ON STRIVING

ON STRIVING

"God always strives together with those who strive." - Aeschylus (525-456 B.C.)

There is an old shibboleth about how striving for a peerage is bad, saying:

"People shouldn't be striving for peerage anyway. They should be striving to be good at what they enjoy."

This idea has been accepted without sufficient question: What is so wrong with striving toward a goal? I have heard several reasons in the past, none of which I agree with.

One is that peerage as an end causes people to disregard the means -- to cut corners. Another is simply that modesty is a virtue to be expected in peers and to be proud of peerage shows some unseemly boastfulness.

In answer, one can say that first having a goal of peerage does not cause one to cut corners, that society generally has a place for goal setting behavior. Also, to say that peerage is not a worthy goal is quite contrary to the prevailing message sent in the SCA: that awards are given as a reward for virtuous behavior.

SHOULD WE ASSUME PEERAGE AS AN END CAUSES PEOPLE TO CUT CORNERS? NO, PEOPLE SET GOALS AS THEY ARE TAUGHT TO, FOR POSITIVE REASONS.

First, to simply assume that striving to a goal means getting to the end with no regard for the path one follows is to take an unnecessarily (dare I say) cynical view of human nature. Is the obvious not much more likely? People in society are taught to set concrete goals for ordinary, positive reasons.

For instance, imagine the child who tells their parent: "Mom, when I grow up I want to be a fireman." Do we tell them: "Well, son, if you really love fighting fires, someday you'll be a fireman." No, you tell them, "Here's how you work toward that goal, first volunteer at your local Rural FD, then after you graduate apply to a small fire district."

It is no different in the SCA. The belted circle (especially) is populated with people who wanted to grow up to be a medieval Knight, and the SCA supplied them with the opportunity. Were they wrong to think that?

Most people will have to change to achieve their goal. And most need something to tell them they are making progress. It is more practical to say 'someday I will be a knight' than to say 'someday I will love fighting'.

Or, think of this as people believing in sympathetic magic: 'if I try to be a knight this will cause me to have the qualities of a knight.' Hopefully the good ones.

In some people it does.

Ever tried to lose weight? A good weight loss program combines a measurable goal (achieving a target weight) with a proper means (getting good nutrition, not simply fasting) and counsels realism (setting an achievable target). All of these are necessary for success.

Now, should we all be so zen that we can make the means all and disregard the end? Perhaps, but I believe most people don't work that way. The Oriental martial arts are about developing self-discipline and focus, but they still have belts and belt tests to recognize achievements of certain levels, and there are people who are held up as recognized masters (sensei) of martial arts.

DO PEOPLE TRULY DO THINGS FOR THE LOVE ALONE?

Striving for a goal need not imply that they do not also love the thing for itself. Although, one can say that the SCA awards do not reward doing something for its own sake. In a sense they cannot. Public recognition is the antithesis of doing something for the love of it alone. A person who finds virtue in doing something for its own sake would find such attention at best as an unwanted intrusion into their privacy and at worst as an implication that they are being a hypocrite. It certainly would not please them.

Most of us fall somewhere in between -- we would like to be pleased with our pursuits no matter whether they are recognized or not, but appreciate recognition as praise when it is offered.

THE SCA ASSERTS THAT AWARDS ARE A GOAL, QUITE DELIBERATELY, AND FOR GOOD REASON

So, one may ask, how did people get this idea that peerage is a valid goal? I would say: 'how could they fail to get that idea?' The reason we have awards in the SCA (in my opinion) is not primarily to reward certain select people but rather to motivate others to emulate them. That is why we pick out people and apply an easy-to-understand label of Knight or Laurel or Pelican and hold a large, central, public, ceremony where people can see that label being applied. It is fully in keeping with that goal that people grab onto that label when they think of the good qualities which (we hope) are common to that peerage, and which we hope people emulate.

In fact, is not court and giving of awards central to what makes the SCA the SCA? The quintessential SCA event consists of a court (or several) and a feast or tournament, depending on whether it is indoor or out. People would have to be blind and deaf to miss that. Given that, how realistic is it for people not to use the words we cram into their mouths?

Why do we assume the worst? Why is 'I want to be a knight someday' not assumed to be a shorthand for 'I want to be like that person who I regard highly', instead of for 'if I shrug enough shots I'll get a white belt.'

Social engineering? You bet. But that's the system the SCA has quite deliberately created by 37 years of labor. Why do we fight the very nature of we have set up?

WHAT MESSAGE DO PEERS SEND ABOUT WHAT PEERAGE MEANS?

People make much of the fact that peerage is a recognition, not a reward. Recognition or reward? What is the difference? I suppose that the term 'recognition' is supposed to connote selflessness. By the argument, a recognition merely gives a name to what a person already is, and does not or should not change their reality. It does not augment who the person is before or after. It is nothing therefore to be proud of. On the other hand, a 'reward' is taken to mean an augmentation to the person. It changes them, not just the label we apply to them, and so can be a point of pride in itself. So, for instance, if a reward is monetary, one is demonstrably heavier in the purse after receiving it. Therefore, a reward is somehow immodest, as it is the opposite of selfless, so it is selfish.

Which is peerage, then, recognition or reward? Let's get real for a moment. It is both.

As I said above, peerage is an accepted motivational tool of the SCA. Peers are exemplars, not just of the values that made us peers but how to act in being peers. And, as exemplars, candidates see all sides of us and of what a peerage means to us, including the natural, genuine and proper pride many of us have in having become peers.

Am I proud of my achievement of peerage. You bet I am, and I believe most peers are proud of theirs. Do I view it as a reward? Yes. Should it be rewarding merely to be held up as an exemplar? Well, it certainly validates my values that they should be held as an example. I can take pride in that. It certainly beats being a pariah for one's values.

Awards are not the sole reason we are motivated to achieve. But given the exposure we have given awards in the SCA, it is unrealistic to expect most people will not see them somewhat as a reward. They simply connect cause and effect (virtuous behavior causes public acclaim, note, distinction and celebration). In fact, we hope they will feel rewarded, otherwise holding forth the promise of awards loses its motivating effect.

Is this a license to be rudely boastful? Boorish? No, of course not, but all things in moderation; It is equally unhealthy (and unrealistic) to require we indulge in ascetic self denial.

Look at a peerage ceremony. It is a celebration, full of happy faces, friends honored and pleased to be seen in the retinue, and an overjoyed, if not overwhelmed candidate. It is a cause for joy. What are they so happy about? Not a commemoration of a selfless act, surely. We do not ask the candidate to wear sackcloth and ashes. We ask them to be proud and contented.

It is false modesty, then, for peers to suppress entirely the pride we have in our achievements. And it is then hypocritical to ask an excess of modesty from candidates.

Of course, we should discourage people from expecting the reward to always follow the behavior. That way leads to disappointed, unhappy people and worse, bitterness toward the general idea of striving to better themselves. But, as we give that proviso, we have to ask ourselves: "Are people being disappointed by falling short of the qualities which we hoped they would emulate, or is this just an excuse for the circle not doing its diligence and overlooking too many good people?"

WHY ARE PEERS NOT PROUD OF PEERAGE? IS MODESTY MERELY THE EASY WAY OUT?

It is obvious to others, if not to ourselves, that achieving peerage is selfishly rewarding. Why then do peers so often feel guilty about showing pride in their accomplishment? Perhaps it is because we fear that this promise - that peerage is nothing more than a selfless recognition of merit - is false, or at least exaggerated. We fear that rewards do not come only to the just - that peerage is not a meritocracy, but instead is the old boys club some say it is, gained by benefit of class, fortune or even politics. For if we had the total force of our convictions and believed without hesitation that peerage is a meritocracy, we would have no shame in stating without false modesty that we are merely the exemplars of what merit brings, knowing that anyone else has an equal chance, limited only by their true merits, of doing the same. Instead, we fear that our pride provokes not motivation but jealousy.

We must face this fear head on. Saying one should love the pursuit of a thing solely for its own sake seems to deny the aspect of reward. It reduces to nil our credibility as exemplars when we seem to believe something that so contrasts with reality. People constantly see the association made between awards and good pursuits. Indeed, as I said, doing something solely for its own sake and public recognition are not just incongruous, but in a sense, antithetical.

What can the reasonable listener make of peers preaching modesty in the face of the evidence? He can take one of two possible messages. Either the peers are being disingenuously naive, or, worse, that they believe good things come to those who wait.

Good things come to those who wait. What harm is there in forwarding this promise? Nothing, but it certainly sets a very high standard for the peerage to follow. We must now be responsible to insure that justice is always done when a person does nothing but quietly, humbly practice their art and wait for their just reward. This does not square with the reality of how circles do or can work in the SCA. I am not omniscient. Most circle members are not. Circles, in practice, cannot recognize people who do not to a certain extent promote themselves to us. Indeed, we do not. Instead, we are constantly requiring candidates to show or prove their merit to us. How? In circle we ask what offices they hold, what competitions they win, what arts they demonstrate or teach. In short, we ask how they have actively proven their merit. It is the height of hypocrisy to believe that we can ask this and yet fault the candidate who shows such initiative. By this standard, a candidate should be faulted rather than favored for using their art to win an arts competition or their fighting skill to win a tournament rather than doing it for its own sake. After all, to believe that that they do the thing with no hope of recognition or reward is to believe that they love their skill and its practice exactly as much before competing and after. This is certainly not the message that we send in the SCA. We hold competitions at all times and all levels for all manner of things.

And this is to be expected.

CONCLUSION:

In brief, striving for the ranks we set forth in the SCA is not only good but should be expected given the system we have set up. Let's quit slapping people with one hand for the same things for which we are stroking them with the other.