Mike Rowe: Death of Boy Scouts?

[qwazse]

Oh yeah, OP. Mr. Rowe's paradox ...

18 minutes ago, RememberSchiff said:

Let's get back in the USA and with more thoughtful, relevant responses to Mike Rowe's comments.

... I can’t think of a single good reason to put girls and boys in the same troop, the same tent, the same boxing ring, or the same game of British Bulldog. But I can think of many good reasons to include them in a unified effort to confront the siren song of “safe spaces.” ...

Although BSA is doing none of that coed stuff: Isn't the argument against BSA4G entirely one of "safe spaces" for the boys?

[FireStone]

2 hours ago, RememberSchiff said:

Let's get back in the USA and with more thoughtful, relevant responses to Mike Rowe's comments.

The enemy is bad (BSA) ideology, and the inability to effectively confront it. Do I favor co-ed Scouting? Hell no. I can’t think of a single good reason to put girls and boys in the same troop, the same tent, the same boxing ring, or the same game of British Bulldog. But I can think of many good reasons to include them in a unified effort to confront the siren song of “safe spaces.”

Someone has to challenge the insipid belief that safety is the most important part of living. Someone has to challenge the idea that feelings trump achievement. Someone has to challenge the idea that “crying closets” on campuses designed to console stressed out students who just can’t handle their finals exams, (or the outcome of a presidential election,) will produce a responsible, productive adult.

 

But we're not putting them in the same troop or tent. I don't disagree with Mike's comments on safe spaces, but he's using strawman arguments to build his case. 

Interestingly enough, he makes a good point about creating a unified effort in challenging the "safe spaces" movement. I think he could still make as strong a point without resorting to the "boys and girls tenting together" fear mongering. 

[DuctTape]

Like most things, the idea of "safe spaces" has gone to far. All people should be safe in all places from bullying, harassment, and abuse. The term "safe space" is/was/should be recognition that bullying, harassment, and abuse are not tolerated at any level.

It is sad that many places allowed the continuum of what should be unacceptable behavior towards others to continue, and in the most egregious perpetuated. For sure the pendulum has swung very hard to the ridiculous, but I try not to lose sight of those who truly have been victimized, and ensure that I speak up when I witness bullying, harassment, and/or abuse and also do my best to ensure the environment in which I have influence nurtures kindness, helpfulness, etc...

[qwazse]

11 minutes ago, FireStone said:

But we're not putting them in the same troop or tent. I don't disagree with Mike's comments on safe spaces, but he's using strawman arguments to build his case. 

Interestingly enough, he makes a good point about creating a unified effort in challenging the "safe spaces" movement. I think he could still make as strong a point without resorting to the "boys and girls tenting together" fear mongering. 

Well, it's only fear mongering to those who dread it (rightly or wrongly).😃 Otherwise, it's just hyperbole.

[Gwaihir]

30 minutes ago, FireStone said:

But we're not putting them in the same troop or tent. I don't disagree with Mike's comments on safe spaces, but he's using strawman arguments to build his case. 

Interestingly enough, he makes a good point about creating a unified effort in challenging the "safe spaces" movement. I think he could still make as strong a point without resorting to the "boys and girls tenting together" fear mongering. 

"According to their official statement, https://cnn.it/2HOv7gY, the Boy Scouts are welcoming girls because that’s what the overwhelming majority of parents want. From what I can tell, no one is being “forced” to do anything. Nothing in their statement talks about “co-ed” camping or even co-ed Troop Meetings.

As I read it, The Boy Scouts are launching a separate program that serves girls. Yes, The Girl Scouts are pissed, and the reason is clear – they don’t want the competition. https://theatln.tc/2l0pq4f. But respectfully, is that argument even remotely persuasive? Competition is good, even among organizations that have similar goals. Especially now, with 90 million kids in this country unaffiliated with any youth-based organization. So I’m not opposed to building a program within Scouting for girls. But I am very worried about the future of Scouting in general."

Nonsense. he's not using strawmen arguments.  earlier in his piece (posted above) he clearly states that he understands the current plan is for girls to have their own troops.  There is no straw man.  He's saying he doesn't think girls and boys should be in the same troop.... SHOULD we get to that place.  Read the whole piece. 

[walk in the woods]

18 minutes ago, qwazse said:

Well, it's only fear mongering to those who dread it (rightly or wrongly).😃 Otherwise, it's just hyperbole.

Is it?  We've had a few comments on this site over the years about how some places in Europe the boys and girls just pile into a common tent.  If the argument to go co-ed is "the rest of the world does it" doesn't it follow that anything the rest of the world does should be acceptable here?  E.g. condoms and alcohol at scout events?

[Gwaihir]

19 minutes ago, DuctTape said:

Like most things, the idea of "safe spaces" has gone to far. All people should be safe in all places from bullying, harassment, and abuse. The term "safe space" is/was/should be recognition that bullying, harassment, and abuse are not tolerated at any level.

Disagree entirely.  Should people bully? no, but that's pie in the sky utopia.  IMO, We need to drop this anti-bullying everyone should be safe from bullying crusade once and for all, and instead go back to teaching resilience.  As someone who was mercilessly bullied in grammar school, I learned some valuable lessons out of those awful experiences.  I learned to stand up for myself and confront my bullies head on, I learned the importance of surrounding myself with good friends and family, I learned get emotionally tough.   The bullying stopped shortly after I gave one of the bullies a bloody nose. We graduated 8th grade as friends and my life radically changed course for the better.  Bullying happens at every single stage of human life and development, giving individuals tools to be brave in the face of bullying and to defend against bullying... to be prepared for it is far greater than trying to insulate society. 

[FireStone]

16 minutes ago, Gwaihir said:

Nonsense. he's not using strawmen arguments.  earlier in his piece (posted above) he clearly states that he understands the current plan is for girls to have their own troops.  There is no straw man.  He's saying he doesn't think girls and boys should be in the same troop.... SHOULD we get to that place.  Read the whole piece. 

 

I read the whole piece. It doesn't matter what he wrote previously. When you lead into a point of argument with hypothetical non-issues, that's a strawman.

[Eagledad]

27 minutes ago, Gwaihir said:

Disagree entirely.  Should people bully? no, but that's pie in the sky utopia.  IMO, We need to drop this anti-bullying everyone should be safe from bullying crusade once and for all, and instead go back to teaching resilience.  As someone who was mercilessly bullied in grammar school, I learned some valuable lessons out of those awful experiences.  I learned to stand up for myself and confront my bullies head on, I learned the importance of surrounding myself with good friends and family, I learned get emotionally tough.   The bullying stopped shortly after I gave one of the bullies a bloody nose. We graduated 8th grade as friends and my life radically changed course for the better.  Bullying happens at every single stage of human life and development, giving individuals tools to be brave in the face of bullying and to defend against bullying... to be prepared for it is far greater than trying to insulate society. 

That's pretty good and I must agree.

I was talking to my daughter about some things that bothered her and I realized that she was confusing bullying with being offended. I think bullying is being so over used today that it's loosing the real value of meaning.

Real Life is hard and to survive we must learn how to deal with those things that cause us stress. I have said often that a troop environment is real life scaled down to a boys size. The typical troop program puts the scouts in a lot small stressful situations to practice and learn how to handle big stressful situations in their adult life. I use to say to visiting Webelos parents that we are preparing their sons to handle that day when the wife is sick in bed, the kids are crying for breakfast and the boss is calling to find out why he is late for work.

"Safe spaces" seems to be a term for young adults who didn't learn how to deal with stress while they were young.

Barry

Edited May 23, 2018 by Eagledad

[Gwaihir]

18 minutes ago, FireStone said:

I read the whole piece. It doesn't matter what he wrote previously. When you lead into a point of argument with hypothetical non-issues, that's a strawman.

completely disagree.  He explained the facts, then he expressed his opinion on the op's hypothetical concern.  two very different things. 

[DuctTape]

Teaching resilience, yes. Bullying, harassment, and abuse will always be there, but that doesn't mean we just accept it as ok, or even a good thing. Teaching resilience in the face of hardship is good, and I support it wholeheartedly. We also teach ethical behavior and continuing to purposely be hurtful to others is not ethical behavior in my opinion. 

[Gwaihir]

2 minutes ago, DuctTape said:

Teaching resilience, yes. Bullying, harassment, and abuse will always be there, but that doesn't mean we just accept it as ok, or even a good thing. Teaching resilience in the face of hardship is good, and I support it wholeheartedly. We also teach ethical behavior and continuing to purposely be hurtful to others is not ethical behavior in my opinion. 

I'm not saying we should teach people to have intent to harm, quite the opposite.  The goals are the same, limit bullying to irrelevance and non-existence.. but imo operating under banners of anti-bullying is ineffective and ultimately results in a lot of what we're seeing today, damaged youth, mostly boys who then lash out in very destructive ways.  The path I feel is a much more successful is focused on the victims, teaching them resilience, emotional fortitude, the ability to form solid friendships and the wherewithal to stand up to their bullies, even physically if need be.   

[DuctTape]

I did not think anyone would believe that purposely hurting others is something we should encourage. I agree with teaching victims resilience, fortitude, etc... I am not sure I agree that "anti-bullying measures" are the cause of boys lashing out. There are many factors that lead to those behaviors. Teaching boys and girls (girls are just as bad at bullying) other ways to interact appropriately instead of bullying or lashing out is part of parenting, youth development, and common culture.

I would be remiss if I did not mention that there are more than 2 actors in bullying, harassment, abuse (I keep stating all three because I see them as existing on a continuum) besides just perpetrator and victim. The others, witnesses, bystanders etc... also play a role. That role also exists on a continuum of perpetuating, ignoring, intervening. I believe we should also be teaching others to move towards the intervening end. That was basically my original point. 

[Gwaihir]

34 minutes ago, DuctTape said:

I did not think anyone would believe that purposely hurting others is something we should encourage. I agree with teaching victims resilience, fortitude, etc... I am not sure I agree that "anti-bullying measures" are the cause of boys lashing out. There are many factors that lead to those behaviors. Teaching boys and girls (girls are just as bad at bullying) other ways to interact appropriately instead of bullying or lashing out is part of parenting, youth development, and common culture.

I would be remiss if I did not mention that there are more than 2 actors in bullying, harassment, abuse (I keep stating all three because I see them as existing on a continuum) besides just perpetrator and victim. The others, witnesses, bystanders etc... also play a role. That role also exists on a continuum of perpetuating, ignoring, intervening. I believe we should also be teaching others to move towards the intervening end. That was basically my original point. 

I whole-heartedly agree that we should teach others to intervene.  I see this as a societal problem at large.  We are preached "if you see something, say something", "do not interfere, call the authorities", etc.  It's why we get 100 cell phone videos of someone getting assaulted, and no one (let alone 10 people) step in to stop the assault.  

In England, the horrific video of Lee Rigby being hacked to pieces in broad daylight in the middle of London, while dozens if not hundreds of on-lookers just stood by and video taped it still haunts me.  A scout is brave. 

[oldbuzzard]

6 hours ago, qwazse said:

Oh yeah, OP. Mr. Rowe's paradox ...

Although BSA is doing none of that coed stuff: Isn't the argument against BSA4G entirely one of "safe spaces" for the boys?

I agree with this. I support going coed on the merits but I think having a good analogy for this situation could be helpful for more conservative/traditional Scouters...

In threads on a classical homeschooling board I'm on, the more conservative members mirror opinion on this board with a strong pro GS/AHG bias. Interestingly some of the more liberal female members have a pro GS view based on mourning for the likely loss of "safe spaces". This is usually framed in terms of the decline of women's colleges. Vassar gong coed, Radcliffe merging back in with Harvard, etc, etc... They generally acknowledge more opportunity for girls has been a good thing but still mourn the loss of these unique spaces.

I found this analogy of single sex colleges to be insightful. The rhetoric and intensity of feelings about BSA admitting girls reminds me of when VMI and The Citadel went coed ~25 years ago. Many of the Fox news commentaries read exactly the same. Loss of male tradition and rituals, safe spaces. When I was a kid in the south, some held the belief that the  last 2 of the senior military colleges to go coed offered a different, perhaps superior, option to the Service Academies, which went coed in 1976. Alumni where going on about how they would never give money or have their kids join the military... all sorts of hyperbolic talk.

25 years on, I think that has been a success. Yeah there were and continue to be issues with sexual harassment at these schools and in the military .... and the Scouts will probably see the same... but over all I think most people would view it as a success.