Boy Scouts of Where?

The Daily Universe (my college newspaper) recently published a front-page article discussing the relevancy of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA).  As an Eagle Scout myself, the article got me thinking about my own involvement with BSA, as well as some of the things that I’ve subsequently come to see as objectionable about the organization.   

One of the most common criticisms leveled at the Boy Scouts is that the organization is outdated.  This seems painfully obvious to me.  Of course ideas like honesty or hard work that scouting tries to instill may always be relevant.   However, scouting’s method for teaching these ideas is simply absurd.  Things like merit badges and the recitation of pledges, oaths, and slogans are completely foreign to most people’s experience.  I’d also argue that they’re useless.  One of the people the Daily Universe quoted made a good point: why do we need an orienteering merit badge if we all have access to a GPS?  Taking this argument one step further, even if our iPhones are missing or out of battery power, are we really going to pull out a compass and map?  For that matter, how many times will we find ourselves lost in a place that has no people, signs, or even roads?  I don’t think I’ve ever been in that situation, and I can’t imagine why I would be. 

Other aspects of scouting seem even more ridiculous.  For example, the uniforms.  I genuinely have no idea why BSA has stuck to what looks like something little boys would use to play army in the 19^th century, unless it’s to humiliate the scouts.  Seriously, what’s with the neckerchief?  And (short) shorts with tall green and red socks?  Is this really the best they can do? 

Of course, while there are a bunch of silly outdated aspects of scouting, the real problem is much more insidious.  At best, BSA sees a very narrow, homogenous version of the United States.  That vision doesn’t include, for example, atheists, agnostics, or homosexuals.  At worst, however, BSA combines this flagrant discrimination with hyper-conservative jingoism that uses faux-military structures to indoctrinate young children.  Pledges and oaths aren’t just outdated in a pedagogical sense, but actually require children to submit unthinkingly to powers they likely don’t understand.  When these activities are combined with religion (as is the case in the LDS church, among others), the results amount to coerced spirituality.

 

While I’m obviously no fan of the Boy Scouts of America, I am also in the paradoxical position of having to admit that sometimes I also had a lot of fun as a scout.  Going to scout camps I had the chance to canoe, shoot rifles and bows and arrows, go climbing, and visit a number of places I wouldn’t otherwise have seen.  When I was a teenager my parents sent me to the National Boy Scout Jamboree, which was fun and educational (during that trip we also visited Washington D.C. and other nearby cities).  Our weekly activities were also memorable.  For example, one time we went to the hospital, where our leader let us touch a human brain. 

The question, then, is if the many negative aspects are enough to outweigh the positive opportunities that the program affords.  This is a hard question to answer.  If I could go back I would not participate in what I see as an offensive institution.  Yet, I’d also be loath to surrender some of the experiences I had.  I also think that some of the activites we did actually accomplished good things.  My Eagle Scout project, for example, probably did benefit someone (even if I did it for all the wrong reasons).  I certainly wouldn’t want to undo that. 

The answer, I think, is that BSA is obsolete, but some of the activities it provides aren’t.  Consequently, those organizations that are currently affiliated with BSA should sever that affiliation and fill the resulting void with other youth programs.  In the LDS church participation in scouting is more or less obligatory, as I assume it is in other organizations.  All that energy that LDS members put into scouting could very easily be diverted into more productive and relevant activities.  If this doesn’t happen organizations like churches run the risk of having their policies and beliefs defined by outside parties.  For example, I’d hate to think that I’m required to believe in the BSA’s particular brand of intolerance, yet if I am all but forced to participate (as LDS young men are) that’s essentially what happens. 

 

Ultimately, I don’t think that scouting provides any opportunities that can’t be had from church and community involvement instead.  Things like the Eagle Scout award didn’t end up giving me great employment and educational opportunities (as I was led to believe), because most people in the U.S. seem to have written scouting off as an outdated eccentricity.  As I’ve moved beyond my teen years and experienced more of the world, I’ve realized that the narrow vision scouting projects isn’t very realistic or desirable.  Instead, the Boy Scouts don’t represent America, but rather a desperate clinging to objectionable parts of American’s history.  

Trek

One more post about being Mormon: Trek.  WTF. 

 

If you aren’t familiar with Trek, it’s where people dress up as pioneers and pull handcarts across comparatively long distances.  Usually this is an activity that is foisted on the teenagers of the Mormon church, though adults and children sometimes do it too.  When I was a teenager it wasn’t called Trek, but we still had to do it.  This week, my ward (congregation) took all their teenagers out to Wyoming for Trek, so I thought it would be a good time to revisit this topic. 

 

First, Trek is just about the stupidest activity I can think of.  Now, before you write me off, keep in mind that some people enjoy Trek and others don’t.  If you are one of the people who likes it, great.  You should keep doing it.  However, when it comes to the youth of the Church, generally everyone goes, regardless of their personal preference.  For the sake people who hate it (like myself), I believe that we should stop making it a required activity.  In other words, we should stop pretending that there is some inherent value in dressing up and making-believe that we are living in the most miserable moments of Mormon history.

 

The Mormon handcart pioneers truly had a really miserable time.  I appreciate their strength and perseverance, but I don’t think they became pioneers because they loved the lifestyle.  Their activities were a result of necessity and though those activities built character, it wasn’t anyone’s favorite thing to do.  Thus, I don’t think the original pioneers would have approved of people wasting their time reenacting their experiences.  Did the pioneers reenact the most horrific moments from the Revolutionary War?  Instead, I think that the pioneers would have wanted us to move forward.  We can use our time for all sorts of things (service, spreading the gospel, being with our families, etc.), but Trek is none of those things.  Instead, Trek focuses entirely on the self and personal growth (arguably a selfish use of time).  The self and personal growth are fine, of course, but isn’t the gospel of Christ about serving others?  Shouldn’t that be our primary focus and way we use most of our time? 

 

What’s more, some people don’t even really achieve any personal growth from Trek.  The problem is that not everyone has transcendent, spiritual experiences by being outside and pulling fake handcarts.  So while one person’s off hearing angels or whatever, someone else is just really pissed off about being covered in dirt and wearing fake old-timey clothes.  For those (youth) leaders who would say that the pissed-off people just have an attitude problem, ask yourself if you really think that everyone experiences religion and transcendence in the same way.  If your answer is yes, I suppose we have more to disagree about then Trek.  On the other hand, I think that most people would acknowledge that different individuals have different tastes and ways of understanding, which would necessitate different approaches to spirituality.

 

Ultimately, some people who love Trek appear to have somehow persuaded everyone else that we should all experience religion in exactly the same way.  Unfortunately, that way is, in my opinion, a waste of time and a simulacrum of true spirituality.