On Effeminancy

[WHEELER]

I am putting this post here to demonstrate the correlation between the effeminancy and the founding idea of the Boy Scout Organization.

From the  l948 Copyright Handbook for Boys pg6.

 Titled: HOW SCOUTING BEGAN

"...A young British army officer, Robert Baden-Powell, was stationed in the wild South African country to train new soldiers from England in the skills of tracking, trailing, and wilderness living.

"HE FOUND THAT HIS MEN WERE SO USED TO CITY LIVING THAT THEY COULD NOT STAND THE VIGOROUS LIFE OF THE OUTDOORS."

What were this young Bristish city boys? They were effeminate. They were not rugged.   Vigourous is synonomous with Ruggedness.  The Boy Scout program came from this observation.

The Program at its fundamentals was to "RIGORIZE" boys so that they could live out of doors. To make boys hardy and rugged.  The page from the 1911 Boy Scout handbook is a picture of hardiness and ruggedness.  Iron sharpens Iron.

What is "Hardy and Rugged" do? It masculinizes MEN.

When this organization brings females into the program they are naturally participating in this process of masculinization whether they know it or not.

This is the core of the Boy Scout Program.

 

[Hunt]

The first post in this thread shows how a little bit of education, linked to a willingness to believe in conspiracies, can lead a person astray. In fact, there is a scholarly dispute (with political overtones) over what the word "malakoi" means in 1 Cor. 6:9. [Tune out now if you don't care.] But the dispute isn't over whether it means "effeminate." Pretty much everybody knowledgeable about Greek recognizes now that this was a bad translation. There are three main lines of thought: first, that it means "soft" as in morally weak (the most literal meaning), second, that it is paired with another word to condemn all homosexual activity, and third, that it is intended to condemn specific sexual activity (a type of prostitution). I don't find any of the arguments overwhelmingly persuasive, because there aren't enough contemporary sources to be sure. But to build some arcane theory on this about how a plot to promote "effeminacy" is undermining society (and the Boy Scouts) is just silly.

[WHEELER]

The word is from classical times and unless one understands the milleu one cannot understand the meaning of the word. Never in conscious understanding of the 25 years of my adult christianity have I ever heard this word preached on. Never.

 

Mr. Hunt I gave plenty of sources for the correct meaning of the word effeminate. At least, I count four quotes from Church Fathers in that post who use the word. It doesn't sound that they had trouble using or understanding the word.

 

I question your reading comprehension. Crudens Concordance had no trouble defining the idea of the word. What's your trouble?

 

Effeminate means weak and soft; it means to act like a woman. How hard is that? How hard is it for you to understand Herodotus's account????

 

 

[WHEELER]

From the book, The Church Impotent, The Feminization of Christianity, by Leon Podles, who is an Assistant Scoutmaster, Pg177:

 

"The Boy Scouts were founded by Baden-Powell because recruits for the British army were too often found to be physically unfit-unfit, that is, for military service. The Bristich Scouts encouraged physical fitness by teaching boys to be observers and trackers.....Instead, the regimen of the Scouts is designed to teach boys how to endure moderate discomfort, cooperate with others and ultimately save others."

 

He footnotes the above to page 250,

 

"Michael Rosenthal claims: "For Scouting was from the very beginning conceived as a remedy to Britian's moral, physical, and military weakness--conditions that the Boer war seemed to announce-especially to Tory politicians, social imperialists, and military leaders-were threatening the Empire (The Character Factory: Baden-Powell and the Origins of the Boy Scout Movement [London:Collins, l986], 3)"

 

The Boy Scouts are about curing effeminacy among men and masculinizing men.

[Hunt]

I don't want to waste more time on the substance of this, but I'll make a point. If you want to find out what a Greek word in the Bible means, you don't just look in Cruden's Concordance and go on a random quote hunt among the Church Fathers. You actually have to do some research on what current scholars think about it. That's what I did (all on the Internet, by the way)--and it helps to know some Greek. Maybe another way of putting this is that access to information is not the same as understanding it or being able to put it into context. A real education, provided by good teachers, is necessary for that.

[firstpusk]

"Maybe another way of putting this is that access to information is not the same as understanding it or being able to put it into context. A real education, provided by good teachers, is necessary for that."

 

I couldn't agree with your sentiment more. However, when it comes to a real education - Its all greek to WHEELER.

 

[WHEELER]

To Mr. Hunt

 

Why trust modern scholars about anything? College degrees aren't worth the paper they're written on. Take for instance, a Republic. There is a political Scientist at the University of Tampa Florida. Her name is Susan McGinnis, if my memory serves me right. She has a PHD in Political Science. She calls this country a democracy all the time. She was on all the media outlets of newspapers and TV. With seven years of higher education and she still can't get it right along with every one of those "political scienctists" out there. None of them have it right. Not even the President with his Yale degree. NONE. How stupid they look. They are all like emperors with no clothes on.

 

Explain this Mr. Hunt, how many college degrees went into the 26th edition that is quoted in the first post? Yet, they did not do their job. Modern scholars really means Socialist scholars.

 

Even Apostolos Makrakis (c 1825-1910) talked of universities as "Obfuscatories". Ayn Rand worked with them. She couldn't stand them either.

 

 

[WHEELER]

Under the heading of Perseverance: The Latin term for inconstancy (mollities) indicates a kind of softness or effeminacy of spirit. Catholic Encyclopaedia, Vol 11, pg 154.

 

Virtue is a habit. Virtue by nature needs the virtue of perseverance. An effeminate man can never attain virtue since he cannot persevere.

 

Under the heading of Long Suffering: Inconstancy is the vice of those who are unwilling to endure the tedium of prolonged action in the face of obstacles. They are soft and easily abandon the pursuit of virtue in the face of exterior difficulties, such as the jibes of others. Catholic Encyclopaedia, Vol 8, pg 983.

 

One can say that hardiness and ruggedness is necessary for the attainment of virtue. They strengthen a man to endure and to suffer.

 

 

There is a new term being bandied about: the term metrosexual. It is what was called a dandy 100 years ago. They created a new name for something they have lost the usage of. Dandy and this new term metrosexual are pretty words for essentially effeminates.

 

[Hunt]

When somebody says that "college degrees aren't worth the paper they're printed on," you can be pretty sure he doesn't have one--and that he hasn't experienced a decent education. I have a relative who was always smarter and more knowledgeable than all his teachers--according to him--and his bad grades were due to their jealously of him.

 

By the way, Ayn Rand's philosophy--based on total self-interest and contempt for altruism--is completely antithetical to the Scout Law. She was also an atheist. (Also an idiot and a lousy writer--but that part's just my opinion.)

[firstpusk]

Hunter,you are on to something with WHEELER. He is an inveterate quote miner. He is not interested in deeper understanding of a text but only if he can use someone else's words to support his opinion. The fact that he uses Ayn Rand to support his dislike of higher education shows this process at work in his feeble analysis. Rand did share WHEELER's dismissive attitude toward the opinions of others - an ascerbic know-it-all who seemed to hate everyone. In that way, she also seems to share the WHEELER outlook. It seems inconceivable that WHEELER would quote her considering her unabashed atheism. But alas, WHEELER is a walking, I mean a multi-posting contradiction.

 

[WHEELER]

There are many a famous man who never got a college degree. A college degree means nothing these days. It's just a door to making money.

 

Ayn Rand has her problems. She was altruistic and atheistic but she also spoke the truth in many of things she wrote about. One must sift the sand in order to pick out the gold. Ayn Rand has much gold in her since she did love 'truth'. I take the truth from anyone. Even the devil quoted scripture.

 

If someone said it better than me, I will quote him. No need to paraphrase when someone else has eloquently spoken. I am not into "opinions" I am into knowledge.

[firstpusk]

Yes WHEELER, there are many intelligent capable men and women who contribute greatly to society and lack a college education. That is one thing you have in common with them.

 

You put your foot in it with Ayn Rand. She does not have her problems. She died in 1982 but you probably did not know that. She has been called a lot of things but never altruistic. She felt that was weakness and she hated weakness. She was an arrogant woman who trumpeted her atheism. It is indeed humorous but not surprising that you quote her. You might think she loved truth. I think she only loved Ayn Rand. There was not much more than arrogance and purple prose in her writing. That is probably why you like her.

[WHEELER]

I was copying the previous man's post and did not add "contempt for" in front of altruistic.

 

To Mr. Hunt:

 

There are now Classical references, Biblical references, Church Fathers references, documented 500 years of use in the English language, and two references from the l967 Catholic Encyclopaedia, and WE NEED TO KNOW WHAT MODERN SCHOLARS THINK?

 

This all tells me that the MEANING of the word "effeminate" is very clear. It just also might mean that those "modern scholars" don't know anything after all.

[Hunt]

Um, yeah, we should care what modern scholars think, because knowledge advances. This is just as true in understanding of ancient languages as it is in other areas of knowledge. I suppose you can insist on believing in Newtonian physics, or a flat earth, or whatever you want. Now modern scholars can be wrong, and they often disagree--but when even opposing schools of though agree that the old ideas are wrong, then the old ideas probably are wrong.

[firstpusk]

"I was copying the previous man's post and did not add "contempt for" in front of altruistic."

 

That does make more sense. However, Ayn Rand was a selfish, arrogant and overbearing twit. Come to think of it...I can understand why you quote her.