My Pelican asked me this recently. I also had a conversation with His Majesty Dag about it. Can Service be taught?
I have learned a few things from these conversations. There are those who feel that service can not be taught. They feel it is something you either are called to or not. There are those who feel that proteges can not become Pelicans. This seems to be because the belief is that a Pelican is self-made. If you had been a protege, then you had service instilled in you, and therefore, you didn’t already possess it yourself.
These reasons seem to suggest that the desire for service is something innate and rare. They also seem to suggest that service must be achieved alone.
First, let’s look at the myth of the self-made man. There are no self-made people. You are part of a species that evolved to nurture its young well into maturity. At the very least, all humans have parents and a community that provides for them. There is a biological imperative to nurture. Beyond just parents, our species evolved to have complex social interactions and live in social groups. In those groups, everyone has a role and has a responsibility to that group for mutual survival. There is a hierarchy. Beyond that, our species evolved socially to specialize in labor. Because others farm, hunt, gather, and make, you don’t necessarily have to. Our modern society is built on the specialization of labor. The closest to a self-made man would be a lone hunter/gatherer. That person could potentially depend on no one going forward.
You have relied upon support from your species to allow you to be something other than a hunter/gatherer. You need to depend on others to be anything.
And helping others to be better helps you. When they perform better, you perform better. That is very basic service.
As stated above, there is a biological imperative for humans to nurture. Humans develop and maintain friendships and other connections with other humans. Nurturing is an act of service. And therefore, everyone has the innate need to nurture.
The desire for serve is innate but it is not rare. All humans have it. Therefore, it doesn’t matter if one was a protege or not, you already have the desire for service.
Next, what do we mean by service? Service exists in many forms, especially in the SCA. The service that makes one a Pelican, though, is not the same as the service needed for a Purple Fret or a Dragon’s Heart.
I have heard it said a few times that you can’t wash enough dishes to be a Pelican. The Pelican represents the height of service, but if washing dishes isn’t the service we are talking about, what is the service we are talking about? We are talking about finding a problem and solving it. We are talking about fixing a system that was broken. We are talking about providing leadership in a struggling area. We are talking about building something new that everyone now wants to be part of. This is management. This is leadership. This is service.
Management and leadership can be taught. Our military spends billions of dollars each year teaching people leadership. Our corporations spend millions of dollars each year teaching people leadership. Our leaders spend hundreds of thousands of volunteer hours teaching others to be leaders. This all happens through schools, mentorship programs, self-help materials, seminars, retreats, and countless other ways to take the well-known concepts of leadership and teach others when and how to use them.
All of these discussions seem unusual to have in the SCA. The Peerage orders are built on a system of dependents. This is mentorship. And yet, isn’t it odd to learn that some of those in the service order think that because you were mentored by someone, you can’t reach at the pinnacle of that same service order? That is unbelievable. The very symbol of the Order suggests that you must have and must help those dependents. Why is the adult pelican feeding its young its own lifeblood? So that the young will never become adults themselves? This makes no sense.
Beyond leadership though, the desire to serve others can be taught. And again, the SCA already has a mechanism to foster it. You reinforce the behavior you want. Perform service and get a reward. That reward can be as simple as a dopamine hit or a complex as a hand-drawn scroll. You are teaching people to perform service.
Coming back to the question “can service/leadership be taught?” We should be teaching it. While the desire to serve is innate and common, exactly how to do it can be mysterious. As a species, we don’t transmit memories and skills through DNA. Pretty much all of our skills must be learned and honed. Likewise, service and leadership also require training. As above, as a culture, we spend a lot of resources on it already.
The education in these areas help to enforce best practices, to expose one to rare situations, and to understand how service and leadership have evolved. There are definitely outdated and wrong ways to do it. Hence why the topics of management and leadership are ever changing. Some changes disprove entire old ways of thinking. Some changes are minor tweaks to previous models. Many successful tactics are counter-intuitive and therefore the evidence and education are needed to understand why this tactic works better than that tactic.
Basic service can be taught. The proper way to wash a dish or sweep a floor is a teachable subject. To enjoy that task can be taught. It can be done through praise, through teaching understanding on how the task relates to a larger picture, or through rewards. Management and leadership can be taught. There are whole courses, degrees, and certifications devoted to these subjects. Because of who humans are as a species, there is no self-made person and everyone has the ability and desire to nurture others.
The idea that mentorship and community are exclusive to selfless service is wrong. In fact, selfless service is defined by the idea of both. You give to others so they can be better. This builds communities. By your example, they learn to also be selfless. This is mentorship. The symbol of the Order shows it all: you give of yourself so others can thrive and become like you.