The Ideal, The Telos and its lack in BSA

[WHEELER]

I'm attacked because I do not participate yet in the BSA movement has forgotten the "purpose" of Scouting.

 

The purpose they say is "fun and adventure". That is the current BSA philosophy. Philosophy is a DOS program. Everything now, geared to that Telos of "Fun and adventure". We have forgotten the true purpose of Scouting "The training of Boys to be REAL Men". If that was the philosophy of the Boy Scouts, then things would be geared differently to that Telos.

 

In the Old School, I believe I learned this in the White Stage program, One has a mission statement and then lists the objectives for accomplishing the mission. Where does a vision statement fit in? This contemporary vision statement is not consistent with the history and origninal intent of the Boy Scouts. Where are the objectives of th Boy Scouts?

 

Where are the OFFICIAL OBJECTIVES OF THE BSA? Is it the vision statement?

[Guest OldGreyEagle]

Marty, I am sorry, I was referring to me. You see Wheeler keeps on posting and saying he is being attacked, when if I am correct he is the one who has called others idiots, dunderheads and a few other things. While I dont agree with him, I am not sure Wheeler has had an unappetizing sobriquet attached to him. But it is of no matter as Bob White has said, "Sticks and Stones..."

 

Now, Wheeler has made pronouncements here and many read him and appear to take him at his word, yet since he has posted I have had to point out to him that Baden-Powell had not been born to the aristocracy as he claimed, a point he conceded he did not know, this was after his stated he read a biography on B-P.

 

He stated WWI was started when "Prince" Ferdinand was assasinated in Serbia. After I Pointed out that is was Archduke Ferdinand who was assasinated in Sarajevo by a serbian anarchist and that while the death of the Archduke started the ball rolling towards WWI, saying his death started WWI is like saying slavery casued the American Civil War, he conceded that as well.

 

I corrected his spelling of St. Thomas Aquinas

and Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Two rather unsual names to be found in a scouting forum, but what the heck with the first amendment being what it is, thats ok, but if you are going to present yourself as the learned teacher you should be accurate.

 

Then after claiming he was Greek we had the whole Palios Xristos thing where he ended up conceding my translation was correct and he was wrong.

 

Then recently he tried to lay the whole formation of Western Civilization on the thoughts of Socrates and I pointed out that the Roman Rule of Law and Judeo-Christian value system had a little to do with it along with the Greek Dignity of Man which while SOcrates was a part of, he was in no way the sole contributor and he he conceded I was right.

 

I do not mean to attack Wheeler, or at least I dont think I am. He is free to post what he will and how he thinks. But when he posts inaccuate information and tries to pass off his circumoration as the truth and knowledge that he seeks, then I have to say something. If correcting inaccuracies constitutes an attack, then label me Rambo.

 

 

[WHEELER]

OGE,

 

You corrected me on my spellings and because you did so, now my thesis is in error?

 

"Lord" is still an aristocratic term. Lord Baden-Powell means he was elevated to the aristocracy. Even if, he wasn't born that way, he became that way. He is aristocracy NOW. Thomas Jefferson believed in a "landed aristocracy". Aristocracy just means rule of the best.

 

Archduke is a type of prince. I had the word at the tip of my tongue and couldn't remember properly so I used the generic term prince. "Dukes", "Arch-dukes", "Earls", are all forms of the term prince. Lower forms of aristocracy under the King.

 

From the Oxford English Dictionary 20 vol set

 

Duke: #2a. In some European countries: A sovereign prince, the ruler of a small state called a duchy.

 

#3 In Great Britain and some other countries; a Hereditary title of nobility, ranking below that of a prince.

 

Earl: #3a. Applied to all feudal nobles and princes bearing the Romanic title of Count;

 

#3b in the modern peerage an earl ranks next below a marquis, and next above a viscount.

 

When I used "Prince", I used it as a Generic term to include all nobility. Just like "Bishop" desicribes all Patriarchs, Metropolitans, Arch-Bishops, Popes, Cardinals. Bishop is the generic and the rest are graduations of the theme.

 

For, Palios Xristos I will not use in shortened form anymore. O Palios Xristos estin. The shortened form I used, doesn't take away from the meaning that Old is not to be discarded because of age as many in modern, contemporary society would like that. I will have more to say on this subject though.

[NJCubScouter]

This was from last week (the first post in this thread) but I didn't respond to it then.

 

Wheeler quoted the following from a book, "The Ideals of Greek Culture":

 

The essence of education is to make each individual in the image of the community.

 

I think almost everybody in our country today, especially those involved in education, would say it it is a little more complicated than that. The statement you quote may have been the attitude in ancient Greece. It may have been the attitude in Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union, and it probably is the attitude today in China. And I am not saying that it is not a part of education; students do need to be taught the ideals and history and values and expectations of the community and the importance of complying with them, up to a point. But they also need to be taught to think for themselves so that when they grow up, they can help improve the community. So there is no single "essence" of education; both what you have said and what I have raised are "elements" of why society educates its youth, and there are others.

 

Philosophy, as wondrous and subtle as it may be, is simple compared to reality. Reality is complicated.

[NJCubScouter]

Thomas Jefferson believed in a "landed aristocracy".

 

That did not sound right, and I looked it up, and it's not right.

 

See http://www.constitution.org/tj/jeff14.txt

 

From this site on the writings of Jefferson:

 

While the battle was waging in the House of Burgesses against the right of the first-born male to inherit, his opponents, under the leadership' of one Pendleton, pleaded that the eldest son might at least take a double share : " Not, " was Jefferson's retort, " until he can eat a double allowance of food and do a double allowance of work. " " My purpose," said Jefferson afterwards, "was instead of an aristocracy of wealth to make an opening for an aristocracy of virtue and talent."

 

And from http://www.bordersstores.com/features/feature.jsp?file=wealthanddemocracy

 

this:

 

The debate over the compatibility of wealth and democracy is as old as the republic. From the start, concern that the egalitarian-seeming United States of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries might develop wealth concentrations to match Europe's was a worry for many but also the guarded hope of an important few.

 

Alexander Hamilton, who favored both a financial class and an aristocracy, would have cherished the possibility of such an elite. John Adams, who thought aristocracies inevitable, would not have been surprised. Thomas Jefferson brooded that such a danger could flow all too easily from urban growth, finance, and commerce. Richard Price, the British reformer friendly to the American Revolution, warned the new nation against foreign banks and finance; and Alexis de Tocqueville, in 1837, hedged his praise for democracy in America with concern that the new industrial elite, "one of the harshest that ever existed," would bring about the "permanent inequality of conditions and aristocracy."

 

So, no, Jefferson did not favor rule by a "landed aristocracy," just the opposite. (You would have been correct if you had said Hamilton, who wanted among other things to have a president-for-life, in other words a monarch. But we ended with, in the words of Benjamin Franklin, a republic -- by which he meant a representative democracy with restrictions on what the majority could force on the minority -- if we could keep it.)

[WHEELER]

NJCubScouter,

Shakespeare said in one of his plays, "The first thing we do is kill all the lawyers." You are up on that list of firsts.

What didn't you get in the post of "What is a Republic"? A republic is NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT a representative democracy. What is there that you don't get?

The first election rules of this country were that only the men WHO OWNED LAND could vote. There is no such thing as a "right to vote". This idea of "men who owned land" only, is the landed aristocracy. Aristocracy is needed in every human institution!

To get back on thread here. From Leon Podles, "The Church Impotent" agrees that "Adult" is a terrible use of terminology for boys and men.

"Simply being an adult male is not enough; one must in addition be a man, which means more than having a male body. Being a man in the fullest sense is a matter of the will, a choice to live in a certain way. A male can be praised for acting like a man, or blamed for not being manly." pg 37.

[firstpusk]

NJCubScouter,

Shakespeare said in one of his plays, "The first thing we do is kill all the lawyers." You are up on that list of firsts.

I can understand your frustration, WHEELER. NJ has taken your argument apart. You seem to have a great deal of difficulty appropriately expressing yourself. That does not justify any threat. You are not fit to his shine his tassle loafers. Please go find another board to annoy and on the way, seek competent psychological help. Have a nice day. I will be praying for you.(This message has been edited by firstpusk)