pennsicdance: "GOOP" and why I tolerate it.

[Maugorn at aol.com]

In a message dated 9/7/05 3:33:54 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
john.white at drexel.edu writes:


> But here's where me and Maugorn need to part ways....


Ah, the rewells.  We must all follow the Rewells.  Life will cease to be  
unless we all follow the REWELLS.

Excuse me while I don't buy it.

I appreciate the effort on your part to provide quality period alternatives.  
That is the *positive* way to have GOOP dances simply be fads and to have a 
shelf that expires organically.  Evolution, not slaughter.

But to go and declare that we MUST
ENFORCE
THE
REWELLS.

Excuse me while I snort.

The SCA, no matter what the REWELLS say is made up of people and not of 
robots. (with a few impressively period exceptions).

When you start to say that aesthetic and kindness must take a back seat to 
being "correct", you lose me, and you lose the fact that for all it's glory, the 
SCA is a GAME,  and what's more the rules, no matter how finely we may think 
they are crafted -
are created, interpreted, and implemented with a degree of subjectivity that 
elvevates the phrase "Your mileage may vary" from a mere disclaimer into "Zen 
Master style Wisdom".

For all of my silliness, I am extremely serious about this. When 
"correctness" trumps "beauty" in artistic aesthetic, ART WILL SUFFER.
And when "correctness" trumps "kindness" in interpersonal dynamics, PEOPLE 
WILL SUFFER.

BTW...
I am NOT saying that in the interest of pleasing everyone that "Anything 
goes." That is an exaggeration of my position, that is not actually my position, 
and so therefore, refuting the exaggeration doesn't refute my position.   (Just 
a picking of a rhetorically fallacious nit, there.)  

What I am saying is that if you provide alternatives all fads will run their 
course over time.  But when you go and make a bunch of rewells, and those 
rewells trample peoples' feelings and aesthetics in wholesale fashion, there will 
be a social price to pay.  The very least of which will be charges of snobbery 
and elitism, and the loss of a whole lot of very nice people who really 
deserve to be dancing instead.

I see a much bigger picture.  I see a world where music and dance and other 
beautiful things provide a postive alternative to alot of negative things that 
we inflict on each other.  In the interest of THAT bigger picture, I can 
easily tolerate a few anachronistic dances in the barn for a couple of weeks out of 
the year when I can really focus on the beautiful things in my life, like 
music and dancing.

Maug