When the Improved Scouting Program was first proposed in the late 60s, they called it a mistake - A betrayal of the soul of Scouting. Conservative scoutmasters resigned in protest, and there were general murmurs that the Boy Scouts (refusing to use the 'silly' new name) would go into decline. They were wrong. The Boy Scouts of America had been funding studies into keeping their current dominance of youth organizations for years before the program was released, and strangely enough, was one of the first major non-governmental organizations to see the writing on the wall and begin preparations to abandon the ideas of hiking, camping, and other such Scoutcraft as an ideal to be sought and put into practice as often as possible, rather than a survival tactic to be implemented when absolutely necessary.
"It must be understood that we are not undertaking this endeavor to weaken the traditions of Scouting, but rather, to adapt them to the modern era…an era which contains such things that our founders and the founders of scouting cannot have thought of when they established the first scouting organizations more than half a century ago…"
- Minutes from a National Council member speaking to an assembly of Scoutmasters.
The rebranding of the organization sought to disaffiliate themselves from the Scouts of old, who they, perhaps rightfully, thought would be seen as endangering children in this modern day and age, not helped by the moral panic of the time, as children seemed to become the favorite target of the new breed of modern monsters of mankind. The new name sought to give off modernity, pursuing the image of an enlightened and rational organization…something which only somewhat succeeded. The concerted and downright authoritarian push for the Scouting/USA rebrand and the Improved Scouting Program from the National Council saw hundreds of troops disaffiliate themselves into dozens of minor organizations, or even outright schisms in the Scouts, as troops refused to implement the program. Enrollment plummeted, and the doubters seemed vindicated…
But Scouting/USA survived. And as hazard advisories and missing posters piled up for rural hikers and campers, and those who proclaimed the supremacy of the great outdoors tended to fall prey to its more brutal nature or predators, Scouting/USA achieved what some would call the ultimate victory - Outliving its opponents, or at least, their opponent organizations, if in a reduced form. Once more the dominant paradigm in the culled field of American Scouting, with corporate investment to match, Scouting/USA focuses its efforts on social wellbeing for its members in a more modern sense, with material focusing on anti-drug programs, financial skills, child care, and more esoteric skills. Certain new merit badges include: Intertube Usage and Maintenance, Urban Survival, and Trimming Care.
However, despite their 'victory', Scouting/USA retains its fundamentally conservative nature, with insular leadership, prohibitions on openly homosexual or atheist members and volunteers, and swirling rumors of scandal regarding intense bullying and rank misconduct within the ranks. The National Council continues to walk the balance line between militarism and pacifism as they have for their entire existence, with some regarding scout troops as little more than militant child auxiliaries to the local governments and communities they claim to honor, and those same groups viewing them with suspicion for their distance from the government and their ties to other non-governmental groups. And, of course, while greatly diminished, schismatic Scouting groups continue to exist and attempt to keep the tradition of outdoorsmanship and scoutcraft alive, despite the new challenges of the world they find themselves in.
