Bright Idea (Duck!) (was RE: Re: pennsicdance: Planning Dance at Pennsic )

[Maugorn at aol.com]

In a message dated 99-10-02 01:30:28 EDT, lindahl at pbm.com writes:

> > Rhetorical question: if you were a 16th century denizen of London (for
>  > example), what would you call a group of people
>  
>  I hate to break it to you, but the main object of a 16th century guild
>  was to raise the price for something by making it rare. Many people in
>  the SCA believe that SCA guilds tend to turn as many people off as
>  they inspire. I have no interest in being in any guild...
>  We had the same discussion earlier, when you proposed a committee, and
>  others pointed out we didn't need one.

    The argument Greg makes is called "ad extremis" and is an
appeal to the extreme side of any liabilities of negativity associated
with the proposition.   It's NOT necessarily a refutation of the
point under debate.   I Personally don't buy that "main object"
thing regarding guilds.   Protecting one's interests can have
good or bad ramifications depending on the methods used and
I just have a wee little bit of trouble believing that the bad
things associated with guilds have ANYTHING to do with
the mere fact of a guild's existence per se.   I think that
if history has taught us anything it's that our forefathers
were easily as unscrupulous as we and that any system
of governance or organisation was as only as successful and
as scrupulous as the *people* who implemented it- for
good or bad.
                             ............BUT........
    What we know of those guilds and of experiences
in the SCA (and how many other groups we've all been in?)
really ought to warn us that beaureaucracy is a double
edged sword and that organisation is a TOOL and not
a SOLUTION.    So surprise!  I kind of agree with Greg.
Kind of.   The kind of organisation we get and the results
it achieves will depend more on the attitudes the people
in it have towards each other and towards the constituency
we presume to serve.   If we have "power struggles", then
we're almost guaranteed leadership more concerned with 
ruling and exploiting than with serving any need.   If we 
are kind to each other, and search for common ground and 
care for and support each other, then it almost won't matter 
WHAT venue we wind up with, dancing will happen and it 
will be fun.   A "guild" is not necessary for that.  But a strong 
organisation with committed, competent leaders can serve
as a valuable and powerful community focal point.   We
don't need a name to do that.  That's just a label, icing on
the cake.    We need more, actually, to *BE*  "Those cool 
folks who help organise and run that *excellent* dancing at 
Pennsic".   The rest will fall into place, whether we wind
up being a "guild", "cabal","flock" ,"school", "clot", "anarcho-
symbionist collective" or even a "gathering of happy, helpful 
elves".

>  > (2) A guild can have institutional memory, persistence from Pennsic to
>  > Pennsic, and possibly learn from it's mistakes.
>  
>  We already do that.

Let's hope so.

Maugorn

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