How boys become men, or don’t: then and now.

My main man BB – during his indefatigable dredging amidst the bottom-dwelling ne’er-do-wells littering the vast trenches of the ocean-drawfing internets – has once again mined gold.ⁱ

Let’s take his raw nugget and buff out this comparison of The Boy Scouts of America from 1911 to present day and see if we can’t make ‘er gleam like we know she can :

What has been dropped or reduced in the modern handbook is telling. Gone is the section on chivalry, which traced the Boy Scouts’ heritage back through the pioneers and Pilgrims, and to the knights of the Middle Ages.

The original is also generously peppered with references to great men in history for young boys to emulate, while the mention of such “heroes” is almost entirely absent from the one published in 2009 (being inspired by history isn’t much in fashion these days).

To anyone who’s been seriously following, or even impacted first-hand, by the post-USSR rise in American Sovietism, the assured fate of all large agglomerated Nations of Africa since time immemorial,ⁱⁱ that cultures have histories and progresstards have New Ideas is about as newsworthy as the sun rising in Japan. That there’s no longer a place in the US narrative for chivalry, which is to say that expensive action thing that’s so meanbadunfairdoubleplusungood in the eyes of the effeminised scootypuffs et al., makes a lot of sense from the perspective of little girls who “just wanted to.” There’s a hell of a lot less room for discussion and debate on the matter when it’s presented as a black and white fact, the kind that warrants religious levels of overzealousness when confronted.

The original didn’t shy away from strong admonitions like, “It is horrible to be a coward. It is weak to yield to fear and heroic to face danger without flinching,” and “The honor of a scout will not permit of anything but the highest and the best and the manliest. The honor of a scout is a sacred thing, and cannot be lightly set aside or trampled on.”

In contrast, the modern version frames its discussion of character in terms of its inoffensive modern equivalent: leadership and personal development. Instead of being couched in the absolute language of moral virtue, doing the right thing becomes a matter or “making the most of yourself” and “getting along with others.”

Wanna make the most of your kids ? Don’t put them within a 100 yards of these meatpuppets lest they… ah, who am I kidding. Let your kids be! And if it doesn’t work out, try, try again. Life isn’t sacred, not when it’s a life of wankish form-filling, which is exactly what The Boy Scouts of America are training their youths for : capital-b Bureaucracy.

Lest you think it can’t happen to you, I spent but a solitary year in Boy Scoutsⁱⁱⁱ before realising that my father wasn’t (just) some pencil-necked accountant or lawyer like all the other kids’ dads, and that I didn’t need to be taught by one of the said same dweeby old men to care for a bean plant, make a fire, or discover that a rain storm on a camping trip was non-life-threatening.^iv And I still ended up doing a stint in civil service.

The expansion in badges to such things as Robotics, Game Design (which involves playing and describing what you like about your favorite video games), Skating, Traffic Safety, Citizenship in the World (as opposed to just the nation), and Disability Awareness reflect the changing interests of boys and sensibilities of modern society.

“Hey Jimmy, what do you like about Call of Duty ?” “I like killing terrorists and saving America!” “Great answer, here’s a badge!” Mkay…

And what better than global awareness to entrench the values of cross-border strong retardism and its attendant “aid programmes” ? There’s no win like new badge ex retardo win.

While the 1911 badge requirements are all direct actions, often of the physical, hands-on variety, the modern badge requirements emphasize more thinking than doing. The hands-on tasks are now tucked into long lists of requirements that ask the scout to thoroughly Review/Describe/Explain/Illustrate/Demonstrate the underlying principles and context of the badge’s subject matter before trying their hand at it.

Anyone who’s worked for the metastatic bureaucracies presently feigning relevance from East to West, or even so much as written an application for a government grant, can attest to the obsequious inanity, the patent lunacy, and the sheer volume of drivel required to “get the job done” in these areas. Compared to a nation at war against actual entities, rather than a nation at war with various and sundry nouns, the time both available and time needing to be filled with directionless blathering is nothing short of impressive. That this training begins so early is quite essential in ensuring that local talent, rather than terse new immigrants, are selected for well-paid do-nothing jobs despite the apparent “fairness” of the selection processes. This actually works out because the new immigrants would go insane not working as much as government leeches, especially the unionised ones, are forced to.

In closing, let’s look at one of the lulzier changes that The New Boy Scouts made to one of the badges :

Firemanship/Fire Safety:
What’s interesting here is that, as reflected in the change in the badge’s name, the 1911 badge is geared towards preparing the Scout to actually fight the fire and rescue people (as if encouraging boys to rush into a burning building was the most natural thing in the world), while the modern badge focuses on how to prevent and escape fires. It also includes that crucial skill: how to safely light a candle!

Why face your fears when you can bolt for the exits like Usain Bolt ? When I was a kid, “stranger danger” was a thing, regularly aired in PSAs across posters and TV, but now it would seem that even innocuous tasks like lighting candles are “dangerous.” What’s next, lessons on how to turn on a light switch safely ? Lessons on how to take safety lessons safely ? Suffice to say that they don’t make ’em like they used to.

Now this works for them, but does it work for you ?

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1. Metaphorical gold, not literal gold. But that’d have been cool too.↩
2. Plato’s Republic had the breaking scoop on this 2`400 years ago.↩
3. Boy Scouts of Canada, of course, in what was apparently, and in hindsight, the West Edmonton Jew Chapter. Still, same difference.↩
4. Seriously, I got some dumb badge for being “brave” enough to leave the safety of the permanent campsite shelter, which inexplicably existed in the first place but where nearly every other kid and the few other dads were huddled together like mice in a cold church basement, and to venture out towards the edge of the nearby lake to listen to the crashing water and watch the lightning storm. We must’ve been out there for a couple of hours, just me, my dad, and another kid.

   When I learned to golf a few years later, I always excelled in the rain and wind when others packed it in. Maybe it’s just the tragic figure I am, but I can’t help risk a little lightning, a little flight too close to the sun.↩