I have no idea about what split off from Scouting in the US either. I agree most of the groups that split off do seem to be more on the “conservative” end of things - which doesn’t help of course.
To an outsider one group of kids in uniforms with neck scarves and woggles and badges looks just like another. It’s only when you look closely that you see the dodgy wolves’ heads and almost swastikas.
In the UK, we had/have groups like this as well though:
I gather Germany and Austria sort of went the opposite route. You had similar movements (Wandervoegel, etc.) and they were then influenced by scouting.
All of these organisations of course have their beginning as part of the same big societal trends. Groups and group activities of all kinds were popular. Uniforms were fashionable (still are of course). The infrastructure was there to get children out into the outdoors and back to the cities. There’s the reaction against industrialisation, and so on.
So you have all sorts of organisations basically offering the same thing. If one of them had to end up being the most popular worldwide, Scouting’s certainly not the worst one.
Just to be clear (in case it wasn’t sufficiently) I don’t have anything against scouts or scouting - although BSA does sound like an organisation I would really not be happy to be a member of. I was a Beaver and cub scout myself before dropping out of scouting.
I was trying to make the point that while you, as a scout, have strong views about what scouting is and isn’t, those views come from your being a member of the organisation as it currently exists and as you currently experience it.
If it looks different to an outsider, there are various ways to deal with that.
One can ignore it.
One can try and educate the outsider. In that case telling them that they know nothing about the organisation or don’t know what they are talking about is probably counter-productive.
One can consider whether maybe the organisation one belongs to does not do as good a job as it could of promoting its values to outsiders.
One can consider whether the outsider might not have a point in at least some of what is being said.
For example, while you can take the view that your particular scouting organisation is not paramilitary, it does have at its base the uniforms and organisational principles derived from military experience. Hence, the uniforms, the Scout Leaders and organisation into ‘Patrols’.
The Red Cross is probably not the best example given that they were explicitly set up to be war-time medical assistance for wounded soldiers and therefore definitely were paramilitary at the time.
The orders of St John (Johanniter) and Malta (Malteser) are of course explicit successors/offshoots of a paramilitary organisation.
As you say Scouting is a global organisation and has a ‘big tent’ approach. I’m afraid that does mean that Austrian scouts do get lumped in with every other Scout organisation worldwide.
Your scout movement may do things in certain ways but it is trying to remain connected to organisations which take in some cases very different attitudes.
The desire to “get along with people who don’t share all my values” and “find something in common with them”, etc. is laudable and I agree with it in principle.
It does mean though that people are entitled to take the view that Scouting as a whole condones the attitudes embraced by its constituent parts.
