Becoming a Man

[WHEELER 10]

This thread was spun from another thread.This is excerpted from a 1948 Boy Scout Field Manual, pg 469

(It is as is and the title below is original)

 

MENTALLY awake! in everything you do or think-- thats part of our Scout Oath. What you make of yourself depends to a large extent on your mental alertness. Have you an inquiring mind? Do you learn something new each day, think out a new way of doing old things? The boy who is mentally awake has more adventure in a day than a dull boy has in a month. He gets more out of life - and he gives more to other people.

 

Whats more, he is on his way to becoming a man of action.

 

Becoming a Man

Baden-Powell tells of the test that was given the Zulu boy of Africa before he was considered a man:

 

When a boy was becoming old enough to be a warrior, he was stripped of his clothing and painted white all over. He was given a shield with which to protect himself and an assagai, or a short spear, with which to kill animals and enemies. He was then turned loose into the bush.

 

If anyone saw him while he was still white they would hunt him and kill him. That white paint took about a month to rub off it would not wash off. So for a month the boy had to hide away in the jungle and to live as best he could.

 

He had to follow up the tracks of deer and to creep up near enough to spear the animal in order to get food and clothing for himself.

 

He had to make fire for cooking his food by rubbing two sticks together. He had to be careful not to let his fire smoke too much, or it would catch the eye of scouts on the look-out for him.

 

He had to be able to run long distances, to climb trees and swim rivers in order to escape from his pursuers. He had to brave and stand up to a lion or any other wild animal which attacked him. He had to take care that, wherever he went he left no foot tracks by which he could be followed.

 

For a month he had to live this life, sometimes in burning heat, sometimes in cold and rain.

 

When at last the white stain had worn off, he was able to return to his village, and then he was received with great joy and allowed to take his place among the young warriors of the tribe.

 

THINK!

 

That was fine training for a Zulu world, but in a modern world, the most important thing you can learn to do is to Think!

something thats not taught in books.

 

**********************************************************************

Baden-Powell noticed many other cultures that he visited also had some training of men and a rite of initiation for men.

Even the Jews of today still have the Bar Mitzvah for 13 year old boys. This is a integral part of Jewish life. Why?

At the age of 13, the Jewish boy becomes responsible for his faith. How can one be responsible without knowing the law? The Jewish boy is prepared for up to a whole year beforehand, learning to read Hebrew and learning how to chant. Then at that Sabbath service, he stands before the congregation and PROVES his ability to accept manly responsibility for the faith: he leads the whole congregation for the whole service.

 

A boy proves his manhood in both of these circumstances. Baden-Powell is brilliant in his insight to male psychology and sociology. A boy must be trained into manhood. Boys must be sharpened into being men.

 

In Addendum

 

My dad was an old Boy Scout leader and this is his old Field Manual. This is why I like old books because as things get more and more progressive they obscure old ideas and reasons. Things get lost. Old is Golden. The Boy Scouts of America are becoming more progressive and dropping old ideas because (1) their critics, (2) modern people don't understand concepts that were normal back then,(3) trying to 'fit in' with the times. Socialists and socialist ideology is making great headway in all areas of our culture.

 

 

[WHEELER 10]

Would you please notice the ranking on this post?

 

This post has received a 100% thumbs down. Four people have voted this way.

 

I can understand my other posts receiving 100% disapproval but not this one. I am shocked by this. One may disagree with my conclusion at the bottom but how can anybody disagree with the information in the text?

 

Is there a discrepancy out there to the mission and the fundamentals of Boy Scouting? Are we unsure of what we are doing?

[Sturgen 10]

The reason your post has received several negative remarks is:

a) you have already stated that you are not active in the program now, nor have you been for several years, yet you continue to say we as if you are an active member of the program

b) this post simply states what anyone who has been to resident camp twice could tell you, with an air of superiority on your part

c) you end by calling the entire world socialist

d) although you may have spent much time in the military, a honorable profession, you have buried yourself in the books of old dead guys and seem to have lost all touch with the real world and common sense in general, choosing to quote Aristotle and Plato instead of making intelligent independent decisions

 

[Fuzzy Bear 12]

Wheeler,

 

I don't believe that we have somehow lost any of the great truths in life that you are speaking about. Truth is relative to your perspective and to the prevailing knowledge. We can honestly say that many things are better than ever. We can honestly say the opposite is true.

 

We have learned how to destroy the world many times over and built the means to do it, yet we haven't. What keeps us from doing it? We have learned to survive our own destructive bad habits. That is a truth that keeps us in balance. The ancients did not need to worry about such a truth, unless it was an interesting idea to ponder. We are actually doing it, living it, and breathing it daily as a world.

 

The ancients could not communicate with people from a distance. We can do it instantly. We can do it in verbal form, written form, and in video. This is a beautiful innovation that is a new truth that makes for new frontiers and builds new barriers.

 

A person could say that we are merely applying old forms of truth to new knowledge. A person could say that there is nothing new under the sun and be correct in a manner of speaking. The problem is that we can now fly to Mars because of knowledge that was cumulative but later the knowledge grew proportionally faster with the ages of industry, communication, and information.

 

Has Scouting changed? Have we lost the important truths? I submit that the changes made in Scouting have been in step with the times but Scouting has kept its' history of ideals. The battles that are fought in Scouting are a microcosm of the world and the many battle fronts that are fought every day in these confusing times.

 

This is our life now. If Socrates can help you, so be it. You are the captain of your boat, so I salute you.

 

FB

 

[red feather 10]

Wheeler, welcome to the campfire.

 

As a simple scouting volunteer I have detected, I think, a little of the apple and oranges approach in your post. Scouting does not make men out of boys, it provides tools that the scouts can use on their trail to men.

 

In the Zulu context you put forward, the trial of white paint was the test, not the whole process. Years of training and discipline went into the young man prior to his test. Same, same with scouting. We only provide training, exposure, and experience for the scouts. Not the final test. That is up to each scout to experience in their own time and way.

 

Scouting provides additional experiences for scouts and hopefully expands their horizons that should allow them to become more than they would have otherwise.

 

yis

[Laurie 10]

You don't care for the rating you have and find it shocking? It began as a post in "Open Discussion--Program", and then it was moved. The rating system states:

 

"Help others rate the quality of posts on SCOUTER and filter through the noise. If someone posts something that you believe is of good value, then give them a "Thumbs Up". Likewise, if someone posts something that has little overall value as a resource or perspective, then give them a "Thumbs Down". If the post is neither particularly valuable or worthless, then don't vote either way."

 

As a program post, I found no value in it. Had it originated as an issues post, it might have received fewer thumbs down. I would hope that you'd be more upfront and at least tackle issues as just that: your own opinion rather than as a Scouter who knows it all and is here to correct all of us who just can't seem to get it right.

[Fat Old Guy 11]

"In the Zulu context you put forward, the trial of white paint was the test, not the whole process. Years of training and discipline went into the young man prior to his test"

 

Maybe that's part of the problem. Our society doesn't have the years of training and discipline before we cast the young men out into the world.

 

Look at any school's lost and found. The number of coats, hats and gloves will astound you and that can be in the coldest January. Why? Because when a kid loses a coat, no one makes him go look for it. If anyone looks for it, it is usually the parent. After all, they are just kids, they can't be expected to keep track of stuff.

 

The lost and found at my school was a hook in the janitor's room for coats and a drawer in his desk for everything else. Why? Because we were expected to keep track of our stuff.

 

How about other forms of responsibility, like earning money for things? Right now we have roughly 50 Scouts, only three of do anything to earn the money for Scouting. I can't count the parents that have told me that they don't want their kid wasting time selling popcorn or having a paper route.

 

Chores? Most kids that I know today don't have predefined chores to help out around the house. Actually work for them is a special occasion.

 

Where is the training for manhood?

 

 

[Laurie 10]

FOG, I think several of us are saying the same thing, but I wonder if our timing varies? I do expect my children to take responsibility for what they do, beginning at a very early age--like when they begin to walk. Simple stuff, starting with good manners, picking up after themselves, helping out as needed (and there's always a need). As they head to school, remember coats/work/fill in the blank, or go without it until you find it yourself. Now, for a child in pre-k, I'd walk him back to the teacher and tell him he must ask to go back for his coat. For a child in 3rd grade, he can go without outdoor play and the following morning get his coat back--on his own--so he'll have it to stay warm (only happened once ) For a child in 6th who dumped his coat "somewhere in the wood outback", well time to earn a new one if this isn't found immediately--by the child. As the child grows, the responsibility grows. So, just curious, but why wouldn't a child have time to train? Sending him to school isn't the end of the training, but rather just another step in growth. Just my opinion though.

[berkshirescouter 11]

Laurie

You hit the point. I started teaching responsibility to my son as soon as soon as I could. Simple things, at dinner, child askes for water from the kitchen, they get it them selves, forgot somthing at school they hopped on the bike and went for it. You set standards and stick to them.

[WHEELER 10]

We have learned how to destroy the world many times over and built the means to do it, yet we haven't. What keeps us from doing it? We have learned to survive our own destructive bad habits. That is a truth that keeps us in balance. The ancients did not need to worry about such a truth, unless it was an interesting idea to ponder.

This quote that "The ancients did not need to worry about such truth." 

As the saying goes there is nothing new under the sun.  The ancients did have an ideal of total destruction.  Both of the Flood stories in the Bible and in the Gilgamesh Epic of Babylon.  Sodom and Gomorrah is another historical footnote.  The Assyrians practiced total warfare and destruction.  The Roman's destruction of Carthage and Jerusalem.   The Romans even salted the earth so it would remain unusable.  The Romans after capturing the two cities levelled both places just like a nuclear weapon could do.  The Athenians captured Melos and killed all the males.  In l832, the Turks captured an island city, the name escapes me right now, and put all to death, all 18,000 inhabitants. 

 

Total destruction did exist in old times.  Men were just afraid then as they are today with nuclear threat.  We have just grown more effecient and greater scale.  There is nothing new under the sun.

 

 

[NJCubScouter 1389]

Wheeler, while I did not notice you drawing a distinction between "becoming a man" and "becoming a woman" in this thread, you did in at least one other thread. I think you said, in essence, that becoming a woman does not require any training, while becoming a man does. Certainly your discussion of "becoming a man" in this thread emphasizes the "man" aspect. That being the case, I can't help but notice your references to the Jewish Bar Mitzvah ceremony. The way you describe it sounds like you got it from a book as opposed to actually being at many of these ceremonies. But I wonder if you are aware that there is an equivalent ceremony for girls (the Bat Mitzvah.) To my understanding, it is a 20th century development (as generally is the concept that learning is equally important for girls as for boys, and the Bar/Bat Mitzvah is a mark of achievement in learning.) But it is equally important in current Jewish practice (well, maybe not if one is Orthodox, I'm not sure about that.)

[WHEELER 10]

I was a Shabbas goy for two and half years at the Kol Ami in Tampa Bay Florida. I was also on the construction crew that built it. For those of you who accuse me of various things, I worked seven days a week. You may call Rabbi Wasser and confirm it.

 

I also attended every service and prayed right along with it. A scout is reverent and I enjoyed immensely their services; they had a lively, yet solemn, and manly service, not the wimpy chants that accompanied the Catholic Church I attended. I bought my own prayer books and my own skull cap.

 

The Bat Mitzvah is only in Liberal and Conservative Judiasm. The Orthodox Jews do not. Socialism (Equality) has made inroads everywhere. Feminism is Marxist doctrine. Those who follow Marxism have feminism. What can I say. These two movements have sought to compromise with feminism. It doesn't make it right though. Just like the Boy Scouts are compromising with feminism doesn't make it right either. If they really understood male pyschology and sociology, there would be no women in the BSA.

[scoutingagain 20]

When I grow up to be a man

Will I dig the same things that turn me on as a kid?

Will I look back and say that I wish I hadn't done what I did?

Will I joke around and still dig those sounds

When I grow up to be a man?

 

Will I look for the same things in a woman that I dig in a girl?

(fourteen fifteen)

Will I settle down fast or will I first wanna travel the world?

(sixteen seventeen)

Now I'm young and free, but how will it be

When I grow up to be a man?

 

Oooooo Ooooooo Oooooooo

Will my kids be proud or think their old man is really a square?

(eighteen nineteen)

When they're out having fun yeah, will I still wanna have my share?

(twenty twenty-one)

Will I love my wife for the rest of my life

When I grow up to be a man?

 

What will I be when I grow up to be a man?

(twenty-two twenty-three)

Won't last forever

(twenty-four twenty-five)

It's kind of sad

(twenty-six twenty-seven)

Won't last forever

(twenty-eight twenty-nine)

It's kind of sad

(thirty thirty-one)

Won't last forever

(thirty-two . . .)

 

Brian Wilson

 

Men

 

Loudon Wainwright III

Copyright 1992 Snowden Music, Inc.

 

When a ship is sinking and they lower the lifeboats

And hand out the life jackets, the men keep on their coats

The women and the children are the ones who must go first

And the men who try to save their skins are cowards and are cursed

 

Every man's a captain, men know how to drown

Man the lifeboats if there's room, otherwise go down

 

And it's the same when there's a war on: it's the men who go to fight

Women and children are civilians, when they're killed it's not right

Men kill men in uniform, its the way war goes

When they run they're cowards, when they stay they are heroes

 

Every man's a general, men go off to war

The battlefields a man's world, cannon fodders what they're for

 

It's the men who have the power, it's the men who have the might

And the world's a place of horror because each man thinks he's right

A man's home is his castle so the family let him in

But what's important in that kingdom is the women and the children

 

A husband and a father, every man's a king

But he's really just a drone, gathers no honey, has no sting

Have pity on the general, the king, and the captain

They know they're expendable, after all they're men

 

 

 

 

I can cut & paste from great philosophers too.

 

SA

 

 

 

[Guest OldGreyEagle]

I never thought of Loudon Wainright III as a philospher, but heck why not, I can still remember where I was when I heard these immortal words of his:

 

Dead Skunk

 

Crossin' the highway late last night

He shoulda looked left and he shoulda looked right

He didn't see the station wagon car

The skunk got squashed and there you are!

 

You got yer

Dead skunk in the middle of the road

Dead skunk in the middle of the road

You got yer dead skunk in the middle of the road

Stinkin' to high Heaven!

 

Take a whiff on me, that ain't no rose!

Roll up yer window and hold yer nose

You don't have to look and you don't have to see

'Cause you can feel it in your olfactory

 

You got yer

Dead skunk in the middle of the road

Dead skunk in the middle of the road

You got yer dead skunk in the middle of the road

Stinkin' to high Heaven!

 

Yeah you got yer dead cat and you got yer dead dog

On a moonlight night you got yer dead toad frog

Got yer dead rabbit and yer dead raccoon

The blood and the guts they're gonna make you swoon!

You got yer

Dead skunk in the middle of the road

Dead skunk in the middle of the road

You got yer dead skunk in the middle of the road

Stinkin' to high Heaven!

 

C'mon stink!

 

You got it!

It's dead, it's in the middle

Dead skunk in the middle!

Dead skunk in the middle of the road

Stinkin' to high heaven!

All over the road, technicolor man!

Oh, you got pollution

It's dead, it's in the middle

And it's stinkin' to high, high Heaven!

 

[scoutingagain 20]

OGE,

 

I appreciate your reminder of Loudon's one hit wonder. But we're discussing great philosophers and men. To truly appreciate Loudon Wainwright's understanding of the male psyche I would refer you to his writings in " Bein' a Dad", "Conversations with a Son" and "Grown Man". However few can argue that there is a contemporary writer/musician that understands the teenage male pysche better than Brian Wilson. In addition to "When I Grow Up", I refer the reader to "In My Room" and "Surfer Girl".

 

I'm sure somewhere Neil Young had something to say about manhood, I just can't recall and his lyrics are as cryptic as Wheeler. (What is a cowgirl in the sand?)

 

For those who truely wish to raise men, I suggest moving to New Hampsire. In refering to the great Granite State's icon of the Old Man in the Mountain, a rock formation with a rugged facial profile, Daniel Webster once said, ..."Men hang out their signs indicative of their respective trades; shoe makers hang out a gigantic shoe; jewelers a monster watch, and the dentist hangs out a gold tooth; but up in the Mountains of New Hampshire, God Almighty has hung out a sign to show that there He makes men."

 

 

SA