AwakeEnergyScouter

As an old scout from a country which very much eschews authoritarianism, so much so that there are only suggestions (no rules) for where to put what badge on the scout shirt, perhaps I can help. We always wore our scout shirts (only thing we had as part of a "uniform") during scouting events, because our leaders required it and they always wore them. I don't really know what a field uniform is, and this stuff about class X and Y uniforms here confused me a lot initially. And scout socks - really?? Still, I bought it all because while it seems a little over the top and sloppy at the same time (socks are part of the uniform, but t-shirts are ok?), it is de facto how we show that we are scouts representing the movement because it always has been. Yes, one could do it a different way. Absolutely. One could also show that one is reigning monarch in some other way than a kingdom apple, a spire, a kingdom key, and a crown. Symbols are all empty of inherent meaning. But because this is because that is, and that is not because this is not, symbols get their meaning from sequences of societal events that one cannot, as a practical matter, ignore and expect success. Only dedicated anti-monarchists would support getting rid of the contents of the Royal Treasure Chamber. The crowns and scepters and whatnot is part of our history as a people and a nation. Getting rid of them feels dangerously close to trying to erase history. Take the swastika, for example. It had one meaning for centuries, and then due to unfortunate sequences of events the meaning changed completely in at least Europe and the Anglophone countries. Even though it is historically correct to say that the current associations isn't its "true" meaning, European and Anglophone people will associate it with the Nazis regardless of what you mean by it, and it's such a common and strong association that it isn't in anyone's individual power to change it. Time for the association to fade is required. That we scouts are defined by wearing our shirts and neckerchiefs is an incredibly strong association, because it is one of our forms that we have all, worldwide, carried on since the start. The form isn't absolute - we have different shirt colors, different design specifics (ours have no epaulets, probably because that does feel a bit military and we are absolutely not that), and a plethora of different badges meaning different things. Same for neckerchiefs. But we all have some kind of Western collared shirt with front pockets with badges and neckerchiefs. Because that's what a scout looks like in people's minds, and always has been. No sports team has ever had the convention for over 100 years that coaches wear anything in particular. A better analogy is that one sports team decided jerseys with numbers were no good and decided to have everyone just play in whatever they wanted instead. They could do that, but there would be consequences because they would be bucking strong expectations. Without a strong reason (human rights or justice) to take the consequences, why do it? When I was a scout myself, I didn't really understand why our leaders were on us so much about wearing our shirts. But now that I'm older, I understand. At the time, it seemed like we singled ourselves out as weird. But that's part of the point. Are you willing to publicly take a stand for the scout oath and law, even if it doesn't make you cool or popular? Wearing the shirt is practice in being willing to stand and work for scouting publicly, because everyone who sees you instantly knows you're a scout.

Yes, thank you! I am not familiar with West because I wasn't a scout in the US. I'll Google him. My assumption was that something about him personally and/or this particular quote that set him apart from general scouting values was your point, since your post focused on him as a person, but that society would work so much better as well as prevent problems like the KKK is everyone practiced scouting values makes perfect sense!

I'll be honest, I don't really understand what you're saying here due to not being sure what being referenced where. I certainly agree that the KKK shouldn't be lionized (or even considered morally neutral), but basic tenets of... The KKK??? Or the BSA? Or the scouting movement as a whole? Of course religion is personal and the BSA like Western societies in general have no problems with private expressions of religion, but why use the KKK's relatively minor ethics flaw of disapproving of one Christian sect as an example of religious discrimination? Is religious discrimination of Christians even a problem in BSA? It's hard to imagine, so if it is more current and direct examples would be more helpful in that case. I don't know much about this West guy, so I can't guess what you think he'd disapprove of, other than perhaps things like scouts watching movies over LTE on campouts. So, I find myself thoroughly confused! What about the original quote did you think that the public would wish to note?

Well, the super obvious call to moral clarity with respect to the KKK has nothing to do with religion. Surely I don't need to point out that the main ethical problem with the KKK is murder and terrorism. Their religious preferences are small potatoes in comparison. They certainly had no problems killing non-Catholic Christians, as I understand it, so how sincere it even was seems in question.

It's in the topic, so it rests upon the correctness of the implicit claim that the quote is about the KKK. As is that the quote is primarily about Catholicism. Neither is clearly stated in the quote itself.

Wait, his problem with the Klan was that they were anti-Catholic?? Is that really a correct interpretation? 😱 Is there more that he said that changes the implications here? Because this sounds awful otherwise 🫣

Bet that guy used up a whole bottle of sunscreen. Or, had wicked sunburn on the areas that are almost always covered in sunlight 😂 We need to find effective ways to remind people that scouts is the original outdoorsy life organization. Outdoor adventure with friends is totally our wheelhouse! (And that you don't need to start your own scout-like group for people to be friendly towards you, because everyone is welcome in ours. Someone suggested Spiral Scouts to me the other day, thinking that we might be a better fit there.) I was at REI the other day, and they've got family camping classes. How to go camping as a family! We're that, but with a side of camping friends, too! 🏕️🤗⚜️ Wonder if they'd post a pack recruitment flier on the community events board?

https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/gets-real-puyallup-man-waits-60-years-be-recognized-eagle-scout/4B2V3PQ6YFE6NPVKHGKGUI52DY/ What an exemplary scout. Many might have been bitter, and not unjustifiably so. But he knew in his heart he was worthy, and now everyone else is equally clear on that ♥️

I was thinking several years later, but if the row is really tough then maybe next lifetime 😂 But, Angulimala went from serial killer to enlightened in one lifetime so you never know 😄 I'm curious about the older scout situation, too - did being confined to camp result in the other scouts looking down on the undisciplined scouts? Childrearing practices vary by culture, so I don't know if it makes sense to expect this, but if that had happened in my troop the offending scout would probably have been socially demoted to errand boy/girl.

You're welcome, although it was entirely due to chance since I either never heard of this back in the 90s or forgot about it. I wasn't living in the US then, and my top news memories from the 1990s were Śrebrenica and Estonia (the ferry) 😄

Sorry, what is their current stance if not allyship? I tried googling but all the results suggest that WF has a solid history of supporting the LGBTQIA movement. Not to say I think large corporations have great moral compasses or anything, just not sure what exactly is duplicitous in this particular case. I'm not on FB.

People who grew up in an environment that taught them that rules are imposed by force by others and breaking them is fine as long as you don't get caught are not in a good position to notice the causal connections between different kinds of thoughts, speech, and actions and what happens in the "outside" world. They are ignorant of how cause and effect create a chain of links that entraps them in circles of unnecessary pain and personal suffering in the end. Not sure if this was your scouts or not, @qwazse, but one way or the other they do not perceive clearly... Yet, one hopes. Hopefully, being sent home helps that scout think through cause and effect better in the future. The older scouts... Yikes. Last day of camp, so now we can do anything? No true discipline. Hopefully, they can look back at that (wrong) view later and connect the dots. Seeing clearly what is needed and doing it whether you feel like it or not requires some experience of both not seeing clearly and seeing but not doing, hopefully this is mud for a beautiful lotus to grow in.

I agree completely. Many in US society (like many developed societies)- across political affiliations and social groups and all kinds of other ways of grouping people - are disconnected from the natural sense of being alive and awake to experience it that we all can tap into. In part that's because we don't spend enough time talking about that feeling of energy and flow to notice that we can be more or less connected with that, and what having it stream through you vs being completely disconnected from it and not even being sure that it exists, feels like. We are not actively exploring what it is to be a human being, how being a human works, and as a result we remain ignorant of how psychological cause and effect can move us either in a downward spiral or an upward spiral. But we all sense that there's up and down and we'd rather be going upwards, and that's where the need remains. We want to be mentally awake. What is the point, indeed? That could be an expression of depression or a crisp philosophical question. When we are tapped into the energy of life, we don't have to have a conceptual answer in mind into order to be excited to explore.

You're right, @RememberSchiff. Being politically unaligned is a key part of the scouting "container", and now that we're having this conversation I realize this is also practically important to say out loud repeatedly. That @Eagledadisn't aware of any obviously "blue" families joining could actually be a great sign in that sense - hopefully, we wouldn't be so clear on how parents in scouting families vote because they choose to de-emphasize that at scouting events. Precisely because we don't talk politics I don't actually know what the rest of our pack committee votes for, but demographically it's quite likely that we have a mix of political opinions. I also think it's generally true that people want and expect a break from politics when they go scouting. I wish the parents in the shirts disparaging political candidates wore something else, but since it hasn't affected activities and political talk hasn't started I also can't imagine myself (or someone else from pack leadership) walking over to them to tell them to stop wearing the shirts because what are we, the clothing police? However, what counts as "political" may vary, and based on what I've seen I think the lagging public awareness of BSA membership policy changes in and of itself can amplify the big-deal-ness of previously excluded youth for the youth. When my scout and I started our first year selling popcorn door to door, it was obvious that girls and boys scouting together is normal and unworthy of comment or attention because that's how it's been for mom and grandpa. Then, neighbor after neighbor after neighbor had a reaction to our genders, working through their own feelings, positive or negative, about girls and boys scouting together. None of them meant to make it a big deal, but the bigness of the deal just kept growing as more people had their personal reactions to BSA policy changes or thought we were selling cookies. One neighbor ran to fetch their French exchange student to see real American girl scouts, which we were unfortunately not, especially not me. My scout got more and more annoyed at being put in a box they weren't in, and suddenly girls in BSA and the existence of a second aligned scouting organization became something to explain and talk about as an issue instead of just getting on with the popcorn selling to fund canoe rentals and campground fees. Scouting is clearly super-duper gendered to the max in people's minds in the US, and that isn't going to unwind quickly. In my mind, and I assume that of Swedish people in general, scouting is ungendered. It's simply unrelated to gender. So there's absolutely nothing to say about that. You don't start conversations about random unrelated things. Wearing my old scout shirt with the fleur-de-lis is like a magnet for opinions on girls in BSA. The two super angry rants were precipitated by it, and a scout at a council event saw the lily and made a beeline to talk to me as soon as he had a chance to understand why it was there. Scouts and scouters in our pack have asked about it, but in a friendly way of course. The only scouter (to my knowledge) who's gotten it straight away was a former scout who went to a World Jamboree who had the inverse experience of showing up to realize they were in a sea of together-scouters as a little island of gender-segregated scouts. So, my personal choice here is to never wear my old shirt and effectively hide my own scouting experience or accept that I will have to deal with the ongoing attention and what some might consider politics. I would love to just get on with the scouting as we did when I was a scout myself, but there is a collective emotional reaction and processing of BSA's policy changes that's rolling around both inside and outside BSA and while some scouts can duck it, a lot of them can't, and so there's no choice but to just wade through it. And for the record, I find it wrong that GSUSA excludes boys and men, and quite aggressively so from what I hear. I do say that. It's true that it's not a generally heard opinion but especially now, I think it should be heard. It's of course easy for me to say but I think GSUSA and BSA should just stop faffing about and merge. BSA should definitely change its name, because people are using "it's in the name!!!" as an argument for why girls shouldn't be allowed. (Other than the Internet, both angry ranters threw that out there.) The hyperfocus on certain subgroups of scouts isn't coming from those scouts themselves, it's coming from... drum roll... adults, like @Eagledadwas saying. Getting really worked up about the focus just creates more focus. What we can realistically do here is to try to figure out what will help the entire society just digest this as the status quo in no need of particular attention. Having lived this state of being as a scout myself I know it's quite possible. I tried to find more information on these patches for girls, people of color, and was it LGBTQIA people? I can't find anything. Anyone got a link?

I agree, but at least in our pack some parents' clothes are political identity statements so there's no not knowing. Luckily we haven't had politicization of actual activities, but some folks really, really identify with a political "tribe" and want everyone to know it. Most of those families are new to scouting so they may not have realized that we're not a political movement but a civic one.

So glad to hear this! 🥰 Hope your scout continues to get to just do their thing throughout their scouting career. And that those kinds of stories get told as they happen. Scouting is for everyone.

But "blue" families must extend their genuine welcome to "red" families as this happens, too. All differences between people are, in the ultimate view, no more real than the reflection of the moon in water is real. It is all an illusion.

I suspect it is not generally obvious why I am so focused (in a different thread) on the importance of being very clear, inside and outside BSA, that everyone is welcome. In order to not introduce even more to that thread, here is why, in the form of a somewhat poetically phrased view. I think you will recognize how this works in your own experience. We each have a golden sun of goodness in our hearts, a sun of compassion and wisdom that is the essence of all beings. This gift is available to us day or night, always shining. It is the source of all happiness. It is open like the sky, accommodating all possibilities. It is majestic like a mountain, immovable in its conviction. It is like freshly fallen snow, awake and cheerful. It is like a lush forest, natural and harmonious. It is like a great breeze, refreshing and alive. It is the missing piece that was never missing in the first place. It is our inherent human dignity, what we bow to when we say namaste and what we want to protect with universal human rights. When beings recognize this sun of goodness and develop doubtless confidence in it, the sky of possibilities opens up and the river of human intelligence comes flooding in. Flowers of love and compassion can sprout. Trees of strength and confidence grow. We feel content and complete as human beings, with strong character, love, and intelligence. But when we do not recognize our inherent goodness, we are trapped in doubt and fear, and the world closes and becomes solid. Issues become big. Problems seem insurmountable. Life's flow becomes speedy and chaotic. The mind becomes sensitive and nervous. Every small pain and minor irritation becomes distracting. Our energy is low; our vitality appears to be waning day by day. Socially, we have difficulty getting along with others. We become territorial, and anger arises at anything and anybody. In this state, we mindlessly create karma instead of purifying it, perpetually putting into motion negative scenarios that come back to haunt us. The scope of our life diminishes, and we either aspire to do less and less or panic and become overly ambitious. So when we do not clearly proclaim the existence of primordial goodness, negative forces gain momentum, we become emotionally tight and unapproachable, even minor gestures of love and kindness become difficult. We create social imbalance. But we can avoid all this by simply acknowledging our inherent human worthiness, the rightness of being here as we are. In order to choose the path of luminous brilliance, we have to stay in touch with our own inherent dignity and acknowledge that of others. We need to think it, but we also need to say it and show it. When we are a good friend to new scouts (and scouters), when we create a culture where we are friendly, helpful, kind, courteous, cheerful, and loyal to everyone who wants to scout with BSA, whether they are "like us" or not, we unleash that warm wisdom and river of human intelligence for both ourselves and others. This, in turn, sets the whole organization on the path of virtue that scouting builds on, especially for the scouts who may not have found their place in the world yet. If scouts and scouters aren't sure if they're welcome, then the disharmonious path starts creeping in. We prevent that by making sure that everyone is - and feels - welcome.

We're obviously in very different places with this. I'm very confident scouting and its values are evergreen, simply because being a tween and teenager is hard and scouting is an accepting, loving environment outside both the family and schools where youth can test their wings and explore who they are in a constructive and facilitated way. Being out in nature often gives you spiritual experiences and being little model societies in the patrol and troop also shows you why virtue matters as a practical matter, not just as a philosophical one. Why would US culture in particular be unable to handle a values-based program? What are you seeing that makes you so pessimistic about scouting?

Glad to hear! I agree that evaluating decisions in view of a long-term view is important, of course it is. But when we slip from talking about our values to talking about membership strategy without clearly switching frames, it can easily give the unintentional impression that our true priority is membership numbers, á lá "what you measure is what you get". Curious minds will wonder what happened to membership numbers when membership policy is changed. But if the basis for the membership policy change was values, then there's a natural restriction on how one might take action on the numbers, which I don't often see mentioned. One hopes that's because it's taken for granted, but it's clearer if we explicitly say it.

Not sure I follow here, @ToKindle96 - would you be fine with kicking Eagle1993's gay trans scout out if membership numbers went up as a result?

@Eagledad So glad to hear! I was actually primarily talking about youth, though, but I assume the adult part wasn't key? Not that cold-shouldering adults is ok, it's just that adults have more resources to handle it and less likely to take it as a reflection of their inherent human value than youth are.

Those who are attracted to the scouting movement, do you welcome all of them?

So... Who welcomes everyone? ⚜️🌼💎

I don't know about that. I've personally been at the receiving end of two very angry (one bordering on aggressive) tirades about how wrong it is that women are allowed to be BSA scouts. The one that made me step back in case of violence was while selling popcorn with my scout. Yep. To the scout's face. This very forum has some (at least to me) eye-popping threads about openly LGBTQIA people and women. There are stickies on moderation policy saying more or less "ok it's over, LGBTQIA folks and women are in now so let's not rehash whether they should be because it's damaging to scouts". That wouldn't be needed if everyone in the larger BSA circles agreed that everyone is welcome. Being an atheist didn't exactly win me any popularity points here. Atheists are definitely not generally welcome. You may not be saying that people aren't welcome, and perhaps that also isn't what MrJeff is saying or what his Eagle scout thought was against his morals. But some people most definitely have been and still are. That's why it needs saying out loud very clearly, because there's a message to the contrary being put out there, and since people are free to say what they like they will continue to put that message out there. And this is also why I don't want to move on to YPT or the effectiveness of special interest groups, because this is a very important basic point to clarify. If we do not agree that everyone is welcome, then things like whether there should be affinity groups isn't going to get discussed with any degree of productivity anyway. We have close family friends who are interested in BSA, but are reluctant to join because they're unsure of how they and their child will be treated because of both race and sexual orientation. Their judgement seems to be that they expect that the answer is 'poorly' and have not joined, and I can't say I think they're wrong without knowing the pack leadership of the pack in question. If even a single person like the two IRL ranters are on that committee or a leader, I would expect that they're right, and since I know they're out there... I am glad to hear that we do genuinely agree that everyone is welcome now. This is such an important basic point! Thank you.