AwakeEnergyScouter

On 3/15/2024 at 8:50 AM, InquisitiveScouter said:

I would say to anyone who is making a decision about Scouting to not pay attention to posts on a website that is not official.  And that ALL Scouting is local.  So check out your local Troop to see if it is a good fit.

I honestly do not believe anyone is so naïve as to think that way.

We can (and do) have any number of people here who are not even involved in Scouting, yet post their ideas in conversations about topics.

Just because you do not like people's opinions, or how they express them, or the way they pose an idea or question doesn't mean you are the hall monitor who has to intervene.

And you have incorrectly conflated way too much stuff here for me to pick it all apart.

Except one bit:

I would say the OP provided evidence, through his experience, that these groups were detrimental to him, and made him feel excluded.  The very fact that no affinity group marketing made him feel welcome to that group is his experiential evidence, is it not?  And his expression that he knows his creating an affinity group for "...straight white folks..." would only create further division is evidence that these groups, and the way they are marketed has had a negative effect on him.

 

 

Yes, all scouting is local. But scouting has a particular value foundation (Scout Law and Oath) that forms the shared ethical and moral framework within which we scout. The types of approaches and styles in scouting that vary from place to place can be substantial, but can't really include whether the pack or troop is doing their best to follow the Scout Law and Oath. Assuming that they are should always be correct.

Why is this relevant? Because being untrustworthy, disloyal, unhelpful, unfriendly, uncourteous, unkind, disobedient, sour, wasteful, cowardly, dirty, and irreverent for any and all reasons is something to correct if you're a scout. Doing it frequently, and even worse, on purpose, is a problem to address and solve. We discuss how to address and correct bad scout attitudes here on the forum sometimes, so I believe that we all agree that's a problem if it occurs. Since the reason for not following the Scout Law and Oath is only important in determining how to address the problem, it then follows that being untrustworthy, disloyal, unhelpful, unfriendly, uncourteous, unkind, sour, or cowardly towards girls, LGBTQIA+ folks, black people, brown people, blue people, pink people, Jews, Muslims, Janis, and members of any other group of people because of them being in that group is a problem that needs addressing and solving. In other words, if we see scouts being untrustworthy, disloyal, unhelpful, unfriendly, uncourteous, unkind, sour, or cowardly towards girls, LGBTQIA+ folks, black people, brown people, blue people, pink people, Jews, Muslims, Jains, and members of any other group of people we need to do something to stop that behavior and correct it. If you disagree, could you please explain why?

We have several reports of female and LGBTQIA+ scouts being met by untrustworthiness, disloyalty, unhelpfulness, unfriendliness, lack of courtesy, unkindness, and/or sourness specifically just for being female and LGBTQIA+, respectively. So how are we going to solve the attitude problems that the scouts not living up to the scout law are having? What are we going to do? It's not an easy question to answer, but because we are committed to following the Scout Law and Oath we are going to help these scouts that are repeatedly running into other scouts that are one or more out of untrustworthy, disloyal, unhelpful, unfriendly, uncourteous, unkind, and sour towards them. Right? If you do not think that we should do something to help, please explain why.

One way to help answer is to survey scouts about their experiences to try to systematically get at the scale of the problem. Not sure what's in the survey national is sending out, but I think we can all agree that surveying both girls and boys is not discriminating against boys. Right? If someone thinks it is, could you please post an explanation of why you think that?

Another method to help find the answer to what to do is affinity groups. Like with the survey, the details matter in whether it is effective and whether there are undesirable side effects. 

Not entirely separate from these two is developing an understanding of whether there are patterns in why the scouts being untrustworthy, disloyal, unhelpful, unfriendly, uncourteous, unkind, and sour. This could lead to additional insights into how this problem can be solved.

It's a problem whether I like people's opinions, or how they express them, or the way they pose an idea or question or not. Focusing on me is not focusing on the issue. This is a problem for which the solution fundamentally comes out of the Scout Law.

Be loyal, show that you care about your fellow scouts (and scouters). Be helpful, volunteer to help others without expecting a reward. Be friendly, be a friend to everyone, even people who are very different from you. Be courteous, be polite to everyone and always use good manners. Be kind, treat others as you want to be treated. Be cheerful, try to help others be happy. This stuff isn't just for children, you know. It's stuck around for so long because there are timeless, universal values in there.

I do not appreciate your analogy implying that I am inappropriately appointing myself "hall monitor". I find it condescending. I also interpret it as implying that breaking the Scout Law is fine and that nobody needs to do anything about that, like nobody should be "hall monitor" and ruin the fun, no matter what happens. Anybody intervening in stopping bad behavior in the hall is sticking their nose where it doesn't belong and should mind their own business. Is that what you meant? I hope not. Anarchy is not a good way of running a society. Societies need rules, and the society has to enforce the rules for them to matter in practice.

Which brings me to the problem with "not pay attention to posts on a website that is not official". Do you honestly think that everyone follows all rules and policies and the spirit thereof at all times? That all you need to do to prevent fraud is to make it illegal? That you can fix racism by making it illegal to discriminate? That all you need to do to create equal opportunities - not even equity, but equal opportunities - for women in the workplace is to outlaw discrimination? If so, I think you are a bit unrealistic about how to solve social problems. Littering is illegal where I live, but it's the dirtiest place in the West I've ever lived in by far, and it's clear just upon quick examination that there's some kind of mindset/culture difference that creates the litter problem. People here as a group don't find littering to be all that bad, evidently, since they do it so much. Why don't they? Probably important to answer if you want to convince them to litter less. They also pop fireworks en masse in densely populated areas full of veterans with PTSD who politely ask people to not do it every 4th of July and New Year, despite the fact that there is an ordinance against it. The veterans with PTSD are ignored, sometimes very rudely. The people being rude clearly don't think there's a problem - understanding why they don't is key to getting them to change their behavior. In the same way, you have to change patterns of thought leading to behavior if you want to actually create a meritocracy in an organization, a society with equal opportunities for all, a society with justice for all, etc. A policy or rule is a start, but never the finish.

I poked around the Internet and contacted the pack we ultimately joined several times to try to gauge the likelihood of it containing people who might put my scout off scouting permanently. My suspicion was that if my scout gets the cold shoulder after joining because of their gender and/or not being Christian, they're going to throw the baby out with the bathwater and I may not even be able to convince them to try again. Would it be most unscoutlike for them to be met that way? Of course. But it's happening somewhere, as reported in media and fellow scouters here, and it's no surprise that it is given the fierce and fiery resistance to girls in the BSA. We have folks right here who think girls are preventing the boys they scout with from developing the best character, and that boys can't get a fair shake in the BSA anymore. Official policy matters, but also what the proportion of people you will interact with who actually agree with and follow the policy in letter and spirit are. Searching the Internet is a default thing to do, whatever else people are doing. I mean, would you send your child to a summer camp from which you can find video online showing leaders ranting about how children like yours shouldn't be there because they will ruin everything even though the official policy is that they may attend? Maybe that leader is a freak and won't even be there. But maybe they all feel that way and this guy just said the quiet part out loud. How would you know? It will make you hesitate, and if you're not a priori convinced it's a great camp you might not bother to sort it out. Even as a scout that loved scouting it gave me pause for a year. I sincerely doubt I am the only one.

Prospective parents, especially ones that weren't scouts, are going to be far more sensitive to perception of potential harm than people already involved with scouting. This is also why we talk so much about how safe scouting is now in recruiting, right? We recognize that the CSA scandal put a lot of parents off BSA, no matter how many scouts were not abused and had a great, life-changing experience. Every and any new case of CSA in the BSA is going to be bad for recruiting. Hopefully I don't need to go through why in detail. It's the same for perceived misogyny, homophobia, etc. What you mean may not even have been that but confirmation bias is most definitely a thing. We're not going to fix the recruiting drag by telling parents their doubts are just confirmation bias even if it's true.

I disagree that OP provided evidence of harm. I did not read their post to say that they felt harmed at all, just angry about "wokeness". (Whatever that means to them.) Another example of how it wasn't productive because it was too angry and too vague to start a real conversation about solving problems. We inferred different things from it. But even if you're right and they did mean it as evidence of harm that we should accept at face value and address, then we must also accept feelings of being excluded by online rants about girls in the BSA as harm that we should accept at face value that we should address.

Just feeling aversion or offense isn't sufficient evidence of harm for society as a whole to act upon. Friends can reasonably comfort, but it's not reasonable to never be offended. Now, if the offense is caused by scouts and/or scouters not follow the scout law, then it reduces to the case above. But each individual does also have a responsibility to manage one's own emotions to ensure that one isn't overreacting. (This calibration is, in fact, part of the usefulness of affinity groups. It's a quick way to find useful people to check your reaction with.) Not every negative emotional reaction is warranted. Sometimes it's a misunderstanding. 

Denial of opportunities, more challenges to overcome, a lower reward rate for the same effort, harassment, or other actual obstacles thrown up for some folks but not others is the level of harm you need to show to justify action on a policy level, such as closing affinity groups. In the case of the BSA, if it turns out that scouts are systematically mistreating straight, white men then we would need to figure out how to put a stop to that. But OP definitely did not show that they are systematically mistreated for being straight, white, and male, and didn't relate any incidents of the Scout Law being broken towards them. That's what all the questions digging for more information are about. Maybe we're finding something on that front.

47 minutes ago, InquisitiveScouter said:

Ummm.... where did I say I was offended, or that you were an enemy?

Your posts have not offended, just... confused (to use your phrasing)

I often find myself reading tone and intent into these posts, and have to check those inclinations.  Doing either pushes my own thoughts and biases onto the other person posting.

So, I ask a lot of questions to get at the heart of a matter for understanding.  I do find people often take offense at the mere asking of questions.  This I find puzzling.   And it is why I often say if you look for offense, you will find it.

And on your discourse on civil discourse, I think advice given by another poster is valid:  If you don't like it, you do not have to engage.  I ignore lots of people here in that way 😜

You're right, I expressed myself imprecisely. Negative affect of some kind. I read downvotes as negative, for example. I believe you do too. Laughing at sincerity I also read as some kind of negative affect. But so is reading what I wrote in such a way that you thought I was trying to dismiss OP. I mean, I presume that you think that dismissing people is bad. When that wasn't at all what I was trying to do, clearly something went very wrong in the communication there, which you also acknowledge. I just want to be clear that it's not you asking questions that makes me think negative affect. I don't even feel like you've asked that many TBH.

This is also hard to make heads or tails of. I am not offended, I am frustrated that we're probably putting people off Scouts BSA. Which I have said many times at this point. So ignoring this does absolutely nothing to help protect scouting, or the scouts who are likely to (ironically) find more value in affinity groups. Like I already said in response to the suggestion previously. Do you not care that some scouts are likely to read the OP and wonder if they really belong in the BSA, or some prospective scouts or parents being likely to say "yeah, let's not, we're not really welcome"? yknot has said this, more or less, many times before and nobody seems to respond to that either. We can't all be part of every community, of course, so there's value in saying "hey, this thing is going to be viewed poorly and/or misunderstood by some".

What does this response mean overall? Are you uninterested in civil discourse as defined by these different academic resources, some of which you provided yourself? Was that more important than the actual issue here of the value of affinity groups? I've been in a lot of long conversations with people I disagree with online, and they didn't feature this normal people doing normal things and then bam quality. We played by the same debate rules (civil as per all the stuff that came up when I looked for a reference) and actually responded to what the other person said about the issue. And real mutual understanding arose. So I know it's possible.

On that issue - I joined SWE when I encountered real, clear resistance to my place in my lab in grad school. A labmate started blocking my access to our shared equipment when I didn't want to go on a date with him. My advisor threatened to fire us both if we couldn't "get along". So I joined SWE for emotional support while beating his blocking game and figuring out what else I could do than talk to our advisor. It was very helpful in that SWE is a pool of other engineers who are women to discuss and think through the problem with, people in the same general situation so they understand the context. (Talking to male engineers just turned into a grilling of what I might have done wrong and checking on whether "I had an axe to grind", so I stopped talking about it with them. ) From what I've seen here, some scouts out there are encountering resistance to them being in Scouts BSA, and that's a problem! A problem that affinity groups are there to help. That's why I'm pretty sure that if a scout who's being mistreated by fellow scouts and maybe even scouters (as has actually been reported by scouters here as happening in the case of gender) based on demographics reads what OP and you said about affinity groups, it's going to hit them hard emotionally and not in a good way. I've been there. And these scouts are younger than I was - they're going to have a harder time taking for granted that they do belong. It's just another form of bullying. 

Nobody has managed to produce a shared of evidence that the BSA scout affinity groups came with the potential downside of excluding nonparticipants or that people not in the demographic of the affinity group being actually excluded. You've claimed it does, but that's just argument by assertion. There's no proof for your claim, it's just a lot of claims without backup. And that makes it look even worse to any scouts in a jam reading this. We really need to move forward as an organization. Women are allowed to join, LGBTQIA+ folks are allowed to join, black people are allowed to join, Latinos are allowed to join... but are they welcome? They should be! Ranting about "wokeness" is such a strong culture war flag that it sends the message that they aren't by general cultural association. And it doesn't get better when there's no evidence for that there's even a problem.  Just rewrite what you mean by "wokeness" in specific and neutral language and we can talk about it without putting anyone off Scouts BSA or making bullying worse!

On 3/13/2024 at 7:55 AM, InquisitiveScouter said:

I have re-read the entire thread, and find the discourse generally civil.

Here is a primer:

What is not civil discourse?     Being disrespectful is not engaging in civil discourse. Here are some disrespectful behaviors that are typically considered out of bounds: profanity, name-calling*, derogatory terms (stupid, ignorant…), shouting, insulting body language (such as eye-rolling), insulting tone of voice (baby talk, speaking “down” to a person), ridicule, open hostility, biting sarcasm, any other disrespectful acts or ad hominem attacks, threats, or any behavior that could get a person banned from a social media site. A central theme of disrespectful discourse is that it employs tactics designed to dismiss the other person, rather than engage with the other argument.     

https://www.socialstudies.org/sites/default/files/guide_to_civil_discourse_student_version.pdf

Some examples of uncivil discourse in the thread are: 1) implying people are conspiracy theorists, 2) trying to derail the OP by accusing them of engaging in the rhetoric of "culture war", and 3) not answering the OP question, but instead, trying to dismiss him by asking tangential (and sometimes unrelated) questions in order to undermine the supposed premise of why he asked the question in the first place.

So, I'll re-post the OP question, and the answer I gave:

What answer to the OP question did you offer?

And three of you gave him a down arrow for even asking the question...

As I have already stated, I do not find the start of the conversation civil (as defined in the definitions of civil I previously provided because several elements of it are ideological, the statements are imprecise, and the tone seems angry). In structural dynamics terms, the OP was a move in affect, not a move in meaning. 

A move in affect can't lead to civil discourse because, as the student primer on civil discourse says, civil discourse is all about sticking to the issues. If there was no issue presented, or the issue is so unclearly presented that the discourse cannot proceed around the issue because insufficient detail and/or too much histrionic incivility (definition below) was presented, then the whole thing is a non-starter for civil discourse. This is why American University called out ideological posts as uncivil.  It's just unproductive and nobody enjoys it, there is no real conversation being had. Just like in this thread. It doesn't matter who posted or on what topic.

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A civil discourse is a conversation in which there is a mutual airing of views. It is not a contest; rather, it is intended to promote mutual understanding. Civil discourse follows general rules of polite behavior. This does not mean that you have to behave like Mr. or Ms. Manners, but it does mean that there are certain behaviors that make everyone uncomfortable and that indicate that a conversation has turned hostile and unproductive.

There is really just one rule of Civil Discourse: Don’t make it personal. This means to stick to the issues. In a civil discussion, you use logic, persuasion, evidence, information and argumentation to make a point or defend a position, but you would not attack the other individual personally. Civil discourse means being respectful of the other person and his or her views.

 

I didn't want to immediately go through and label all the reasons I thought that, because that could seem somewhat aggressive and would just result in a move-oppose-move-oppose pattern that did nothing to improve the situation. I just wanted to bring it back to the domain of meaning in order to avoid putting off more scouts off Scouts BSA. But since we're here now anyway, let me show you exactly why I did not think it civil and why I think it was harmful to scouts and scouting so that you can see exactly where I think the problem lies and why.  The problem isn't being conservative or critiquing actual DEI policies and practices. The problem is not seeking mutual understanding and the effect that seeing this kind of stuff from scouters is likely to have on scouts.

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OP Topic: DEI is an acronym for Don't Expect Improvement

OP body: Well, a lot of people have realised that being WOKE isn't really beneficial; just ask a major college, athletic shoe manufacturer and a beverage company.  This is also true for the proponents of DEI just ask the colleges, universities and manufactures that have fired their DEI employees and boarded up their offices.  The BSA harps about DEI yet they sanction and organize special events for women,  LGBTQ members and "people of color ."  If they had a gathering of straight white folks there would be cries of racism, homophobia and who knows what else.  So, can anyone explain to me the difference between these groups and how having segregated events develops the concept of DEI among Scouts?

I won't go over what I already said about it not being sincere, internally possibly inconsistent, having unclear references to current events, and the question not being seriously asked. I will add that the whole post fits what Bryan Gervais categorizes as histrionic incivility in his paper Incivility Online: Affective and Behavioral Reactions to Uncivil Political Posts in a Web-based Experiment. He's got it up on ResearchGate if anyone wants to read it.

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Histrionics and Emotionality

Despite primarily consisting of text-based communication, online discourse is not devoid of emotional exchanges. Visual elements, including the purposeful use of uppercase letters and multiple exclamation points, can be considered the digital equivalent of shouting. Use of this type of behavior is common in Internet forums, including online political commentary (Berry & Sobieraj, 2013; Sobieraj & Berry, 2010). This behavior comprises a third category of incivility: histrionics and emotionality. In addition to visual elements, this category includes vulgarity and comments that suggest that a target should be feared or is responsible for sadness (Berry & Sobieraj, 2013; Coe et al., 2014).

(...)

Criteria of Incivility Category 3: “histrionics” Language suggests individual or group should be feared or is responsible for sadness. Also includes thoughts that are purposefully exaggerated through uppercase letters and multiple exclamation points

Example Claim: Candidate’s election is somewhat worrisome

Civil Negative:  “The election of the candidate has me worried about the direction of the country.”

Uncivil Negative: “I fear for what will happen to this country if the candidate is elected. It will be a sad day for America." −and− “WE SHOULD ALL BE SCARED!!!!!!!”

I heard OP say that woke is an acronym, but since that is not supported by any dictionaries and they made the claim by assertion without citing any sources that hasn't been shown to be the case. 

So, my judgement was that answering the question does no good, because the post is uncivil in a histrionic way indicating anger and as such the following section of your civility primer immediately applies:

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If you find yourself in a discussion that turns incivil, the best response is to respond directly to the problematic behavior and its effects on you, not the other person. So, for example, if the other person calls you a derogatory term during a discussion, the proper response would be to simply say: “I don’t like being called names. It hurts my feelings.” If the person recognizes that s/he has crossed the line into incivil tactics, then the discussion can proceed, but if not, it is probably best to end the discussion politely, because it is no longer civil or productive. The other person is likely taking it too personally to engage in a civil discourse at this time.

So, I tried to end it immediately by asking how the post was helpful. I could have done better in immediately pointing out that ideological screeds from scouters are going to put scouts off, in retrospect. I assumed it would be obvious but it may not be.

More replies from OP with histrionic incivility but without responding to my question about the purpose of a post mostly about non-scouting events in a snide negative tone, confirming the likelihood of that the first post was intentionally written that way and that it wasn't just my misinterpretation:

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Liers use stats and stats lie, that has been proven time and time again.  Statistics and presentages can be manipulated to prove anything.   Its really simple, do the right thing!

This one also fulfills Kenski et al's definition of Lying accusation-type uncivility (examples: "Americans have been screaming at the top of their lungs that this government is wrong, is corrupt, is lying, is deceiving the people, and is violating our constitution." and "We need to get everyone out of office and start fresh. Make it so that lawyers cannot run for office in the executive or legislative branches of government. They lie and should not be trusted.") 

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Have you attended NOAC or the last Jamboree?  You keep saying that I not given specific examples. Bwell I  have given examples but if you are having trouble understanding at the last National Order of the Arrow Conference Conference there were specific meetings/gatherings for women,  LGBTQ, and People of Color.   If there was a specific meeting or event that focused on caucasion/heterosexual people ther would have been amplified exclamations of racism and homophobia.   I hope that simplifies this so you can comprehend my meaning.  Personally, I have no problem with LBGTQ people, black, brown, white, pink, purple or blue people, or those who think they're cats.  But I do take exception when the aforementioned members of these groups attempt to force me to accept ideologies that I do not agree with.  An individuals rights as defined by the US Constitution are sacred as long as the application of those rights do not infringe on the rights of another.  If the application of my protected rights are offensive then the pffended party is just offended.  By sanctioning separate events for Women,  LGTBQ's, People of Color,  Cat People, Dog People or Chipmunk People does NOTHI G to strengthen the idea of DEI.  And by the way, WOKE is also an acronym that is generally expressed with capital letters.

For further clarification I would like for your attention to focus on Harvard College, Florida State College, Budweiser Beer and Nike Athletic Shoes.  The public reaction indicates that the majority of regular sensible people are fed up and sick of the foolishness that has overshadowed our country.  I'll probably get more warnings and maybe even kicked out but what I said needs saying!

More histrionic uncivility (claims that LGBTQIA+, black, brown, pink, purple, and blue people plus those who think they are cats are attempting to force OP to accept ideologies that they do not agree with, hard to take at face value especially without any support of anyone in any group attempting to force them to accept ideologies they don't agree with) but not the facts needed to evaluate the core claim (in the service of civil discourse, I'm picking the strongest possible on-scouting-topic claim I can make out the outline of here) of that the affinity group meetings at NOAC and possibly the last Jamboree does nothing to strengthen diversity, equity, and inclusion in scouting. This is because, as was already pointed out, that the specific nature of the events, the attendance rules (if any), and whether they changed the scouting experience for non-attendees all need to be considered to answer. The question cannot be properly answered generally, because to rule out potential ill effects on DEI like pushing scouts that aren't members of the groups that the affinity group meetings served you need more details of what exactly happened, what was the formal setup, what was the reason given for that, how did the participants experience it, and how did the non-participants experience it? A bunch of the questions that not just I but others also asked and got no answer to (so radio silence from OP on the actual issue civil discourse requires sticking to) until HashTagScouts (not OP) answered

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The issue I took on this thread was "segregated events". NOAC was not segregated. Were there optional sessions intended not as "put on a pedestal" but rather as social events? Yes. And the point of those - can't speak for the sessions, as I didn't intend them, but understood the context of the planning- were to bring together individuals attending NOAC together and to hopefully learn how the OA (and BSA in general) could better include them into the program. Female youth in particular are an issue that our Lodge, and those in our Section, have had issues to contend with to assimilate them into the Lodge while maintaining the YP policies (as this is not a pure OA forum, I'll leave some particulars out, but for the "IYKYK" crowd, think about Vigil- maintaining buddy-system in that can have challenges, now put the situation if you have only one female youth involved, etc.). 

I also perceive the first part of OP's response above as speaking down to me, but because it is uncivil to get into a back and forth about "you're uncivil!" "No, YOU'RE uncivil!" which surely is just as off-putting to scouts as the original post I let that go. We are here for the scouts. The answer I got to asking all these clarifying questions for consideration of the strongest possible claim - standard debate practice - was

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If you are an active scouter you already know the answers to all of things you are asking.   Is it this, what is that, when did this, who did that, if its that then what is that.  I have no desire to word joust and no requirement for further clarification.   You should be able to figure it out, active scouter and all.

So again no actual answer from OP, but with a side of dismissal. Again uncivil. So, still trying to get a real conversation around mutual understanding going since this thread is plowing forward, I bystand with what I'm seeing and why I'm asking all these questions - to stick to the issue in the most charitable reading of the original argument in context of the later posts. No response to my direct statement that I want to engage in civil discourse and therefore want to hear what OP personally thinks and why (but civilly, of course). 

So, you're right, I never answered the question. In part because others already said what needed to be said on the issue of the value of affinity groups in general and the reason for having them. But if I had - do you honestly think that it would have been received in such as way that it furthered mutual understanding between me and OP?Maybe here it is I who am too jaded. If so, I apologize. Perhaps they really were open to a solid facts and evidence-based discussion on the pros and cons of affinity groups and whether the BSA is implementing them in an overall net positive way, had I only answered the question immediately. I really don't think so, but it would be wonderful if I were wrong. (This is an invitation to MrJeff to tell me I'm wrong and explain how I misunderstood his intentions with the post, by the way, if that wasn't clear.)

I also want to address your examples of alleged uncivil discourse on my part. (And only my part, I note. Care to explain that choice? I've explained why I focused on OP - to show that the start of the conversation was uncivil and that it did in fact continue that way from OP's direction, proving my point that starting that was was going to be unproductive.) 

1. I didn't actually mean to imply that people here are conspiracy theorists, and that isn't actually what the quote says if you re-read it carefully. What I meant to say was that, like others have mentioned obliquely since you wrote this, when normal scouts and scouters are doing normal things and people come out of the woodwork to be upset about it in culture war terms ("Upstander is a made up woke term.  Let's pull in conservative terms to balance the debate. ") and start implying that normal scouters doing normal things are part of some kind of vanguard to destroy the BSA it's a little weird. Like, a lot weird. And it's going to look weird to any scouts reading it. Those who were previously barred from membership in Scouts BSA are going to be particularly sensitive to how much trouble they might expect if they join. If adult scouters are repeatedly posting things that make it seem like they can expect active resistance to their presence, well... that's going to make it harder to recruit. Even if that wasn't what you meant - if that's what they hear... and I think there's a 95% chance that they will. That's why I'm bothering to speak up. I am convinced that aggressively complaining about "wokeness" (especially with no definition of that given) is incredibly likely to put scouts off joining. 

Personally, it's weird when it happens because not only am I no such thing, I've gone out of my way to specify what I do think about potential hot-button issues (taking a clear position, intended as civil) and why I think that (creating the setup for mutual understanding). But the "offer" of responding in kind with a calm, fact-based rebuttal and an explanation of why someone else thinks differently is rarely if ever taken. If there is a direct response at all, it's often uncivil and argument by assertion. I've seen survivors explain over and over again that they personally don't want to destroy the BSA, yet the idea that the lawsuit is just to destroy the BSA keeps popping up over in the CSA court case threads.

It's not just OP and not just this thread. Normal scouts and scouters are doing normal things and posting about it and then things get uncivil when other scouters start telling the scouters doing normal things who they are and what they think. (American University, last bullet point under What Civil Discourse Is Not) I've certainly been told I'm all kinds of things (never good things in context) and want to do this, that, and the other (never good things), and I'm definitely not the only one. Latest case in point is just above.

2) I'm not trying to derail the OP. I am trying to steer this conversation into more productive ground, although I am definitely not succeeding. But as Trungpa Rinpoche used to say, gentleness is armor. All I can do is be open and honest and do my best to maintain civility. No doubt I haven't been perfect, but that doesn't mean that I'm not honestly committed to it and trying, nor does it mean that your (or anyone else's) perception of my motivations and intentions is correct. It most certainly hasn't been in the past, either. When I'm not sure I'm reading someone right, I ask them what they meant. I could be wrong! So I ask to make sure I don't judge someone over a misunderstanding.

3) I did not try to dismiss OP by asking tangential (and sometimes unrelated) questions in order to undermine the supposed premise of why he asked the question in the first place. Had you asked me some questions, we might have sorted that out. I already detailed my intentions with my replies to OP in this thread, as well as why I ask people clarifying questions in general, so I won't say more on that since this is already very, very long.

yknot is right on the money when he says "Some of the things people argue the existence of on this forum are very hard to process, and this is just the latest that has left me blank." It's not just that someone is wrong on the internet. It's just.. confusing. Normal people doing normal things. And then bam, someone's being accused of wanting to persecute scouts and scouters with no evidence provided. There really is some kind of communication gap here.

To be clear, I like you, InquisitiveScouter. You are not my enemy. You were kind to me when I joined here and we have a lot in common. I don't really understand why you take so much offense at some things I've said here, but we're never going to sort it out without a real conversation. OP isn't my enemy, EagleDad isn't my enemy, etc. I don't have enemies at all. Have you frustrated and confused me? Yes. But so has my husband. That's not at all the same as being enemies. We may never bridge this odd communication gap, but I want to be clear and explicit on that I am willing to have a conversation for mutual understanding. We should, IMNSHO, try.

1 hour ago, InquisitiveScouter said:

And yet you do it again 😜

I did not write the top post in this thread. 

I am sincerely trying to advocate for a return to civil discourse about issues where scouts and scouters might disagree. If you don't believe I am, well... Not sure what more to do about that.

I have shared a lot about where I'm coming from in the service of that, making sure to mention things that don't fit the culture war narrative so that we can leave it behind and get to scouting instead of fighting political battles. 

57 minutes ago, Eagledad said:

Expressing, discussing and educating good and successful practices is what this forum is all about.

I agree completely. Let's do that instead of starting conversations with culture war rhetoric with little connection to scouting.

27 minutes ago, InquisitiveScouter said:

All models are wrong.  But some are useful.

Of course, but that's why you need to remember the assumptions that went into it and the domain in which it was created. Can't get any sense of even a good model too far outside its domain. At some point, it's just not telling you anything. No model is useful in all situations at all times.

Just read something someone said on social media that seems quite relevant here.

"The issue with a culture war based epistemology, where all things are seen through the lens of cultural war. Will always lead directly to conspiracy theories. For when you see normal people doing normal things, through that lens, it must take on all the misaligned power of a conspiracy against you personally. This happens to both the right and left side of politics. Yet more frequently on the right. Anyone's vision of a "correct" culture, will always fail. For culture is never isotropic."

We are all here in our role as scouters. In that role, our loyalty is to each other and the scout movement.

1 hour ago, InquisitiveScouter said:

Atheists.  Mike drop.

I doubt I am interpreting what you said here the way you meant it, because I just heard "Yes, atheists that don't belong to an organized religion are still being excluded from scouting with the BSA, and so we should remedy that".

8 minutes ago, Navybone said:

I guess the question is if the affinity groups are causing others to be excluded.  Is that occurring? 

I know I certainly don't feel excluded or pushed out by the existence of all the affinity groups that aren't for me, which is most of them. Be welcome, have at it. Just like I don't feel slighted when a meeting opens with a round of applause for veterans but not me, a non-veteran. Exactly because I haven't seek the tiniest inkling of special favor a la sauna dealmaking.

2 hours ago, Eagle1993 said:

I will say for my company, DEI has gone well (overall).

Mine too. All of them.

One of my bosses responded rapidly to a somewhat problematic situation with a co-worker and I never had to deal with that harassment again at one job. HR helped a few folks a level below me with harassment issues, one of which had also raised eyebrows quite widely and so was quite important to deal with. The nonwhite nonstraight nonmale workers that were excellent at their jobs were recognized as being such and promoted at least at most of my employers. (An exception comes to mind.)

But I have never heard anyone say that we should give an iffy candidate a chance because of DEI. I have also never thought it. Have iffy candidates been hired? Yes. Were they hired because of their gender, sexual preferences, or skin color? Nope. (One was literally the hiring manager going "I am too tired to interview more people".)

My current company is very into literal DEI - including for disabled people (primarily veterans) and ex-military folks. My company goes out of its way to hire ex-military personnel and military spouses. The idea is clearly to make sure meritocracy reigns; that's what they're trying to do and that seems to be working.

So my personal experience with DEI policies is positive and doesn't even confirm to the view that "liberals" approve of "DEI" and "conservatives" oppose "DEI". I know that's a narrative out there, but I'm not convinced it describes reality that well. 

2 hours ago, Mrjeff said:

If you are an active scouter you already know the answers to all of things you are asking.   Is it this, what is that, when did this, who did that, if its that then what is that.  I have no desire to word joust and no requirement for further clarification.   You should be able to figure it out, active scouter and all.

I am attempting to engage you in civil discourse, rather than jumping to conclusions of what you're actually trying to say, your motivations, and your opinions. I am asking you to articulate clearly and factually what you think. This is because without you stating your position clearly and factually, civil discourse is a nonstarter and this thread is, at least in response to you specifically, not going to be civil and as such lacks value for scouting. I am not asking you questions because I cannot find information and form an opinion of my own on it, I am asking you questions to ensure that I understand your point in relevant detail. What I cannot find on the internet or by being an active scouter is your personal view of things. I am asking you to tell me what you think so that I can listen to understand. All I'm really clear on right now is that you are very angry, and I am hoping that my best understanding of why is incorrect. At the very least, you should have a chance to clarify... or two, or three, or four, or five...

Just to be clear, what I mean by 'civil discourse' is the view found at Civcs for Life, American University, and the National Institute for Civil Discourse.

Since you decline to articulate, again and again, the message I get is that you aren't actually interested in civil discourse. You even explicitly say you have "no desire to word joust and no requirement for further clarification". So, I must ask again, if you are not interested in civil discourse to further understanding among scouts and scouters of differing opinions, what was the point of starting this conversation? How is this helpful to scouting?

The internet doesn't need another flame war.

46 minutes ago, InquisitiveScouter said:

That is (I think) the real point the OP was making... while DEI may be getting employees from more walks of life, it is not expanding the pool of talent. 

Even people who generally agree with your general POV aren't sure what exact argument you're trying to make. This sounds plausible as a possibility, but there are so many possibilities and/or you're making five or six different but related arguments with nothing but argument by assertion to back them up that everyone who has responded has had to make an assumption about what you mean based on commonly made (by others) arguments rather than what you're actually saying. Some of these offshoots are in fact civil discourse; but how about we make this conversation as a whole about developing better understanding as a result of deep commitment to civil discourse instead?

10 hours ago, SiouxRanger said:

But for BSA volunteers, we need to simplify it down to something memorable.  "Catchy."

I actually took the rules to mean "no adults that haven't been background checked staying overnight". In part because that makes total sense. If the red flags are already up, use them. It's necessary, if not sufficient.

Our pack is planning to lean into Earth Month this April and make the pack meeting centered on the Outdoor Code and Leave No Trace. We already have a number of LNT materials, games, and such, and there is more online.

The question isn't how to find activities, it's how to select good ones for such a range of patience levels and abilities. Would anyone who's used LNT training materials (or similar) with cub scouts be willing to share what worked well and what didn't work so well?

9 hours ago, Mrjeff said:

Bwell I  have given examples but if you are having trouble understanding at the last National Order of the Arrow Conference Conference there were specific meetings/gatherings for women,  LGBTQ, and People of Color. 

Only the last NOAC? Or also the last US national jamboree? Were these the first such events, or were there previously held events? Are such events held more widely? If BSA is pushing DEI so hard, how come I haven't heard a DEI peep despite being an active scouter? Please provide the wider data basis for your subjective description of DEI in the BSA.

You've previously called them "sanctioned" by BSA, what does that mean exactly? Organized by? Allowed to occur organized by some group of scouts and/or scouters but not the BSA itself?

What was the stated purpose of the "meetings/gatherings"? Were they meetings or social gatherings? As someone else already quipped, did the poor straight white men miss out on an ice cream social? Were they in fact actually excluded, or were white straight men actually allowed to attend the "meetings/gatherings"?

That last one is absolutely imperative for you to address if you actually want to engage in civil discourse, especially since it still seems rocky to let go of the anger. Your core intellectual claim hinges on that they were actually excluded in the first place. But were they? I have my doubts.

In grad school, I was a Society of Women Engineers officer. Men are not, in fact, excluded from SWE membership, and we had a very active male member in our chapter. The national conference was full of men looking for jobs.

As for woke being an acronym - never heard of that, and apparently neither has any online dictionary including Urban Dictionary. If you use nonstandard meanings of words, it's on you to explain how you're using the words.

9 hours ago, Eagledad said:

Does there have to be a productive aim if the discussion is civil and managed within the Scout Law? Sometimes the best reaction to a discussion one doesn’t enjoy participating is to choose not to participate.

I agree with Civics for Life that civil discourse is constructive to have for its own sake.

"Civil discourse is not simply polite conversation, though courtesy and respect are crucial to it. Civil discourse goes beyond politeness. It is conversation with purpose—that is, constructive dialogue. Though they may disagree, participants in civil discourse are committed to hearing each other’s fact-based opinions and dispassionately evaluating those opinions against their own. Participants enter into civil discourse with a shared goal: to leave it with greater clarity or even, potentially, having achieved some new agreement."

They further define the characteristics of civil discourse as

"Civil discourse is:

• Fact-based
• Non-ideological
• Productive
• Respectful"

So that covers civil discourse - but not uncivil discourse. When the conversation loses its factual grounding, becomes ideological, becomes unproductive, and disrespectful, it's not civil. Even if expletives are withheld.

So let's take a look, shall we? 
 

On 3/3/2024 at 1:56 PM, Mrjeff said:

Well, a lot of people have realised that being WOKE isn't really beneficial; just ask a major college, athletic shoe manufacturer and a beverage company.  This is also true for the proponents of DEI just ask the colleges, universities and manufactures that have fired their DEI employees and boarded up their offices.  The BSA harps about DEI yet they sanction and organize special events for women,  LGBTQ members and "people of color ."  If they had a gathering of straight white folks there would be cries of racism, homophobia and who knows what else.  So, can anyone explain to me the difference between these groups and how having segregated events develops the concept of DEI among Scouts?

 

 

7 hours ago, Mrjeff said:

Jeeeeezzzzzzz.........how in the world did DEI jump the tracks and turn into YPT? I would invite "Awake" to read my previous post to get some examples of what I'm talking about, and it has nothing to do with YPT.

 

In the Order of the Arrow subforum, we have a post with the subject "DEI is an acronym for Don't Expect Improvement". Taken literally this is plainly untrue, so the statement is not meant to be taken literally and seems ideological given current US political context. Then we have some seeming anger about "wokeness" due to the all caps, followed by oblique references that I only can guess one of, creating a dearth of facts. Following this is is a referential statement that proponents of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion have also realized that being woke isn't really beneficial and that the truth of this can be confirmed by asking unspecified colleges, universities, and manufacturers (which ones exactly is not specified) that have fired their "DEI employees" (HR staff working on DEI?) and (probably) boarded up their DEI offices. Since this seems to connect to recent partisan kerfuffles about banning DEI offices and positions, this is likely to be ideological as well, and so far nothing to do with Order of the Arrow or even scouting at all.

Once we do get to scouting, there's a statement implying a contradiction between Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and BSA organizing alleged special events for women, LGBTQIA+ folks, and POC followed by an allegation that there would be outrage if straight white folks (including women? probably meant men only) had a gathering. I say alleged, because MrJeff has already brought this up at least once and also failed to give clear examples of what gatherings when exactly in what context, including when previously asked for it, and since he's never able to give actual examples I'm ready to believe it's not a real thing in the first place when no one else here seems to know what specifically he's talking about. The post that he made right before this one has no mention of DEI, so that's no help, although I'll note @Mrjeff that my handle here can't be broken down into just Awake in any sensical way, the concept is (awake energy) because it's a twist on a dharma name. (And we scouts, as you may recall, aspire to be mentally awake, possessing that awake energy.) And I'll also note that I'm willing to speak directly to both you, @Eagledad, as well as @Mrjeffbecause talking about people in the third person in their presence is rude. So, if there is an actual fact basis for this conversation, @Mrjeff isn't providing it and no one else can guess what it is. This is then capped with a question about what the difference between BSA-organized events for scouts only recently allowed to join the BSA (historically speaking) and a gathering (BSA-organized or not is unspecified) of (probably) straight white men, and the question of how segregated events aid DEI. These questions do not seem sincere, given what came before them.

As before in our previous conversation, my problem with this conversation isn't that I don't personally like it, it's that it's hurting BSA scouting and BSA scouts. Scouting is not and has never been a political "safe space" where you can rant and rave about your political opinions in peace. We are a civil, not political, movement. We've always had both left-leaning and right-leaning scouts and scouters.

Did you watch InquisitiveScouter's TED talk video? Well worth watching. But there is something Haidt missed, something InquisitiveScouter mentioned earlier on just in different words - the two levels of truths. On the absolute level, there are indeed no groups of people. But at the same time, it would be downright denialistic to pretend you can't see the outlines of groups of people, even though the 'edges' dissolve as you look for them. So one should absolutely strive to attain the stage of 'one taste' where like and dislike have been transcended, but that doesn't mean that you lose your sense faculties and ability to tell one thing from another. You just don't solidify what those senses convey into some Eternal Truth in your mind, don't believe your thoughts as my dear root teacher always says.

What ultimately sets the wheel of samsara into motion is the Three Poisons - passion, aggression, and ignorance (of how the world really works). Look around the internet - conversations that start from an angry post are virtually guaranteed to turn uncivil. In this case, though, the people who end up fighting are supposed to be in the same tribe of scouters! Why start an angry, ideological conversation without a clear factual grounding? Why? It is not productive and only ends up hurting scouting and scouts. When you start in anger it's unlikely to end in peace, in this case leading to infighting within our scouting tribe. 

35 minutes ago, qwazse said:

This bit of odds-betting played by lawyers has little to do with DEI, I think.

Yes, I think this is the main point.

I did express myself imprecisely, that's true, categorizing a risk level below some undefined cutoff as "YPT working" and categorizing a risk level above that as "YPT not working". What that risk level is is a matter of debate, of course, but because the main point here isn't really that conversation I used the BSA's phrasing to keep the focus on what on Earth this conversation is meant to be good for. The wisdom of starting conversations by lobbing culture war grenades depends in no way whatsoever on statistics.

What productive aim did you have in mind when you started this conversation, @Mrjeff? Still waiting on those examples of what you're talking about, for the second time. Nobody else seems to know or has even offered a guess.

9 hours ago, Mrjeff said:

Liers use stats and stats lie, that has been proven time and time again.  Statistics and presentages can be manipulated to prove anything. 

But that doesn't mean that statistics isn't a valid epistemology.

As you reap the fruits of in your daily life. Even manufacturing of physical goods uses statistics for quality control. And that's before we mention statistical mechanics.

Knowledge about the world that hinges on statistics is quite possible.

7 hours ago, Navybone said:

would it be different is a young man boy were to be abused and daddy and brothers found out?

This is the second layer... Does the gender of the abused young person matter?

Of course not.

Either YPT works or it doesn't. And if it doesn't, the problem isn't "DEI", it's that YPT isn't covering all the bases to prevent CSA.

2 hours ago, InquisitiveScouter said:

But, they are more likely to sexually abuse...

https://www.rainn.org/statistics/children-and-teens#:~:text=In 88% of the sexual,%2C and 3% are unknown.

TBH the rule that you need a female leader around girls all the time sounds a little accusatory of men's character in general to me, despite the statistics.

If the idea is that only a woman would protect girls from sexual abuse, what does that imply about all the other male leaders?

1 hour ago, Mrjeff said:

I'm talking about specified areas and events that are organized and encouraged at "Official National Scouting Events" like Jamboree and NOAC.   I fail to see how this cultivates DEI.

Ok, you got any links to official BSA information about these so we can all be on the same page about what specifically you're criticizing?

The reason it went off the rails immediately is that people who are angry about too much DEI fit an image of a culture war warrior swinging a sword all around them. IOW it easily looks like you started a conversation by throwing a culture war grenade. If this is not what you intended you may want to be much, much, much more specific about what where when and why.

1 hour ago, Jameson76 said:

Obviously they are looking for the girls experience, but have they done a survey of boys on their experiences?  Any time I see events that are specifically for one gender or the other, that seems to defeat the inclusivity goal.

The blurb itself says right there that they are surveying both girls and boys at the same time, i e they are not only surveying one gender to the exclusion of the other.

If you already have a statistically valid sampling of the boys, adding more boys doesn't improve the statistical accuracy, so while it's possible they're collecting more girl data than is useful and/or cost-effective it's not creating a two-tier system.

The phrasing does make me wonder if there are relatively speaking few girl members, such that it actually makes sense to send out the survey to all of them in order to maximize the odds that the number of responses ends up being a statistically valid sample of the girls as well as the boys.

How is this discussion helpful?

8 hours ago, Armymutt said:

I wouldn't have a clue on how to find an elected official on a military base in Germany.

Sidebar: Why couldn't you just find an elected German official? Why restrict yourself to the base?

Somebody didn't think that name through 😂

1 hour ago, InquisitiveScouter said:

REI is kind of bougie...  (REI member since 1989.)

I thought we scouts were bougie. Are we not? Lederhosen is not saying otherwise. And 'King/Queen' is still in a lot of Scout Promises... Just sayin' 😉