How to encourage diversity in bushcraft

[C_Claycomb]

....
Only the other day a neighbour shouted.. there goes Bear(Grylls)off to kill a squirrel!
Is this how we are portrayed as Bushcrafters?
I hope not & now I have the embarrassing task of putting him right.

When you hunt for food, do you hunt squirrels?
I had that sort of remark from work colleagues more times than I could count after they found that I was interested in bushcraft, and had admitted to eating squirrel. So, yes, that is one way that bushcraft is seen. Perhaps that is part of why we don't get much interest from certain quarters?

I wish you luck "putting him right". My colleagues would bring stuff like that up every once in a while even after I had explained how I viewed Mr Grylls and how squirrel was tasty.

 

[Wander]

This all brings to mind Karl Popper's paradox of tolerance - to be a tolerant society we have to be intolerant of intolerance.
Seems to me that both sides in that video were displaying intolerance.
Popper suggested that if we are open-endedly tolerant then society will be controlled by the intolerant. So opposing (that is, intolerating) intolerance is the wise action of a tolerant society.
Out of deference to the forum's rules I am going to avoid an obviously political analogy. So to try and keep things on track, what this would mean is that allowing Group A to say that Group X has no place in the countryside may seem tolerant by allowing free speech. But by allowing their intolerance to say what they want we allow and legitimise them to ban Group X from the countryside. All to the detriment of Group X. When we tell Group A to shut up because it's unfair to Group X then Group A might get all up in arms claiming they are being silenced and de-platformed - that it's their right to free speech. Group A are then allowed to carry on their intolerance - they decide that Group Y are no longer allowed in the countryside. And Group Z are banned as well. Our tolerance of Group A has allowed them to take over and led to an intolerant society.
So, no.
Intolerating intolerance is the only, paradoxical, action a tolerant society can take.

I hope that's made sense (seems clear in my mind. And Karl Poppers)

 

[C_Claycomb]

The problem today seems to be identifying who is the intolerant group we should not tolerate!
What we have seen recently is more like Group A says something critical of Group X, then Group W siding with Group X gets Group A de-platformed. Having succeeded in vanquishing the "intolerant" Group A, the Group W who is tolerant of X but not of A moves on to campaigning to vanquish the next "intolerant" group in line, who no one really paid any attention to before. At some point Group W morphs into Group T, which latches on to something that Group X said that was critical of Group Y, and so it goes on.

.

 

[TeeDee]

The problem today seems to be identifying who is the intolerant group we should not tolerate!
What we have seen recently is more like Group A says something critical of Group X, then Group W siding with Group X gets Group A de-platformed. Having succeeded in vanquishing the "intolerant" Group A, the Group W who is tolerant of X but not of A moves on to campaigning to vanquish the next "intolerant" group in line, who no one really paid any attention to before. At some point Group W morphs into Group T, which latches on to something that Group X said that was critical of Group Y, and so it goes on.

.

And this is the inherent problem of looking at people as Groups and not as individuals.

 

[henchy3rd]

The problem today seems to be identifying who is the intolerant group we should not tolerate!
What we have seen recently is more like Group A says something critical of Group X, then Group W siding with Group X gets Group A de-platformed. Having succeeded in vanquishing the "intolerant" Group A, the Group W who is tolerant of X but not of A moves on to campaigning to vanquish the next "intolerant" group in line, who no one really paid any attention to before. At some point Group W morphs into Group T, which latches on to something that Group X said that was critical of Group Y, and so it goes on.

.

I think you summed up today’s society pretty well there..why didn’t you day that in the first place!

 

[TLM]

The problem today seems to be identifying who is the intolerant group we should not tolerate!
What we have seen recently is more like Group A says something critical of Group X, then Group W siding with Group X gets Group A de-platformed. Having succeeded in vanquishing the "intolerant" Group A, the Group W who is tolerant of X but not of A moves on to campaigning to vanquish the next "intolerant" group in line, who no one really paid any attention to before. At some point Group W morphs into Group T, which latches on to something that Group X said that was critical of Group Y, and so it goes on.

That is just what is needed, a recipe for cancelling everybody ...

 

[CLEM]

I find this discussion utterly baffling, I really do. But then I have to remind myself to remember that “ it’s our greatest strength. lol

 

[Minotaur]

I sort of think this is what is wrong with the world.
Lets take why are Women paid less than men and mainstream media says it is all mens fault. Jordan Petterson on the other hand points out that there are 32 reasons why, for example men choose jobs that pay more because they are more dangerous.
Take Stem we are told we need more women in these fields however men are interested in things and women are interested in people which means that all of the math skilled women become doctors etc. I do not see anyone trying to get more men to be nurses and doctors. In fact they have made it harder for men to become nurses because most of the male nurses I know made the decision later in life.
I am sorry Woody Girl is gone because I was going to point out that my Niece who earns more than her two older sisters, got a lot of her college stuff paid for and is getting her degree paid for as well. Why you may ask because she went into software development which she is excelling at, has been promoted twice and has been the only woman a lot.
There is a really interesting thing about how to solve these big problems. To give an example there is an example of trying to get more kids in school in Africa were they where buying books etc and nothing was improving so in the end they got someone to look at it. The result was to give the kids worm medicine which meant they stopped being ill so turned up to school.
The bias thing is really interesting when you look at it because they now make orchestra musicians audition behind screens because for some bizarre reason the people doing the auditions think men sound better than women. These are woke artistic types who cannot work out why this is however it a provable fact.
Also several wrong things have been said about the Scouts. Scouts was started by kids who read Scouting for boys and formed their own patrols. BP never intended to start the Scout association. The reason girls are not in the scouts is sexism from a woman because there was a girls patrol at the first jamboree and it was seen by Mrs BP as a bad thing and so she formed the Girl Guides. Finally scouts was never intended to be a Bushcraft organisation, the point was to create good thinking citizens. A scout is a person who leads and relies on themselves to move through the world. BP despite being part of some big organisations was a massive individualist. The scout association has changed what was supposed to be a way to create leaders into a babysitting service.

 

[Spirit fish]

Following on from the 'how others see us' thread i was struck by the vast majority of replies were (I think) from a fairly narrow demographic (white, male, over a certain age etc.).
Understandable in some ways because on this forum many of us are in the group.

On the basis that encouraging others and increasing popularity is a good way for a lesser known activity to become mainstream and acceptable, I wonder how we can encourage other demographic groups to try bushcraft and get involved?
What do you think?
Is there a reason why we don't see as many other demographic groups in the bushcraft world and is there anything we can do to change it?

I'm referring here to the UK environment only. On the basis this is a cultural thing and different countries will obviously have a different take on things can i ask our friends from over the water(s) to restrict posts to the UK situation please.

Many thanks and i look forward to hearing your views...

I have a black friend who is a gamekkeeper , very rare

 

[Limey Pete]

How to encourage diversity in bushcraft. Who wants to?
They are either interested or not.
Another self imposed CRIME of the white races revealed apparently. We do not encourage diversity in bushcraft, therefore we are the heinous whiteys.

 

[ONE]

The level to which people have had to reach, in terms of using euphemisms & analogies in order not to cause offence or, I suppose, in order to be tolerated. Has made the debate almost entirely incomprehensible, to me at least. I'm sure there's something I can take away from that, I'm just not entirely sure what it is.

 

[Silverclaws2]

How to encourage diversity in bushcraft. Who wants to?
They are either interested or not.
Another self imposed CRIME of the white races revealed apparently. We do not encourage diversity in bushcraft, therefore we are the heinous whiteys.

Though I do agree folk may find bushcraft if they're interested I question this ' heinous whiteys ' you refer to, to think given you may be feeling ' threatened ' to make mention of ' heinous whiteys, I would like to suggest you tried inserting your feet into shoes of others non white, to examine from their perspective what the world is saying about them to cause stereotypes to be formed for children to be born into to in effect be condemned from birth. Where perhaps from that experience you might like to consider where's it all coming from, what is keeping us divided and hostile to one another.

 

[TeeDee]

Though I do agree folk may find bushcraft if they're interested I question this ' heinous whiteys ' you refer to, to think given you may be feeling ' threatened ' to make mention of ' heinous whiteys, I would like to suggest you tried inserting your feet into shoes of others non white, to examine from their perspective what the world is saying about them to cause stereotypes to be formed for children to be born into to in effect be condemned from birth. Where perhaps from that experience you might like to consider where's it all coming from, what is keeping us divided and hostile to one another.

Could you possibly expand on that please?

 

[demographic]

This by Amber Ruffin is maybe worth a watch, ostensibly its about the way the UK media has treated Harry and Meghan but it also covers a good deal about "Dogwhistle Racism" starting off with her interpretation of the word "Uppity" and its common usage.
[media]

 

[TeeDee]

This by Amber Ruffin is maybe worth a watch, ostensibly its about the way the UK media has treated Harry and Meghan but it also covers a good deal about "Dogwhistle Racism" starting off with her interpretation of the word "Uppity" and its common usage.
[media]

I can't decide if this is satire or not.

Do you believe in this notion Demo?

 

[JonathanD]

No one is stopping Meghan from doing bushcraft. She can probably afford a Rocky Mountain or two, plus a few million hectares at their base.

 

[demographic]

No one is stopping Meghan from doing bushcraft. She can probably afford a Rocky Mountain or two, plus a few million hectares at their base.

Nope, I can't see her being denied a chance to carve wooden spoons and pretend she's deep in the bush whilst she's actually 2 foot six off the A7 anytime soon.
No, my point was more about the use of language and how its often used to suggest something without actually saying it outright.
Really, that comedian says it better than I ever could, mostly because I reckon she's had a lot more of it aimed at her.

 

[Herman30]

If you ask me, Meghan M is a b***h who twisted the head of a nice redheaded man and robbed the UK of a prince. If you marry into the royal family, you start acting the part and accept that you no longer are the private person you were. Or if you can´t accept that, stay off the royalties.

 

[Robson Valley]

This has nothing to do with my Neolithic Canadian landscape.

Try inviting people to go wild camping with you. I'm serious about this. We had tents space for 3-4 extra people. Crap tent but waterproof and no bugs.

We asked for some foodie things (dozen eggs, etc). We had a boat to go fishing. We cooked and ate the fish we caught. Otherwise it was hotdogs and marshmallows over an open fire. Coleman green boxes for sheety days.

The shocker for them was that us kids had been taught how to prepare and cook fish in clay in the key-hole fire. We just did it. Just rewind a thousand years under a star-lit sky of Northern Lights. Wolves howling and coyotes barking.

Maybe that's half the puzzle? People in this day and time are apprehensive about the sounds and the darkness of a wilderness camp? Invite them.

 

[Herman30]

Coleman green boxes for sheety days.

What is a green box?