Re: You Might be a Traditional Scouter!
Bruce E. Cobern (bec@PIPELINE.COM)
Sat, 30 Jan 1999 10:27:13 -0500
> From: Thomas H. Harbold <tharbold@NS1.WMDC.EDU>
> Date: Friday, January 29, 1999 10:57 AM
>
> A traditionalist understands that we can only live effectively in the
> present and plan wisely for the future -- avoid the need to
"re-invent the
> wheel," if you will -- by understanding and learning from the past. A
> traditionalist values "roots"... and a wise man (or woman, or youth)
knows
> that an organization, such as Scouting, is like a tree: if it
maintains a
> healthy connection with its roots, it will live vibrantly and grow;
if it
> becomes cut off from its roots, it will become stunted, malformed,
and if
> too many connections are cut, may even die.
>
> Sorry, but this is a major "hot button" with me.
>
Well, it is somewhat of a hot button for me, as well, and I come down
much more squarely on Ian's side. For far too many years I have
listened, over and over, to people who could only justify doing things
the way they were being done by saying that it was "tradition" or that
"we've always done it that way."
I have no problem with reference to the past. Here in the office our
general policy is (and it relates to the preparation of tax returns,
we're a CPA firm) that things should be done the same way as the prior
year, UNLESS THE PRIOR YEAR'S METHOD WAS WRONG.
So, what does that mean? It means that being right is far more
important than consistency. Tradition can be come a very important
factor in "toss up" type decisions, where neither option has a clear
advantage over the other. In that case, I certainly agree that
maintaining things the "traditional" way would generally be preferred.
So, relating this back to Scouting, given a choice between making
changes that improve the program or staying with "tradition," there is
NEVER any choice. Tradition goes. Being traditional doesn't mean
giving up the need to justify your tradition in the context of the
current environment, yet that is very often exactly what happens.
I spend lots of time moderating workshops on particular subjects in the
OA (the Vigil Honor to be specific) and my basic premise is that there
are choices and that when you get done evaluating the options you
should be able to justify your decisions based on what is the BEST way
to do things, even if you don't change a thing. Thus, if you continue
to do exactly what you've been doing it will be because you examined
all the options and chose the BEST one, as opposed to just slavishly
continuing to do the same old "traditional" thing.
Now, you may say these people aren't really "traditionalists," but it
is always "tradition" that they cite as their reason for doing what
they're doing.
--
Bruce E. Cobern
mailto:bec@pipeline.com
