Y'know, Robert Baden-Powell was a pretty decent guy

[xiphias]

Sure, he had all the British English chauvinism that one would expect from a Victorian army officer. And all the, um. . . weirdnesses about bodily functions, and weirdnesses about sex (he deeply loved his wife, and got massive headaches if they slept in the same room) . . .

And he had all the virtues you'd expect of that kind of person -- honor, courage, self-reliance, bearing up under adversity -- and a number that you wouldn't, necessarily, expect.

There are many kinds of religion such as Roman Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Mohammedans, and so on, but the main point about them is that they all worship God, although in different ways. They are like an army which serves one king, though it is divided into different branches, such as cavalry, artillery, and infantry, and these wear different uniforms. So when you meet a boy of a different religion from your own, you should not be hostile to him, but recognize that he is like a soldier in your own army, though in a different uniform, and still serving the same king as you.

And, in his very first chapter, where he's explaining the idea of "scouting" as something that every boy can do to help his country, and his world -- explaining about how to live a life with basic decency, citizenship, and even heroism:

And there have been women scouts of the nation, too: such as Grace Darling, who risked her life to save a shipwrecked crew; Florence Nightingale, who nursed sick soldiers in the Crimean War; Miss Kingsley, the African explorer; Lady Lugard, in Africa and Alaska; and many devoted lady missionaries and nurses in all parts of our Empire.

For that matter, throughout his Scouting for Boys, as he's giving examples of how ordinary people have acted heroically and decisively to save lives (sometimes successfully, sometimes not, but always worthy of praise, whether or not they succeed), he makes sure to choose examples of women and girls acting heroically and nobly, as well as men and boys.

Comments

[gilmoure.livejournal.com]

...he deeply loved his wife, and got massive headaches if they slept in the same room.

Who doesn't?

/channeling Basil Fawlty

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I don't. It's only when Lis is AWAKE that she gives me massive headaches. . .

[cheshyre]

That's because I don't snore, unlike some people...

[temima.livejournal.com]

Hmph, considering that the Boy Scouts had badges for good conduct in a lot of religions (including Islam and Judaism), and that there were Girl Guides, the British precedessors to Girl Scouts, I'm not surprised.

[jehanna.livejournal.com]

Now if only the current Boy Scout leaders could get over the Victorian hang-ups finally and lose the homophobia, we'd be all set.

[mattblum.livejournal.com]

I'm reasonably sure the British version of the Boy Scouts doesn't discriminate against homosexuals. It's just the Boy Scouts of America that do.

[yehoshua.livejournal.com]

To be fair, it's mainly the asshole national "leadership" who have the weird hangups. Most of the local councils (including my home council, the Rio Grande Council (and Weewanoma Lodge 232, for those Scouts keeping track later in this ramble)) have their share of assholes, but also have good folks running the show like Mrs. Jarros and Mr. Yoste who seem to grok that gay scouts have a lot more to worry about than making a bunch of parents feel good about their sexuality, and who would stand up for them.

I'm sure I've told this story before, but I'll tell it again: When I was 14, I was not voted into an alleged honor society within the BSA called the Order of the Arrow, despite having worked my ass off to earn it. And upon reflection, I decided that this was symptomatic of a problem with the OA: that they were fundamentally more of a popularity contest (who did the most visibly cool public service work) than they were about actual honor (e.g. they never picked guys who did shit work for a service project like fixing park benches with the DPW crews). So the next year when I was selected I declined. And they were not pleased.

So after months of them harassing me at home to come do my vigil (the first initiatory rite into the OA), I wrote the council president and the local chairman of the OA a letter in which I explained that I would prefer to live honorably than be honored, thanks all the same. And I was informed that my advancement in rank would be blocked unless I signed up. So I quit. And upon hearing what had transpired, and having it confirmed for him by the local Council, Mr. Yoste also resigned as Scoutmaster, and also resigned his position in the local OA because, as he put it, when we have to resort to threats to get people to join us, we've lost sight of what our real purpose should be.

Anyway, that's what I thought I was signing on for when I learned the Scout Oath and Law. Or to put as Mr. Yoste once colorfully did, "Men, life is hard enough without other people screwing with you. Don't screw with them back." He was talking about our ongoing brush war with Troop 7, but the point generalizes nicely.

[deathboy.livejournal.com]

and lose the homophobia

all male environment. boys alone in the woods. Nothing but Akela and the promise of a guaranteed 'wilderness survival' badge between you and a new understanding of the word 'woggle'.

Why, I've heard tell of young boys having to literally beat off their pack-leaders to protect their innocence.

dib dib. dob dob.

[dancing-kiralee.livejournal.com]

Which only goes to show they're still all weird about it.

Kiralee

[goljerp]

Well, I was a scout for many years and I never heard (or experienced) anything of the sort. I guess it goes to show that anecdotal evidence can be less than accurate... or that different people have different experiences.

[deathboy.livejournal.com]

I was being (obviously a bit too) deadpan / tongue-in-cheek :)

In seriousness (at least from my area), neither homosexuality nor homophobia seemed noticably more rife than anywhere else.

[goljerp]

Oh, er, of course. My lame excuse is that my irony-meter goes dead when I'm sleep deprived. Sorry...

[tiger-spot.livejournal.com]

So when you meet a boy of a different religion from your own, you should not be hostile to him, but recognize that he is like a soldier in your own army, though in a different uniform, and still serving the same king as you.

Although I realize that this is much better than "Anyone not in my religion should be killed," I don't find this sort of proto-religious tolerance particularly encouraging. Especially not with the army metaphor, because I am not on that side.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Well, yes. But my point is that that was 1908.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I entirely agree, he was positively enlightened for 1908. I'm impressed.

It's just a pity they've fossilised there, at the extremes of tolerance and inclusivity for a hundred years ago.

Z wouldn't join because they demand monotheism in an oath, and at six he was an adamant polytheist and serious about swearing oaths. Hindu kids -- and there are lots of them in Wales these days -- had the same problem.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

And the sad part is that, as Baden-Powell worked with Hindus, it's quite possible that HE would have accepted syncretism (which is part of Hinduism, and compatible with many forms of Paganism) as close enough to monotheism for his purposes in Scouting.

Atheists would still be screwed.

Re: Scouting is an anachronism

[ailsaek.livejournal.com]

emphasizing to them that academics come first before anything

I can't see myself ever doing that. Academics are important in their place, but they are not the be-all and end-all of life.

Community connections are important. Overtime + intense one on one time + emphasis that academics are more important than anything else = one more overworked generation

Re: Scouting is an anachronism

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I think that one has to distinguish between the goals of an institution -- and I think Scouting's goals are valuable -- and the implementation of it, which, in the case of the Boy Scouts of America, are messed-up on the national leadership level.

I think that you could quite easily make a Scouting-like organization that was co-ed -- my high school Survival class managed co-ed camping trips without any problems of which I was aware, so I agree with you about that. But I don't agree with you that the goals of Scouting aren't worthwhile.

I consider that kids need education in at least four areas -- mental, psychological, ethical/moral, and physical. Academics can theorietically touch on three of these (mental, psychological, and ethical/moral), but normally just hits one. Scouting, in theory, can hit the other three.

If you focus on the primacy of academics, you are teaching that a body exists only as a life-support system for a mind, which also teaches mind/body dualism (which I, personally, don't have a problem with, but I was under the impression that you're an atheist, which would tend to make dualism less-than-ideal).

You point out a very real problem with the overemphasis on income-producing work in our culture, but I just feel that trying to cram intense 1-on-1 time into limited chunks feels like a not-very-good solution. To me, that sounds like something that tends to make parents feel better, but wouldn't work for all children. I think that kids need some sort of life separate from their parents, even at relatively young ages, and that something Scouting-like could help with that.

Re: Scouting is an anachronism

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

>I consider that kids need education in at least four areas -- >mental, psychological, ethical/moral, and physical. Academics can >theorietically touch on three of these (mental, psychological, and >ethical/moral), but normally just hits one. Scouting, in theory, can >hit the other three.

Scouting, in practice, as practiced by Girl Scouts of America, and as practiced by Girl Guides of many places, hits all four areas. Not equally hard, perhaps, but it hits them.

[holzman.livejournal.com]

It's a pity all that good will doesn't seem to extend to people who worship Gods other than Jhvh, or to no God.

Re: another example of chauvinism

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

My point is not that Baden-Powell was perfect -- simply that he was better than you'd expect for an Army officer from 1908.

Re: another example of chauvinism

[danceboy.livejournal.com]

almost single-handedly created the field of modern medical statistics

Umm, just to be clear, you're saying that he's sexist for not recognizing mathematical abilities in someone, and/or not thinking that it would sell to your average teenage boy. The first would make the vast majority of humanity sexist, and the second would make every one sexist...

I'm not saying he wasn't sexist. For all I know, he was out there pushing burqas, but really, failing to use statistical talent as an argument to convince boys that females are worthy of respect is hardly evidence thereof.

Re: another example of chauvinism

[danceboy.livejournal.com]

Well, actually, your comment about Hedy Lamarr is also A) completely pointless because you're projecting an opinion onto him and then vilifying him for it, and B) assuming bias to find it. Hedy Lamarr co-invented spread-spectrum. Way cool. Also completely useless when she did it. Electronics had to spend a fair while getting smaller and faster.

Telling her that the several million dollars (not 2006 dollars) she could raise per event was more useful than an invention that wouldn't really work for about 30 years is really not that unreasonable. Yes, she might have had other brilliant ideas that were more immediately practicable. But she might not.

I don't mean to denigrate her idea. It was brilliant. Speaking as a mathematician, I'd like to think that I don't regard practicality as the measure of intellect. But it was not useful to the war at hand.

I don't mean to denigrate her intellect. From all accounts she was generally brilliant.

Getting back to the point though. If I were writing something to convince teenage boys to respect females (say, like Baden Powell was in the essay you objected to), I would not start off with someone famous for being sexy and willing to be naked on film, and then tell them to respect her for being smart. They'd spend the next half hour discussing how hot she was. Any point I had would get lost.

I think that there is a point to be made that people can be simultaneously gorgeous, sexual, and intelligent, and that you shouldn't expect a pretty face to cover a slow mind. I also think that that's incredibly difficult to convey, especially to a group, through writing. I think it's flat out impossible to convey to people that need convincing to respect women at all.

there's far more to living than heroism and far better ways of people being people than being military.

If you mean what I think you mean (is "being military" a special case of "being people"?) then I think I agree with you. Is someone claiming otherwise?

Be well.

Re: another example of chauvinism

[danceboy.livejournal.com]

i was attempting to illustrate my original point which you drew very narrowly.

Umm, yeah. In a post about how RBP was trying to convince teenaged boys of ideas that were incredibly liberal and egalitarian for the time, you went off on a rant about how he didn't mention FN's contributions to circular statistics, or how HL was going to co-invent spread spectrum 34 years later (BTW, the patent is not with her husband. It's with the pianist she invented it with.)

From there you've asserted any number of strawmen about society in general and/or me, and then attacked them.

Oh, BTW, people with a good argument usually don't need to invent facts to make it.

I hope that you enjoy your reality. I am done with it.

Be well.

[ailsaek.livejournal.com]

I think that's pretty darned cool. Thanks for posting it.

[greenlily.livejournal.com]

This is cool. Thanks for sharing.

(to add my 2 cents to the debate, I was a Girl Scout for a year. It didn't work out because of problems with the particular troop I joined, not because I had bothered to find out whether I had ideological disagreements with the organization. I was in 7th grade and my idea of ideological disagreement was "I am not knocking on some strangers' doors to sell cookies, and you can't make me.")