I do find it interesting that on one hand any flavor of "regional" activity was seriously inhibited at first (when Ealdomere and then Northshield were forming as Principalities) and now we're so very married to the idea of Regional Faires that the suggestion of eliminating them is anathema.

[a-c-fiorucci.livejournal.com]

Hi, I'm a friend of mistressarafina and I lived in Northshield from 1990-99. I think that part of the high interest in A&S Fair in Northshield was that, often, it was expected that if you were serious about your art you put it in A&S; that was the best place to see & be seen by other serious A&S folks, as Laurels were few and far between in much of the region. Also it was seen as the ONLY way to get recognized outside Northshield, by going / sending work to Kingdom A&S.

In a region where you can go to an event north/west of Chicago every month for several years and be at an event with royalty maybe once or twice in that time, and your closest Peer (of any flavor) is likely 2-6+ hours away, organized competitions are often the best way to get feedback, kudos, and just affermation of your art.

I get the impression that this has changed quite a bit since Northshield has become a Kingdom, but that is mostly my interpretation via acquaintences who still live there (and the number of people I knew then who are Peers now!)

I hope this data point is useful to you. We live in the East now and they have no formal (Kingdom-wide) A&S Fair, but some events have grown up which act in similar ways to A&S in the Midrealm.

[mistressarafina.livejournal.com]

See that makes sense. In a situation where you don't have access to experts all the time, it is logically that people would want to get their work in the faire to be seen. If you take away that motivating factor, you're not left with alot of desire - except by people who just like to compete, which can create its own problems.

[a-c-fiorucci.livejournal.com]

And, also, it helps push the "research" idea. Creativity and artistry are great, research helps inform the historical-ness and can push the art forward. Without a place to encourage and display the research that goes into a work it becomes harder to stay on that track.

[femkederoas.livejournal.com]

I do appreciate the data point. ;-)

In the examination of the whole process for Northshield, I was impelled by curiosity as to whether it was inevitable that the area break away, or if it was caused by bureaucratic mishandling by the MK. I've decided that the answer is "yes." And I'm unsure what the proportions are.

Part of it seems to stem from a cultural knee-jerk reaction of the MK. Which is in turn rooted in the Rust Belt tendency to continue to value those things that make you useful in the sorts of jobs/community that predominated here for years: Adherence to the mandates of one's superiors, doing what one is told, and a general tendency to defend one's own turf sometimes to the point of insanity. And while quite feudal and period, at the moment it's making me a bit crazy.

[a-c-fiorucci.livejournal.com]

Speaking for myself, I was mostly neutral on the whole Principality idea. A lot of people I travelled with were very gung-ho for it, worked very hard to make it happen; they felt that we were essentially in the backside of beyond and forgotten/ignored (but not a lot of people travelled the other way either, to be fair). I'm not a big royalist at the best of times and I didn't think adding another layer of royalty would add much to the game I played.

It was nice to have royalty of our own, though, and feel included in a larger group of people when we travelled. And it was nice to still be part of the Midrealm, since people started travelling back and forth over the WI/IL border.

Eventually people got restive, though, like teenagers living under parents' rules :) and there were a couple of things that the Kingdom decided that were not popular in the Principality.

I don't think it was inevitable that Northshield left but it was pretty likely. Geography, culture, real life, mundate costs and wear and tear on royalty--all the things that made a Principality make sense also helped defend the idea of the Kingdom of Northshield.

Ignoring, marginalizing, and overlooking people/groups is never a good way to make friends and influence people. It always frustrated me about the Midrealm that if you knew the right people you could get/do whatever you want and if not you were stuck no matter how good you were or how hard you worked or how successful you were. It amazed me in the couple years we lived in Chicago how different the SCA was there.

I wish you lots of luck in figuring out your best way forward from here. I also wish I had something more useful to share with you!

[femkederoas.livejournal.com]

Heh. It's not like I could run through the area with a Banner yelling "We should be a Principality!!" and expect anybody to follow me. Other than out of curiosity.

I just find it an interesting bit of IKA. And interesting the the MK for whatever reason seems not to learn from it's mistakes. I think the level of crony-ism tends to periodically become toxically high. And the knee-jerk reaction to being called on it is to insist it isn't happening and crack down on anybody who says that it is. Just my $0.02

[landverhuizer.livejournal.com]

this comment is going to be somewhat unrelated to the other comments, most likely because I'm so separated from most of these going-ons... but

A&S, if there is a good/fun competition going on in an area with a lot of people who enjoy to compete and involve themselves in that particular area (craft/fight etc. and geographical), such results will occur. the same as for those areas where it does not exist. Also... it is more likely to happen if the goal is obtainable, such as being able to actually attend such event. There are many events I would surely love to attend out here in the East, but due to geography, it is very unlikely I'll ever attend them.

As with principalities... since my area is going, has gone, through that... I find it very troublesome that so many view that the formation of a new group with such negative feelings. Yes it is separating and the final result will, and should, end up as the formation of a new group but why people much regard it with animosity is beyond me. The idea should be to let a group go principality to they can grow further and properly function on their own as a Kingdom. Too many time I see the SCA regarding strength as a matter of numbers and further fostering that idea rather than seeing strength as in people who can function well together.
It's not really change anyway, the main core of the whole thing remains the same... it's growth and the eventual formation of new groups is strength in a way. Why anyone would want to prevent growth is beyond me, especially in an organization so bent on recruitment and retainment.

[femkederoas.livejournal.com]

How much hostility did you get from the East Kingdom when the proposal first started getting batted about? The East seems to have some odd traditions of creating Crown Principalities and appointing Viceroys and other things that nobody else does. I wonder how that factors into the process?

[landverhuizer.livejournal.com]

I don't know if it could be called hostility from the Kingdom itself, but some people gave off a decent impression that bad things would come of it, and there you end up with the "but we just want a principality". Even at the lowest levels, I have found that the idea of break off of a smaller group would be tragic... some cases yes (if the group would lose standing determined by numbers) but in some cases the problem was seen as the group losing "power" and "strength".

I believe the idea is that we are a crown principality, even though it wasn't that long ago that we heard that that would never fly. We have also been urged by past Royalty to not leave the Kingdom as part our goal? deal? of becoming a principality.

But, I can't comment too much more, I pretty much wandered out of the ring and into the sidelines too long ago.