I grieve the death of the Boy Scouts. I'm an Eagle Scout but my son won't be a scout. The final straw is the "Citizenship in Society" merit badge, required for Eagle.
One of the great things about Boy Scouts in the 1980s is that it provided a way to socialize people outside of church. Our Mormon neighbors joined our troop instead of the all-Mormon troop that met at their ward because they wanted friends beyond their own religion. Life in the troop united the rich and the working class, both political parties and many religions. It forced dads to work together and take a leadership role in the organization.
No more. The Boy Scouts unilaterally surrendered to the values of the donor class, the HR department and the Democrat party. It is now almost as fully captured by the left as the public schools and universities. I refuse to turn over my son to be catechized by these values.
Just had this conversation with a Gen Z Eagle Scout, a third-gen Eagle Scout, who would fully agree with you. He sees himself as having taken the last chopper out of 'Nam before the organization imploded.
The only thing I've wondered about with him is how much local control there is. I took a look at the local BSA Troops here in my conservative area. There is one that is explicitly all-female. Prima facie, the girls involved don't exactly look to be of the sort that I would want my daughter to be influenced by. A statement I wouldn't make about the local Girl Scouts.
The other Troops, from what I can tell, are sponsored by conservative churches and are all male, including repeatedly using language like "young men", except one sponsored by the local Kiwanis Club that seems to awkwardly include one girl.
At some point, can the national organization punish troops for excluding girls? Or is it more just about the ugliness of paying dues to a degenerate national organization and finding that any interface with it is also degenerate? Larger camps, Boys Life magazine (apparently now "Scout Life"), the language around particular Merit Badges, etc.
I feel like something is lost if this young friend of mine can't see to it that his sons are 4th-gen Eagle Scouts. Instead they'll join some other organization like Trail Life that is smaller and explicitly Christian and just plainly feels like kind of a knock-off right now. Maybe in another generation or two it won't.
Though that itself speaks to the idea that men's spaces can only officially exist in the 21st century in the context of the church. Which is a real opportunity for the church, if we seize it.
My kids go to school in the same building we go to church in and I couldn't be happier with it. But does the church have to do everything? I wish me and my son had some more friends outside of our church/school community.
Under the Boy Scouts, you had practical outdoor skills delivered with a healthy dose of patriotism and vague civil religion. It wasn't utopia, I went through a lot of rough hazing in the early years. But it communicated the idea that we have common values as citizens whatever our religion. It was a critical piece of the social fabric.
There are a lot of Christian (and Muslim) troops in my vicinity. I think the scouting magic would work better if the Christians and Muslims were in the troops together. Also, I'm not sure I want my son getting boy-led evangelical theology from a Christian scout troop that may or may not align with what he's getting at church and school.
Is it possible to meaningfully socialize with others in America across lines of religion, party and class? We've lost something that can't easily be replaced. Trail Life is a fine effort, I suppose, but it's not the Boy Scouts. The widespread respect that the Eagle rank once conferred has been squandered.
Fellow Eagle Scout here. I went and looked at the Citizenship in Society merit badge requirements, thinking there was no way it was that bad.
Then I read requirement number one: "Before beginning work on other requirements for this merit badge, research the following terms and explain to your counselor how you feel they relate to the Scout Oath and Scout Law: identities, diversity, equality, equity, inclusion, discrimination, ethical leadership, upstander."
Yeah, forget it. If I manage to get married and have kids, they're doing Trail Life.
A lot of the other merit badges have maintained--I also looked up the Citizenship in the Community, Nation, and World Merit Badges, and the language in the requirements for those is still pretty good--but the requirements for Citizenship in Society read like they were written by someone whose background was in corporate HR. Has anyone ever used the term "upstander" (as opposed to "bystander") outside of an antibullying PSA? It just reeks of "How do you do, fellow kids."
I feel bad for this current generation of men. Being in the last class at West Point (1976) that was all men, when women enter a formerly all men institution it changes and never for the better. West Point was forced by the Federal government to change but many other institutions simply capitulated without a fight. It starts in the family when the husband gives into his wife, knowing that she is in the wrong, simply to keep peace. I know I have done in the past and the results were never good. I would never get more angry then when I would do that. My wife and I both learned from that.
My issue with the discussion over male organizations is the acceptance, particularly in America, that coed institutions will automatically cater primarily to females.
Most girls who wanted to join the Boy Scouts wanted to get away from the sometimes excessive girly activities of the Girl Guides, they wanted the outdoor activities, not arts and crafts. I think the transition to coed scouting seems to have gone better in the UK because there was not the immediate demand for the feminization of the organization.
To some degree this is Reeves playing it safe, he accepts feminization as the default and tries to carve out places where males can be accommodated.
I'm not an expert in scouting, but I feel like most of the changes we'd associate with femininization of the BSA preceded the inclusion of girls. E.g. all the Merit Badges you can earn inside your house and the increasing ability to earn Eagle Scout without much in the way of outdoor skills. When I joined in the mid-1990s, the old-timers were already bemoaning this stuff, which I would guess was added in the 80s and 90s but maybe even going back to the 70s. Not sure how the UK compares there.
Exactly, reeves doesn't give two craps about real male issues, not really. He still accepts the gynocentric and for the past 70 years, feminist social order. Let's see advocate for true equality in all domains and an end to all female privilege in education and employment. When he does that, maybe I and other true male advocates will take his ass seriously.
Brooks doesn't help in any capacity because of he is an "elitist" Canadian cosmopolitan douchebag and more comfortable with people the right wing despises. Any advocacy from anything affiliated with the nyt is going to be soaked in this "elitist" horrible mindset. Now some asshole at the nyt talks about issues the manosphere has been talking about for years, and doing it under the eye of the gynocracy, has no value because it's disingenuous at best.
They even put the destruction of male spaces as a fucking good goal at the time while letting the worse ywca remain with their sex discrimination. Are they fucking braindead? Or are they the worst type of institutionalized simp who needs to bow down to fucking feminism to get the published in the dumpster fire know as the nyt?
I grieve the death of the Boy Scouts. I'm an Eagle Scout but my son won't be a scout. The final straw is the "Citizenship in Society" merit badge, required for Eagle.
One of the great things about Boy Scouts in the 1980s is that it provided a way to socialize people outside of church. Our Mormon neighbors joined our troop instead of the all-Mormon troop that met at their ward because they wanted friends beyond their own religion. Life in the troop united the rich and the working class, both political parties and many religions. It forced dads to work together and take a leadership role in the organization.
No more. The Boy Scouts unilaterally surrendered to the values of the donor class, the HR department and the Democrat party. It is now almost as fully captured by the left as the public schools and universities. I refuse to turn over my son to be catechized by these values.
Just had this conversation with a Gen Z Eagle Scout, a third-gen Eagle Scout, who would fully agree with you. He sees himself as having taken the last chopper out of 'Nam before the organization imploded.
The only thing I've wondered about with him is how much local control there is. I took a look at the local BSA Troops here in my conservative area. There is one that is explicitly all-female. Prima facie, the girls involved don't exactly look to be of the sort that I would want my daughter to be influenced by. A statement I wouldn't make about the local Girl Scouts.
The other Troops, from what I can tell, are sponsored by conservative churches and are all male, including repeatedly using language like "young men", except one sponsored by the local Kiwanis Club that seems to awkwardly include one girl.
At some point, can the national organization punish troops for excluding girls? Or is it more just about the ugliness of paying dues to a degenerate national organization and finding that any interface with it is also degenerate? Larger camps, Boys Life magazine (apparently now "Scout Life"), the language around particular Merit Badges, etc.
I feel like something is lost if this young friend of mine can't see to it that his sons are 4th-gen Eagle Scouts. Instead they'll join some other organization like Trail Life that is smaller and explicitly Christian and just plainly feels like kind of a knock-off right now. Maybe in another generation or two it won't.
Though that itself speaks to the idea that men's spaces can only officially exist in the 21st century in the context of the church. Which is a real opportunity for the church, if we seize it.
My kids go to school in the same building we go to church in and I couldn't be happier with it. But does the church have to do everything? I wish me and my son had some more friends outside of our church/school community.
Under the Boy Scouts, you had practical outdoor skills delivered with a healthy dose of patriotism and vague civil religion. It wasn't utopia, I went through a lot of rough hazing in the early years. But it communicated the idea that we have common values as citizens whatever our religion. It was a critical piece of the social fabric.
There are a lot of Christian (and Muslim) troops in my vicinity. I think the scouting magic would work better if the Christians and Muslims were in the troops together. Also, I'm not sure I want my son getting boy-led evangelical theology from a Christian scout troop that may or may not align with what he's getting at church and school.
Is it possible to meaningfully socialize with others in America across lines of religion, party and class? We've lost something that can't easily be replaced. Trail Life is a fine effort, I suppose, but it's not the Boy Scouts. The widespread respect that the Eagle rank once conferred has been squandered.
Fellow Eagle Scout here. I went and looked at the Citizenship in Society merit badge requirements, thinking there was no way it was that bad.
Then I read requirement number one: "Before beginning work on other requirements for this merit badge, research the following terms and explain to your counselor how you feel they relate to the Scout Oath and Scout Law: identities, diversity, equality, equity, inclusion, discrimination, ethical leadership, upstander."
Yeah, forget it. If I manage to get married and have kids, they're doing Trail Life.
Yikes
A lot of the other merit badges have maintained--I also looked up the Citizenship in the Community, Nation, and World Merit Badges, and the language in the requirements for those is still pretty good--but the requirements for Citizenship in Society read like they were written by someone whose background was in corporate HR. Has anyone ever used the term "upstander" (as opposed to "bystander") outside of an antibullying PSA? It just reeks of "How do you do, fellow kids."
Yeah, it's crazy that you have to get a DEI badge to make Eagle Scout.
Krein is from South Dakota
I feel bad for this current generation of men. Being in the last class at West Point (1976) that was all men, when women enter a formerly all men institution it changes and never for the better. West Point was forced by the Federal government to change but many other institutions simply capitulated without a fight. It starts in the family when the husband gives into his wife, knowing that she is in the wrong, simply to keep peace. I know I have done in the past and the results were never good. I would never get more angry then when I would do that. My wife and I both learned from that.
My issue with the discussion over male organizations is the acceptance, particularly in America, that coed institutions will automatically cater primarily to females.
Most girls who wanted to join the Boy Scouts wanted to get away from the sometimes excessive girly activities of the Girl Guides, they wanted the outdoor activities, not arts and crafts. I think the transition to coed scouting seems to have gone better in the UK because there was not the immediate demand for the feminization of the organization.
To some degree this is Reeves playing it safe, he accepts feminization as the default and tries to carve out places where males can be accommodated.
I'm not an expert in scouting, but I feel like most of the changes we'd associate with femininization of the BSA preceded the inclusion of girls. E.g. all the Merit Badges you can earn inside your house and the increasing ability to earn Eagle Scout without much in the way of outdoor skills. When I joined in the mid-1990s, the old-timers were already bemoaning this stuff, which I would guess was added in the 80s and 90s but maybe even going back to the 70s. Not sure how the UK compares there.
Exactly, reeves doesn't give two craps about real male issues, not really. He still accepts the gynocentric and for the past 70 years, feminist social order. Let's see advocate for true equality in all domains and an end to all female privilege in education and employment. When he does that, maybe I and other true male advocates will take his ass seriously.
Brooks doesn't help in any capacity because of he is an "elitist" Canadian cosmopolitan douchebag and more comfortable with people the right wing despises. Any advocacy from anything affiliated with the nyt is going to be soaked in this "elitist" horrible mindset. Now some asshole at the nyt talks about issues the manosphere has been talking about for years, and doing it under the eye of the gynocracy, has no value because it's disingenuous at best.
They even put the destruction of male spaces as a fucking good goal at the time while letting the worse ywca remain with their sex discrimination. Are they fucking braindead? Or are they the worst type of institutionalized simp who needs to bow down to fucking feminism to get the published in the dumpster fire know as the nyt?