Yesterday, the scout leader in my congregation approached me and asked me if I would be interested in working with him, he having heard of my forest service experience. Honestly, I'm no longer interested in participating in scouting. I enjoyed my scouting experience as a boy, but I don't think the Boy Scouts of America share the same vision and same values they inculcated into me. My troop mates were also largely dorky, nerdy, awkward boys, but my leaders were honestly and earnestly and actively engaged in training us not just with the skills of camping and wilderness survival but also in helping us become leaders and self reliant. That's not what I see scout troops doing. When I see them on the mountain, the boys seem to be dragging along with the leaders passively if not actively resistant to the efforts of their leaders, and the leaders don't seem interested in teaching the boys to become men. We took an oath while I was a Boy Scout that I believe still exists. It includes the promise to "keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight", but I don't think the leaders or boys understand what that means.
Physically strength is key not only as part of masculinity and patriarchy but particularly given the time of ignoble ease and technological advancement. At the same time that evolutionists prattle survival of the fittest, they foster growth of a weaker species, one unable to hunt, trap, find their way with compass and square or even walk there. Although they portray conservatives as the party that leads to the sloth you see in Wall-E, they are those actually creating the world of opulence and portly decadence. Years ago, I wrote with outrage about the video game merit badge because I saw it as pandering to the boys instead of leading them to be men. Yes, we need to understand technology, but there are still places and times when the archaic saves lives. Also, far too many boys engage in video gaming long into adulthood, letting it consume their time, talents, and attention, and I even have cousins who play them too much. "Murder is no better than cards if cards will do (CS LEWIS)", and the adversary of righteousness only needs to convince good men to do nothing or at least do nothing useful, helpful, or beneficial. Add to that the number of overweight and obese boys led primarily by fat leaders. When I was a scout, we were usually wirey, skinny boys. Too many of them are fat, not from weightlifting but unable to even lift or carry their own weight. Most scout groups think of camping as something you do out of the back of your car, and while I do that and have done that, it won't help in the military, in the wilderness, in foreign lands, or if God forbid we revert to a time before civilization. Most scouts can't rely on each other let alone themselves, and I don't think they know how to rig up something to carry another if someone's hurt.
Mentally acuity fell by the wayside with the internet. Now that it's "easy" to get "answers", most of them don't look much further than the first search result page which is often riddled with advertisements and propaganda. Far too many of us don't do our own homework, write our own papers, or speak our own thoughts. Students copy articles from wikipedia, pay others to write papers, and parrot things they hear from the talking heads in the media. In a time of unparalleled access to information, we read and search less than ever before. Then, there are those who do not seem able to think or to contribute anything virtuous, of good report or praiseworthy. We pass on rumors, tell half of the story without the other half to support or explain it, give editorials as facts, and spread half truths and whole lies. Recently, some scouts damaged formations at Goblin Valley and then had the audacity to post it to Youtube, justifying their actions because "they'd fall over anyway". Yeah, in 20,000 years. Maybe. They don't seem interested in caring for nature anymore, just in using it to slake their own urges. One naturalist at Mt. Charleston told me Saturday that the park service and forest service have unofficially suspended affiliations with Scouting. She said the scouts often do more harm than good, seem disinterested in learning about and caring for the forest, and lack adult supervision. While we spoke, she told of a time when they observed leaders turn the boys loose after the day's activities and saw two go to town on a ponderosa pine with axes while others attempted to start an uncontrolled fire. I don't know that they teach scouts about cause and effect, choice and consequence, or leadership and accountability. The boys don't seem smarter for their scouting experience.
Particularly in our modern world, the need to live morally straight looms ever larger. As everything becomes relative, it's useful to have an anchor, a place on which to plant yourself, and a refuge from which to sally forth and in which to recuperate as you struggle against powers, principalities, and the purveyors of pernicious permissiveness. Nothing saddened me more than the recent adoption of gay leaders by the Boy Scouts of America. I don't know how you square that with principles of moral fortitude when no civil or religious organization ever founded itself on "your way right away" and "what feels good goes". When there's an exception to every rule, the rules lose their value, and people find themselves in fear of one another. Look at Ferguson MO. Each time a moral issue arises, the BSA buckles. They bow to pressure, and I don't even know why. I don't know anyone threatening to remove their boys, and I don't understand the clamour. I don't see gays pounding on the door to get in, and I can only imagine one reason gay men want to be leaders, and it created quite a clash with Catholic priests were caught engaged therein. I don't see anyone arguing for the admission of male leaders in girl scouts or boy leaders for that organization, because we all know why a guy would want to do that. I'm quite happy letting women lead girls and sticking with young men. I read an editorial yesterday claiming that the BSA was a way for "fringe" groups to "integrate" with the "mainstream" when it is those organizations that form the bulwark of the BSA not because we depend on it but because we intended to support those who shared our values. My Faith adopted Scouting to strengthen the organization and make the youth program more or less universal nationwide. Like Benjamin Franklin said, "we must all hang together or we must assuredly hang separately". Now that the BSA feels that turning Benedict Arnold on its largest benefactors serves its purposes, many of its strongest proponents will probably leave. It's sad. President Thomas Monson holds some of the highest BSA honors and spoke with vehement praise of the organization ever since I can remember; now he's poised to withdraw every unit of my Faith from its ranks and seek new berth. The BSA probably fears the almost certain exodus of the Church of Jesus Christ and the Catholic diocese in Dakota who are considering withdrawing support, not because they care about the boys but because they care about the money this will cost them. Moral societies are also religious, so hunting the religious from among us will not lead to morality or sustain society.
Whatever happens with the BSA, the organization it once was already died. They forswore their oaths and decided to serve another master years ago. Shortly before his execution, Sir Thomas More wrote his daughter a letter and told her, "What is an oath but words we say to God". I know that bringing up God, particularly in the modern pop culture, immediately invites resistance and results in deaf ears. The guilty take the truth to be hard. Focus on God is central to Scouting. The problem with scouting is not the scouts; it's the leaders, local and national, who seek glory and gold more than they seek fealty and service to God. It's the willingness of the Council to buckle to pressures of men rather than retaining loyalty to their Creator. It is an imperative duty that we owe to all the rising generation and to all the pure in heart to help them gain physical strength, mental acumen, and moral fortitude. Scouting used to do that. Now, scouting is more of a boy's club activity to babysit children and reward duty rather than recognize and encourage excellence. I am honestly embarrassed to be an Eagle Scout, not because it doesn't mean anything to me, but because it seems like boys earn it who couldn't pour piss out of a boot with instructions written on the heel. I did the work myself; too many of them wear the badge actually earned by their parents or pencil-whipped by their "leaders". If the Church withdraws from Scouting, it will die, not because of the membership (the church only holds like 17% of the scout units nationwide) but because the strongest moral force maintaining the Scout Law, Scout Oath, and Scout Ideal will be absent, making it even weaker against insurrections within and assaults from without. To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, I didn't leave Scouting; Scouting left me.
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