Context: I was a Boy Scout for a number of years, making Eagle in 2020 right as COVID was really kicking off.
It was right afterwards, however, that the CSA scandal started popping up everywhere (which thankfully I was never exposed to or involved in during my time), and lately it seems like the organization & movement as a whole has fallen by the sociocultural wayside.
I would say that my time as a Scout did me objective good; I learned a decent amount about first-aid & survival-craft, participated in a number of volunteer & civic projects, and it generally made me a more well-rounded person. However, there’s no denying the impact that something “bigger than the Catholic Church scandal”, as I’ve heard it described, has on an institution such as this.
I’d like to get the community’s opinion, however; were any of you Scouts? How was your experience? What is your opinion of the institution today?
Overall a positive experience, bit authoritarian, bit militaristic, but lots of useful skills, fostered a great appreciation of nature and wilderness. Principle seems sound, implementation has shown its flaws.
Honestly, I can see it being in a good place for a reinvention. Maybe socialist scouts or solarpunk scouts, maybe a whole slew of loosely connected (ideologically distributed even) scouts to give kids a choice. Could give it a chance to become more inclusive and safer. I’m using ‘scouts’ in a gender neutral form, applies to all genders and I see scouting as more exciting than guiding, which may appeal to all kids. Part of the diaspora could be each troop (and their parents) deciding where they stand on gender exclusion. Democracy scouts perhaps (direct at that scale).