Bravery
July 18th, 2012 by Darin
Fig. 1: self at 15--full regalia!
For anyone who’s read Noise, it’s probably pretty clear that I was a Boy Scout—my main character categorizes his new, apocalyptic world with his own mythified memories of Scouting and adolescence to a degree that would have been difficult to fake.
In fact, I’m an Eagle Scout—the highest rank in Scouting one can achieve, and few do. Not everyone knows the distinction, but the Eagle Scout award represents the collected achievements in leadership, community service, self realization, and practical survival skills that represent the total throughput of a young man’s Scouting career. It’s a difficult award for an adolescent to achieve, especially since most earn it around the time they’re trying to fit in at high school, when it’s not particularly cool to weave lanyards and wear knee socks. In earlier days, most people knew what the Eagle Award represented: a particular young man with sticking power, gumption, and discipline. These days, there’s less awareness as the gleam of the modern age has come to outshine that medal, which, each year, looks a little smaller.
A fair degree of the ethos I live by today is informed by my time in the Scouts. I owe what success I’ve achieved and what respect I’ve earned to those years, to that award. Trustworthiness and helpfulness are among the attributes that I hold most dear. I judge others by whether or not they become liabilities in social situations, and despite my curmudgeonly exterior, I help others when I can. I know that good leaders are good followers, and I perform moral deeds for the sake of performing them—I took a sense of personal moral responsibility from the Scouts, not any religiously defined obligation.
I’d imagine I’m not a typical cross-section of your average grown Eagle Scout. As I moved into adulthood, I embraced liberal politics. I spent a lot of time in postgraduate school, earning degrees in literature and literary theory rather than applying my Eagle skills as a civic servant or outdoorsman (which is a common track for the grown Eagle). I’m an atheist, a science fiction fan, and a great lover of spirits. But, that said, my Eagle Scout award is to this day every bit as legitimate and representative as anyone else’s. Because I’ve cherished what I learned during those days, because I think discipline and respect and determination can change a young man’s life, because I think the Scouts can be better, so much better—because of all this, I’m embarrassed and ashamed by the BSA’s recent reaffirmation of their programmatic bigotry. It cheapens the integrity of those of us who still espouse the core tenets of Scouting, and it dirties the memory of the men—those giants, those scoutmasters and fathers and neighbors—who taught us how to be decent and responsible people. Who taught us how to be good men.
Let me share with you the Scout Law (U.S. version), which are the rules a scout lives by, the rules that teach him how to be a man. Most of these, I still try to practice on a daily basis. Once you memorize them, you never forget.
A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.
But endorsing an ideology of intolerance is not helpful. It’s not friendly or courteous or kind. It’s not cheerful, or thrifty, or loyal. It might be trustworthy in its steadfast bigotry, and I don’t think it’s particularly reverent since we disregard most Levitical and Old Testament law anyway.
But, worst of all, it’s not brave. That’s the hardest one for a young man to learn, to practice. And the BSA has shown its boys that inequality is okay—that they’ll be brave when it’s easier.
Maybe there aren’t enough Eagle Scouts on that Board.
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Dang it; screwed up my comment.
I’d imagine I’m not a typical cross-section of your average grown Eagle Scout.
I’m an Eagle Scout who’s liberal, BA/MS, agnostic, sf fan, gamer, game designer.
We could get t-shirts made.
But, worst of all, it’s not brave. That’s the hardest one for a young man to learn, to practice. And the BSA has shown its boys that this is okay. They’ll be brave when its easier.
Exactly this.
That’s all right–I’ll delete it :)
I’m learning there are more of us out there than I thought . . .
To the Boyscouts, who tend to be perceived as Christian, you have taken a part of the Law and left out the end of the Oath which an Eagle Scout (myself, included) also never forgets:
“…and to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.”
To a Christian scout (which you have said you are not, and thus I can understand your displeasure with their ruling), homosexuality is NOT “morally straight.” If, to them, it is not morally right, then the heads of BSA believe they cannot follow the Oath. [This does not mean you are forced to believe the same, of course.]
BTW, I may be conservative and Christian, but I also now live overseas in Japan (one of the highest % non-Christian nations in the world), am an avid sci-fi and anime lover, and grew up on video games. Indeed, not all Scouts or Eagles fit one mold.
For them, is it not brave for THEM to stand up and say what they believe? Look, yourself, at the backlash this has taken against them. They knew it would come, yet they are standing up for what THEY believe in (being loyal, obedient, and reverent to their God).
I can understand your unhappiness with their decision, but you are dishonoring and not taking into account what merits they are showing in their own way. To judge them simply because their view is not the same as yours seems unfit, to me, of one who also calls themselves an Eagle. Is it not loyal to the founders, helpful in supporting Scouts, friendly toward them, courteous in the least bit, kind to them, obedient to the organization, or cheerful. I would argue that your argument is also not brave, based on grounds that so many people are backlash-ing against the Scouts you hold the most popular position. What is brave about telling the Scouts they are horrible for doing this? Finally, it’s not the least bit reverent toward their beliefs, or their God.
Not everyone agrees. People today so easily confuse intolerance for simply not agreeing.
Hi, Scott—it’s always a pleasure to meet a fellow Eagle, and I thank you for taking the time both to read and to comment upon my post. Topics like these typically engender knee-jerk reactions, so I appreciate your candor and civility.
To your points: it’s true that a person of Christian faith may be compelled to espouse a particular view of homosexuality, based on the tenets of his or her religion . . . based on how he or she understands them. It’s unfortunate, and I think it’s off-course, given how little Christ had to say about homosexuality but how much Old Testament God had to say. God, in that sense, had quite a lot of intolerant, unequal, or downright cruel things to say about a lot of topics, most of which we disregard. I mean, Levitical law holds the eating of shellfish as an abomination, but Joe’s Crab Shack does just fine all across America—even in the Bible Belt. I celebrate and protect any individual’s right to faith. It’s central to the U.S.A. that you and I, as Eagles, have taken oaths to protect and serve.
However, the B.S.A. has never been officially Christian, so those board members, if they’re making their moral decisions on behalf of the B.S.A., have obligations to consider the organization at large and not just their particular beliefs. And when I refer to the organization at large, I don’t just mean the opinions of its members or parents—I mean its obligations to any scout at any time who has every right to his or her faith and morality that the majority of scouts have . . . and . . . has a right to be a scout, based on the premises of the organization itself. If I may quote another fellow Eagle who has conversed with me re: this blog post:
If I may offer a correction of your response: I didn’t take merely a part of the law—I relied on it in its entirety to make my point. I did omit the use of the oath because its primary argumentative impetus in this situation would be the injunction to be “morally straight,” which cannot be legitimately defined one way or another, so I feel it would have been unfair and improper for me to lean on that as an argument. I understand the temptation to do so, but it wasn’t in line with the point I was trying to make.
The issues of bravery, tolerance, and equality are larger than an individual board member’s courage in the face of what he or she may see as religious or moral persecution or degradation. The issues demand that good decisions—difficult decisions—be made to understand, respect, and accept all people, not to see ourselves as superior and thus deny them rights or privileges that we have. Historically, those who have proponed, supported, or encouraged inequality have been on the wrong side of “morally straight.” Apartheid, Nazi Germany, Japanese internment, slavery, civil rights—which side of these issues do we want our scouts raised to stand on? Which sides of these issues represent the bravery that you and I learned in the scouts?
That is the nature of my judgment of the board. Not that those people have a right to their beliefs (even if I’m disappointed and offended by them) but that their beliefs must be protected privately and not used to enforce codes of intolerance. And certainly not to teach it to our youth.
Scott, again, I’m glad to know another Eagle, and I hope you’ll spend time in meditation and prayer and genuinely ask yourself and God where you could be most helpful in this debate. Other Christian Eagles that I know have decided that the issue of judgment is for God Himself and that here on Earth, it’s our responsibility to love and accept. Some have decided that they simply can’t tolerate homosexuality. It’s a shame, but it’s their right, of course.
I hope, however, to soon call you an ally in the struggle for tolerance, acceptance, and bravery.
Best,
-Darin