Re: Jobs and Cookies

[David KUIJT <kuijt@umiacs.UMD.EDU>]

Poster: David KUIJT <kuijt@umiacs.umd.edu>


Jonathan Blackbow writes:

> ... while it is true that
> there are Peers (chivalry, laurel, etc.) that were made that were not
> squired/apprenticed/etc., they're pretty few and far between, ESPECIALLY
> in the heavy combat arena.  
> 
> So I guess that while it isn't letter-of-the-law necessary to be squired,
> etc, in order to become a peer, it certainly (prevailing attitude) seems
> that if you aren't apprenticed/squired, you're either a nobody
> politically, in which case you're going to linger a lot longer as a
> non-peer than you ordinarily would, or you'd better be God Incarnate at
> whatever you do, or else you'll always be a non-peer.

There is a famous fallacy in logic: After This, Therefore Because Of This.
(Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc?  My Latin isn't all that good).

What you are saying is:
	(nearly all) Knights Are Squires Before,
	Therefore you Must (nearly always) Be A Squire To Be Knighted. 

Well, it is also true that Most Knights weigh >200 lbs, and Most
Knights are Male, and Most Knights are Righthanded, and Most Knights
were born in the Sixties, and Most Knights are of US Citizenship,
and Most Knights were born on a day of the week with an `s' in it.
All of which datum were true before they were knighted.  But it
would be foolish to maintain that there is a lower weight limit on
Knighthood, or that it requires righthandedness, or US citizenship,
or that there is a prejudice against female knights, or that any
of us have any idea what day of the week we were born on.  As for
connections to Hanger 54 in White Sands Missile Base and the Sixties,
I leave that to watchers of the X-files.

If you want to postulate cause (squire `status') and effect (getting
knighted eventually) you will have to have more evidence than the
mere statistic that it happened first, or that it is prevalent.

Have you ever considered that squires get more focussed teaching,
on average, than non-squires?  Wouldn't that suffice to explain
most knights being squires without conspiracy theories based upon
status?  Or that knights tend to take the best students for squires, so 
therefore the best students are usually made squire at some point; and
the best students often correspond to the best fighters, which are the
set of people that are the most likely to make knight?  Neither one
of these explanations require any cause-and-effect relationship
beyond that of fighting ability.

 
There are a lot of things which peers consider in candidates for a
peerage.  I will discuss them at length, or my view of them (each
peer is different), if anyone is interested.  But I tell you that
I have never seen a Knight's meeting where someone suggested that
a candidate was less worthy because he wasn't a squire, or a Laurel's
meeting where someone suggested that a candidate was less worthy
because she wasn't an apprentice, or a Pelican meeting where someone
was lucid and concise.

(Sorry, couldn't help myself :^)  Hope the other Birds won't drum
me out of the Pelican Corps, now... :^)

.. I mean, or a Pelican meeting where someone suggested that a
candidate was less worthy because she/he/it had no warrant.

Dafydd ap Gwystl,

Living example of many statistics that had little or
no affect on getting peerages:

Common Trait			Rare Trait
Male Knight			Male Laurel
Righthanded Knight		Doublejointed Knight
Taller than 5'10" Knight	Taller than 5'10" Laurel/Pelican
Lighter than 200lbs Laurel	Lighter than 200lbs Knight/Pelican
Born in the Sixties Knight	Born in the Sixties Pelican
Squire before Knighted		Autocrat <10 events Pelican
Not Protege before Pelican	Knight who is Fellow of UofAtlantia
				Pelican who is an active fighter
				Born North of the 49th Parallel
				and a Damn Fine Moustache on me, too!
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