To get a better future, we should look to the past…

I was writing yesterday about teenage delinquency. By coincidence, yesterday afternoon, I was listening to a podcast with Robert Putnam. Putnam is the author of the famous book Bowling Alone, which talks about the decline of community and the increase in loneliness in America.

Towards the end of the interview, Putnam discusses similar concerns about delinquent boys over 100 years ago. From the interview:

Let’s say you got to sit with the next president. What are the top policy solutions you would recommend to help remedy social isolation? About 125 years ago, what was called the “boy problem” was a big problem. It was a problem of boys who were getting in trouble and raising trouble for the country as a whole. And to address that problem, a burst of new associations directed at boys were invented. Big Brothers, and the organization called Boys Clubs, now called Boys and Girls Clubs, it started in 1906. And Boy Scouts. Now, what do I infer from that? This goes back to my understanding of why we would look at that period, the progressive era. Folks in that era were concerned about the same problem we are now. That is, loner males, boys especially, were getting in trouble and causing the country trouble. And nowadays it’s exactly those loner males, young loner males who are drawn to white nationalism and violence. So if I were talking to the president, either president, and said: How do we solve this problem of white nationalism and violence and terrorism in America? We have to begin early in life, and that means thinking of new ways — not the Boy Scouts or whatever. But what did the Boy Scouts and those other groups do that was so neat? They combined something that was fun — camping or whatever else Boy Scouts did — with moral indoctrination. “A Scout is trustworthy, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful” — I could do this once.

I love that you still remember most of it. All the boys in my generation remembered it, because you had to, it was a pledge. “A Scout is trustworthy, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent.” [Putnam only missed one: “loyal.”] Now some of that sounds, you know, “thrifty” sounds a little dated. But “trustworthy” isn’t, that’s not wrong. We need somebody as bright as the people who invented those institutions now for the 21st century to think about something that’s fun, that will actually be enjoyable for the kids but also throw in a dose of character education.

Boys need to feel part of something, have a purpose, and feel useful and needed. Instead, we sedate them with technology, and they self-medicate with games, p*rn, alcohol and prescribed and illegal drugs.

It is fascinating that there is nothing new under the sun. We think we are the first people ever to have problems when, most of the time, our issues are just the story of humanity.

I help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in business, marketing and IT. My politics tend towards middle-of-the-road pragmatism, I am not a member of any political party. Oddly for a member of the Slugger team, I am not that interested in daily politics, preferring to write about big ideas in society. When not stuck in front of a screen, I am a parkrun Run Director.