So... is this too obvious or am I missing something.

[demiurgent]

So, as a Boy Scout who is a professed Agnostic (they'll let me know if they strip me of my merit badges, I expect), I've had some interest in the vast shift to the Right of an organization that used to be about teaching boys. And it's horrified and humiliated me to see what has happened with it.

So here's my question.

Why aren't we putting together a new organization? One based on the core ideals of community, tolerance, wisdom, woodcraft and the like? Lord Baden-Powell's writings and manuals are mostly long into the public domain, and are ripe to be adapted.

We could call it Youth Scouting, for both boys and girls. It wouldn't be the enemy of the Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts, but exist along side them -- an alternative that gives all children and young adults a place to learn honor, and courtesy, and how to tie knots they'll never use again.

And yes, to learn Reverence. I learned Reverence with the Boy Scouts. I have never taken it to mean I have to believe in a specific God -- I have always taken it to mean I had to be respectful towards Faith. Which I am. Faith impresses me. I denigrate some of the things done in the name of faith, but I won't ever denigrate the possession of it.

The Boy Scouts don't want us. That's their right. Rather than try to break them down, let's create someone that wants everyone instead.

Comments

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

The basic reasons it hasn't happened yet are:

1) Critical mass of people who want to,

2) Critical mass of people who are willing to work to make it so, and

3) Getting #1 and #2 to all agree on the specifics of it.

-TG, scarred for life by Boy Scouts :P

[ashears.livejournal.com]

Wooot!

Why aren't we putting together a new organization?

Because I don't have time. :) But seriously, I think it's something that would be very worth pursuing.

Of course, there would be the radical Righties that go off on an organization like that, but hey. That's what so many Righties do.

[mrbankies.livejournal.com]

Christain Fundamentalism - it's not just for breakfast anymore

[ashears.livejournal.com]

Part of that daily "spiritual" meal that EVERYONE, and they mean EVERYONE, needs to consume just to get through their day.


Or something. More clever marketing will occur to me later, probably at 3:00 am.

[elmo-iscariot.livejournal.com]

The majority of people who're tolerant of alternative lifestyles are less than tolerant of children being taught to use knives and guns responsibly. ;)

[izzylobo.livejournal.com]

More fools they, then...

[dvandom.livejournal.com]

I'm almost positive that alternatives have been started up, and may even be flourishing in their locales.

But you can't call it any kind of scouting, I'm pretty sure the trademark halo would cover "Youth Scouts". Besides, the reasons for that name have passed into history. :)

And, to add to the above comments, part of the appeal of being in Scouting is that you're part of the Majority. An alternative group would lack that cachet.

[undauntra.livejournal.com]

Why aren't we putting together a new organization? One based on the core ideals of community, tolerance, wisdom, woodcraft and the like? Lord Baden-Powell's writings and manuals are mostly long into the public domain, and are ripe to be adapted.
There already exists such an organization; it's called the Girl Scouts. The Girl Scouts welcome all girls - regardless of religion, sexuality, or anything else.

Doesn't do much good for the boys, I'll admit - but you do the Girl Scouts a disservice if you just lump them in with the Boy Scouts and assume that their politics are similar.

[demiurgent.livejournal.com]

Actually, the only mention I made of the Girl Scouts is that the Youth Scouts wouldn't be their enemy. Which is true.

I also agree that the Girl Scouts are a significantly different group. I just think that if we're going to start a new group, there wouldn't be any good reason to restrict its membership to boys.

[undauntra.livejournal.com]

's why I said "if" instead of "when". :)

[dangerpest.livejournal.com]

As a former scout myself, I can't help but think that it's the parents and the scoutmasters that are screwing everything up. Really, how important is your personal agenda in the realm of proper knife handling and identifying constellations? "hey kids, this is how you start a fire: step 1- gather some tinder and kindling. step 2- Make sure your not gay. step 3- arrange the kindling in a criss-cross pattern above the kindling...etc..."

I support the idea of an inclusive organization that's all about the activities and not about the politics, and the BSA could be just that if they got their shit together. however, any other organization will not have the "brand name recognition" that the scouts have, nor the financial support that the BSA seems to enjoy. Might be a tough sell to parents/sponsors, especially if there is already established troops in the area.

just my 2 cents.

-p

[akhenaten.livejournal.com]

My dad's a scoutmaster and he's seen a lot of really crap troops. One of the things almost universally seen as a dividing line between a good troop and a crap troop is this: Good troops are led by boys, crap troops are led by adults. In good troops boys try and be better because self-improvement is a good characteristic (or at least because them olda boys are cool), and in crap troops adults--parents and scoutmasters--browbeat them to be better.

The BSA undeniably has military affects, but it needs to be a lot less like boot camp and a lot more like ranger training, metaphorically.

[ladyjestyr.livejournal.com]

I must have missed the stories that gave rise to your post (with which I agree, incidentally). Can you toss me a couple of links so I can catch up on the background?

[akhenaten.livejournal.com]

That's what Scouting pretty much is in Europe. Dunno about the rest of the world.

Man, and with how unpopular Scouting is here in the U.S. among middle and high school students, it was incredibly strange to see, on a normal weekend, 50-75 Scouts of both sexes, all packed and ready for a couple of days in the Ardennes.

The problem we have with Scouting here is that it's both stigmatized for any of a dozen different reasons, along with the fact that, well, it's not that cool in today's world. A kid that age either plays sports, plays videogames, or is forced to study like a madman by his parents. My dad's a Scout leader--loves Baden-Powell--and almost all of the new scouts their pack gets are sons of former scouts; there's just not as much impetus to do it.

The only way I see a solution now is the BSA completely going out of business entirely due to bankruptcy and being bought by another organization, or even some rich ex-scout, and turned into a better version of itself.

Woodcraft

[salimondo.livejournal.com]

Please get in touch with the Seton Institute if you'd like to help revive Woodcraft (http://www.etsetoninstitute.org/BLUSKY.HTM) in the U.S. I think its attitude to nature is the transcendentalist "reverence" you're looking for. Thanks,

[chadu.livejournal.com]

I am an Eagle Scout, and I'm frankly horrified by the attitude the BSA has taken on sexual orientation and athetism. It's not the form of Scouting I was raised in.

Also, did you see today that there's a scandal near the top of the overall management of the organization?

Boy Scouts Executive Surrenders in Fort Worth on a Child Pornography Charge
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/30/national/30scout.html?th&emc=th

CU

[glamazonwarrior.livejournal.com]

I could be mistaken, but my understanding is that Campfire Boys and Girls fill that role.

[the-nic.livejournal.com]

yeah, but scouts have cooler names and oaths.

[the-nic.livejournal.com]

God I love being a New Zealander, our Scouts are just wicked cool and our cubs quote the jungle book. All right, giggity, giggity, gig etc.

[forsythferret.livejournal.com]

The way I see it, there's a few obstacles, which all come back to the same thing. The Boy Scouts have like a hundred+ years of tradition. Now, while I may diss tradition, and it's stupid to think something's the way it should be just because it's always been that way, I have to admit that the orginization surviving for a hundred years shows they're doing something right. And, to dip into stupid marketoid speak, it's a huge "branding" advantage. Everybody knows about Boy Scouts. The Boy Scouts even have some kind of national recognition thing and deal with the govt, which I don't recall the specifics of, I think. Any new group wouldn't have all that.

And also, it'd be probably seen by some as the "liberal boy scouts", or something like that, and be dissed for that reason, even aside from the usual fundamentalist hysterics.

But the biggest thing is just that the Boy Scouts have been around a hundred years, and have all the kinds of resources, connections, and other stuff like that that a new group wouldn't have. And that would be the biggest obstacle to overcome, I think.

There's also the matter of not allowing fundamentalists to keep hijacking all sorts of good orginizations and ideas and claiming them as their own. They've done that too much already.

And I went through all the Cub Scouts, but gave up on the Boy Scouts because the local troop was crap. Quit after the second meeting.

[have-you-seen.livejournal.com]

I was a scout girl for many years, but here we do not have boys and girls separate. We all did the same things, went to same camps etc. It is quite militant organization true to it's roots. Sleeping in tents even in middle of winter, and long hikes through the woods with all our equipment on our backs is very same as they do in military. It taught me a lot of things about nature, first aid and orienteering etc, but once you stopped fitting in (like me with my green hair) they started to push you out.

Only alternative scouting in US I know are the pagan Circle Scouts.

[sonictail.livejournal.com]

eh, i'll throw in my two words worth, we have down here scouts (for boys and girls) and girl guides (now for boys and girls)
Hell, scouts australia has been both sexes for years now, the organisation is experiencing a decrease in number due to the lack of avaliable leaders and the rising price of insurance. People tend to drop out in high school before joining venturers (like myself) and well before they can join that great drinking order known as rovers.

Fact of the matter is, the older scouts get the less you want to do it, there are joeys, cubs, scouts, venturers, rovers and leaders. Takes you from six to god knows where. But all the values are taught early on, the ones from the origional works of baden powell and rudyard kipling. Later on the focus is more on skills, down here it works fairly well, but then again we flip the finger at scouting international.