Explain what you mean by "wrong" – how a philosophy is "wrong" about this or that and/or how a philosophy goes "wrong".

An example would be four posts up where I said that I believe that if you practice a certain skill more often you will get better at it sooner, contrary to the example I gave in that post.

Also, in reference to your OP, explain why it matters philosophically whether or not you "agree" with any philosophy.

As I said in my last post, when I judge a philosophy to be right or wrong it is just my opinion.

Now back to philosophy. What do you consider philosophy to be? And a follow up question, to what extent are your binary categories of 'right' and 'wrong' useful?

Philosophy can have many definitions but in the context in which Im talking about it I see it as "a pursuit of wisdom" and "a theory underlying or regarding a sphere of activity or thought" as defined by the Merriam Webster Dictionary and "a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, value, mind, and language," as defined by Wikipedia.

As for how useful my judgement is on determining whether or not a specific philosophy is right or wrong, when I do consider a philosophy to be right or wrong it is just my opinion but the bottom line is that philosophies can be wrong, whether I judge them to be wrong or not.

To be fair, if the philosophy has been around for more than a few decades and isn't integrated into science in some way by now, its likely a failed or highly controversial philosophy. It's true: most philosophy is poor. Since any successful philosophy becomes science, all we have remaining to study is its failures.

Even philosophies that have been around for hundreds or thousands of years can be wrong. Philosophies are created by man and so as with anything else created by man, philosophies can be wrong.

Do you have an example in mind?

As a matter of fact I do. I once heard a story of a fellow who asked a karate instructor how long it would take to get a black belt. The instructor said it depends on how often you train. He asked if he came in three times a week, how long? The instructor said three years. He asked if he came in five days a week, how long? The instructor said five years. He asked if he came in seven days a week, how long? The instructor said ten years. When he asked the instructor why it took longer the more he came to train the instructor said "first, we have to teach you patience."

I would personally have to disagree with that. The more often you train in karate or any other type of activity, the sooner you will acquire the skill to be a black belt or any other skill level you might be striving for. It makes sense that the more you practice or do something the sooner you will get good at it.

Exactly! I'm sure not wasting it striving after silly short-term goals that will mean nothing six month or a year after I attain them.

Im not talking about short term goals, Im talking about long term life changing goals.

Fine. For you.

Let's face it, you've only got so long before you get old and you've only got so long to live.

This does not apply to self-imposed time limits on self-chosen goals, which is what the OP implied.

Oh but they do, when I give myself a time limit to reach a goal I do so for a reason.

So what? Why make a problem of something taking longer than you planned? Unless the delay causes cost overruns, or missing important deadlines, what does it matter?

That's exactly what I'm talking about, if the delay involves missing important deadlines.

This is true. To me part of accomplishing something is get it done by certain amount of time. I sometimes allow a bit of a grace period, but nonetheless, I know if I give a time limit, I get it done.

Exactly. And other people should not prevent you from reaching your goal within your self appointed time limit.

don't disagree with the part about a self-imposed time limit being part of a self-imposed goal - that's true. I just don't think either the goal or the time limit are necessarily important.
I mean, if there are puppies trapped under a collapsed building, by all means, get them out as fast and as safely as you possibly can. If you want to be a doctor, by all means buckle down to your studies, pass exams on the first try and qualify as soon as you can so you can get practicing medicine.

My point exactly. The problem is when outside forces sometimes make you take longer.

That could work fine, or it can backfire. If you're too eager to get things done, you may charge at them ill-informed, without having considered the consequences and costs or possible fallout, or made alternate plans in case of failure. This is why most men marry women.
If that's sexist, I can go the long way around this house: This is why impatient, go-ahead, goal-oriented people benefit from the active presence in their lives of cautious, far-sighted, result-oriented people.

Well you don't want to cut corners or ignore safety protocols in order to save time because if you do not only will you not achieve your goal but the results can be disastrous. An example would be 38 years ago today when the space shuttle Challenger exploded. The launch had been delayed multiple times and the officials at NASA were becoming impatient and so they were ignoring the warnings of the engineers who said that the shuttle was not safe to launch and that it had a faulty O-ring and they went ahead with the launch despite the safety warnings and the worst happened.

So you do want to not skip any safety protocols and make sure to not cut corners or anything but you also should not take any more time than you have to when it comes to achieving goals because time is precious, and its important to reach your goal within the time you hope to reach it because that is part of the goal himself.

One of key challenges with goal setting is the critical question of A - 'achievable'. This generally influences all the other factors. And it's here where people are often bitten in the arse by Time-Bound. They can be unrealistic in what the period they have chosen to achieve a given thing. Many people want to be wealthy and retire at 40. Or be a concert pianist, by the time they are 20, or own a home by the time they are 30. Whatever it might be. People often become slaves to unachievable goals. Most of us shouldn't set our own achievement timeliness based on what a very tiny percentage of remarkable people have done.

Which is why I think the SMART tool recognises that for most goals, a series of factors have to work in tandem for the Time-Bound element to be able to work.

But it is also the case that many people in daily life don't often set goals and don't see the world in those terms. I'm one of these. I just make it up as I go and have done well this way. In my work, however, goal setting and deliverables, KPI's and timelines are a fact of life

All the examples you mention (wanting to retire at 40, wanting to be a concert pianist at 20, ect.) are examples of goals with time limits but you also say you have to be realistic about the time limits. I would agree with that but that doesn't mean you aren't going to have reasonable time limits for your goals. Come to think of it, all goals have time limits because you only have so long to live so that's your time limit right there. Some goals have time limits put in place by an organization or entity that you're achieving the goal under. An example would be Boy Scouts Of America if you want to be an Eagle Scout. To be an Eagle Scout you have to be under the age of 18 to do it so you have to fulfill all the requirements to become an Eagle Scout before you turn 18 if you want to reach that goal as that is a time limit put in place by the BSA. Some goals have time limits that you might put in place yourself such as the examples you mention above even if some people put in more reasonable time limits such as retiring at 60 or 70 instead of 40.

Anyway, if you want to reach a goal within a certain time that means you can't dilly dally and take longer to reach it than you have to. In that sense, it can be foolish to be patient and wait to reach your goals if you can reach them sooner. The word "wait" is a four letter word. As such the word "wait" is not in my vocabulary, at least not when it comes to setting goals.

SMART goals stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. It is generally thought that we need these 5 elements to effectively achieve a goal. Some versions of SMART have different variations of the acronym, but they basically mean the same.

Well it's the part about being time bound that Im specifically talking about. If you've ever heard of Balamurali Ambati he's a medical doctor and he was a child prodigy who was doing calculus at the age of 4. He had a goal of becoming a doctor at the age of 17 which he did and so he is now in the Guinness Book Of World Records as the youngest person to become a doctor. So he had a goal, to become a doctor, and he had a time period in which he wanted to achieve the goal, by the time he turned 17. In short his goal was to become a doctor by the time he was 17.

So that's just one example of how goals often have time limits and how being time bound applies to having goals.

What is toxic ego effect?

It's just that I've heard that belts in the martial arts can result in toxic ego effects, a discussion that's come up in the martial arts community.

However, in skilled occupations, crafts and sports, as well as in organizations, it is necessary to devise some system of classification or rank.

Most competitive sports do have rank of some sort if for any reason at all, so that you will compete against similarly skilled opponents.

Ya think? Not so I am afraid. The few 100%'ers that I know rarely ever mentioned their grades to anyone. They were intelligent enough to know that it really makes no difference.

Well the grading system for academics isn't perfect or foolproof but it does give a general idea of how much somebody has learned the material. Yes it is possible to get lucky and just guess all the right answers on a test and get a high score for that test but with overall performance, as in your grade not just for one test but your final grade for the class, or your GPA, would be more accurate.

Another kid a few years later tried to get in as well. His grade average was just a fraction below the girls, but he got it by getting others to help do his assignments, sweet talking teachers into giving him second chance to present work and cheating on small things that had little value so that if caught he would not lose a lot.
I refused to fill in the form that the university sent, because he just took it for granted that I would do it and never thought to consult with me before hand. He did not get in and several other places turned him down because of his crappy writing skills, which he acquired by getting others to do stuff for him.

So he cheated. If you ask me, I would say it was a good thing that you didn't write a letter of recommendation for him. As for his bad writing skills which resulted in him having others do his work and not developing good writing skills of his own, that goes to show that cheaters don't win, not in the long run.

Intelligence levels, high scores are not the equivalent of knowledge. I know many very intelligent people that could do almost anything they wanted to do, but what they wanted was a simple life. I also know a few not very intelligent people that have gone a long way in life because they worked extra hard to do it.

Well if you want to go far in life you have to have some intelligence, in addition to working hard. People alway talk about how important it is to work hard. To succeed you have to work smart. Horses work hard.

Earning a brown belt in karate is only possible because you wanted to dedicate yourself to learning it and the way of life that goes along with it.

Well you got to know what you need to do to earn a brown belt. And the same obviously goes towards earning a black belt too, you got to know what to do and if you don't you should ask your sensei.

You will always find assholes that get into it for the "being able to beat people up" effect, but if the sensei allows that then he is a bigger asshole than them.

You would not like sensei John Kreese.

I did not mean that she was actually forced to give classes, that would have been a bit too much. What I meant was that as she became higher in the ranks she should not let herself become distanced from the others that were below her but that she should help and guide them to be better. A way of teaching them that they should not feel superior and that helping the others in the community makes them into better people.

I see, well I agree with that.

That would depend on the sensei, one of the first things my daughter learned in karate classes was that she should never think of herself as better that others because she has a higher colored belt. She was told that as she moved up it would be her job to act as a guide and instructor for the lower belts but that meant that she was responsible for making them as good as her. To fail to help them would be a tarnish upon her abilities to lead and teach.

I don't know what dojo your daughter went to but from my experience, and I've been to multiple dojos, is that you're usually not expected to help teach until you get quite high up in rank, and by that I mean brown belt or higher, and in many systems brown is the color right before black, with belts.
The belt system is not perfect so just because you do have a higher color than somebody else doesn't necessarily mean you're better than them.

In schools, I am a teacher, it is one of my battles for the last twenty years to try to teach kids that if you get a hundred by honest means the you should celebrate it. But getting a hundred was not the point of the exercise, learning what you needed to get the hundred was.

But the hundred is proof that you've learned the material just like belts in the martial arts are proof that you've developed the skill. A hundred is just a number on a piece of paper, anybody can get a piece of paper and a red marker and make a big 100 on the paper, or a big A plus, and there you have it. But earning a hundred in a class means you've learned the material just like earning a belt in the martial arts means you learned the skill.

Getting a hundred by any means and then bragging about it makes people into assholes, of which the world has an abundance. But it happens a lot because toxic parents also like to blab on about their super kids.

That's extremely egotistical, to boast about getting a hundred, but you've got to remember that in such a case, where somebody boasts about getting a hundred that they really did get it, they really did earn it.

I take it you've appealed to your dojo? In that case I don't think The Philosophy Forum can help your cause. Good luck.

I didn't appeal to my dojo although the issue has been resolved albeit way too late. Appealing to dojos is not the solution the way I see it. The way I see it, we should pass laws on how dojos should be run.

You need to appeal to the American Karate Association for a change of their philosophy.

The AKA is just one organization that teaches Karate in the USA. Many dojos in the USA in fact are independent and don't belong to any organization other than the dojo itself. Changes in the AKA are not going to affect how Karate is taught in the USA overall.

Seeing karate as a martial skill only, I agree. Unfortunately, there's the baggage of the culture of the martial art to contend with.

But when you take up an activity in a certain country(such as the USA) that activity is adopted to the culture of the country where you're doing it, even if said activity is originally from another country(as in the case of karate in the USA, which is originally from Japan and Okinawa.) Karate in the USA is different than karate in Japan and Okinawa not so much in terms of technique but in terms of philosophy. In the USA we are goal setters and that philosophy has been applied to karate in the
USA.

Just like baseball is very different in Japan than it is in the USA. Although baseball is originally from the USA the Japanese have modified it so that it suits their culture. To the best of my knowledge the techniques for playing baseball is much the same in Japan as it is in the USA but the philosophy is different, the Japanese are very honor bound so there is much honor in winning baseball games in Japan.

I've never gone into martial arts. I was a rock climber for over fifty years, however, and there was no culture baggage there, purely skills and accomplishments. No rigid rules (well, the Olympics is another story), just get to it and climb. No belts, just designations like, being a "5.14 climber". Once you've done something that difficult you can wear the tag. Kind of like an invisible belt, I suppose.

Well yes, doing certain stuff in rock climbing such as what you describe is a rite of passage and rites of passage take many different forms. Earning a black belt is also a rite of passage. Some rites of passage have physical symbols that go with them such as the physical black belt that you wear when you earn the rank or a badge that you might earn in an activity such as Boy Scouts or a varsity letter that you might earn in sports in school, and some rights of passage don't have any physical symbols (such as doing certain stuff that you describe in rock climbing.) Either way, it's not the physical symbol that's so important (if it exists) what's important is achieving your rites of passage, whatever they might be.

Also, since you claim to have never done karate I want to point out that getting a black belt is not the end and in fact, it's just the beginning. And although black is the highest belt color in many dojos, just because you're wearing a black belt doesn't mean you're of the highest rank. When you first start wearing a black belt you are a first degree black belt or 1st Dan. After that there's 2nd Dan, 3rd Dan, ect. usually all the way up to 10th Dan so first degree black belt you could say is a rather low rank.

But even if you're not going to earn any more ranks after first degree black belt the fact of the matter is that you're just getting started. There is no end.

Yes, I trained in Shito Ryu Itosu Kai Karate for about 15 years. I was hoping to get my black belt within 4 years, when I would have been 21, but moving around for school disrupted that somewhat, I trained in Kung Fu and Tai Chi, it ended up taking me almost 8 years. Then I trained up for my second dan - twice I had over a dozen black belt kata down cold. Both times my knee let go at the end of my intensive training (I had had several surgeries for a blown ACL and meniscus).

So I can appreciate your perspective, I'm just offering the benefit of mine. :)

So you had some good goals and even if you didn't get a black belt in 4 years as you were hoping to, at least you know why as you said you were moving around. If you're not going to meet a goal the important thing to know is why.

So yes you can hone skill without getting belts but the important thing is whether or not you're honing it the right way. After all, you wouldn't want to practice the wrong way of doing things, would you? That is what getting a black belt means, that you honed the proper skills, that you practiced the right way of doing it.

You have a good sensei and he is trying to teach you something important: how to understand and respect time.

This was not my sensei who had the "patience" requirement for black belt that I described in my first post, it was somebody else who mentioned that he had such a sensei on some martial arts Internet forum.
Anyway, making somebody wait longer to get something even if they're good enough (such as a black belt) is not understanding and respecting time, it's the opposite of understanding and respecting time. Life has time limits. You've only got so long to live so that's your time limit right there. So taking longer to do something on purpose just because you want to be patient (or making somebody else do that) is disrespecting and wasting time. You wouldn't open your wallet and dump your money out in the street, would you? Taking longer to do something just because you want to be patient is doing that same exact thing but with time.

Why do you consider as a "goal" to get the black belt before turning 20?

Because there was certain stuff I wanted to do as a teenager, getting a black belt was one of them.

What will you do when you will be 30?

If I get a black belt by the time Im 20, when Im 30 I will be even better. That's the thing about karate, it's open ended. No matter what goals you reach and no matter how good you get you can always get better and you can always set new goals. If you've ever done karate you would understand that. So I will just keep training and just keep getting better and better and keep doing that for the rest of my life, however long or short it might be.

If everything happens that fast... it will disappear fast too.

A black belt never disappears and by that Im talking about the rank of black belt, not the physical belt that is worn to represent the rank. And if everything happens fast that means there is that much room left for even more stuff to happen for however much longer you have to live.

Your sensei is teaching you a path of life not just physical skills. He is trying to explain that Karate can be part of you the rest of your life if you learn how to manage time.

As I explained before this was not my sensei but I have more or less pointed out, throughout this post, about how karate can be a part of the rest of your life and about how taking longer to do something on purpose is a waste of time and thus very poor time management.
Its not hard to understand how wasting time is very poor time management but the rest of the stuff
I've said about how it applies to karate might be a bit hard to understand if you've never done karate yourself.

Patience is being taught as well as pure technical skills. Not unusual for an Oriental martial art.

But you are being taught patience whenever you're being taught technical skills or anything else for that matter. Why? Because it takes patience to develop technical skills just like it takes patience to develop anything else you want to learn. So if you're teaching somebody technical skills you're also teaching them patience even if you're not intending to.

It sounds like you are young and eager to gain recognition among your peers. This is not unusual, either.

No I didn't care so much about gaining recognition among my peers, it was much more about proving myself to myself. I wanted to prove something to myself not to my peers.

A good friend of mine designed the USMC martial arts program several years ago. Here is a requirement for advancement to 1st degree black belt:

Training hours - 20 hours 45 minutes
(1) Physical discipline – 12 hours 45 minutes.
(2) Character/Mental discipline – 8 hours.

Part of mental discipline is patience, and this is part of the warrior culture. You are not just learning how to trip up an opponent.

Im not saying those are bad requirements, what Im saying is bad is if you don't let a student test to meet the requirements because you want them to be patient by waiting longer.

But it's hard to get people to see beyond the purely technical and not focus on going up number or letter or belt grades. I've seen this in a sport I was developing sixty years ago.

That's true to some extent, but belts in karate, such as the black belt, is proof that you've met your sensei's standards.

Not getting your black belt should not keep you from honing your skills. And patience certainly should be one of the weapons in your arsenal. Focus on the skill and expertise, not the rank.

But a black belt should be proof of skills. Getting a black belt means you've honed your skills in a way that meets your sensei's standards and to an extent that meets your sensei's standards. Have you ever done karate?

It took you five months to answer @Cuthbert :eyes: you are a real patient person indeed.

I've just been occupied with other stuff so I haven't been back to the forum for awhile.

Person: I want to be a surgeon but I think I'm too old to start. I'm 25.
Friend: Well, you still have time.
Person: But it takes eight years. By the time I've done the training I'll be 33!
Friend: True. And if you don't train to be a surgeon, how old will you be then?

Maybe if they put in extra hours every week in their training they'll get it done in less then 8 years.

When I try to type faster, I make more errors.

If you try to type faster than you're able to of course you're going to make errors and you will have to go back and correct them which will take more time, so it will take longer to type what you're typing if you try to type faster than you're able to but that's not the point.

Moral of the story: Don't hurry people. They'll make (more) mistakes.

I never said anything about anybody hurrying anybody else. The Tae Kwon Do school that I mentioned in my original post that had the Black Belt Club, you didn't have to be in the club if you didn't want to. Not all students were in the club. It would be up to you as a student if you wanted to be in the club or not so nobody was hurrying anybody.

Hence, patience is a virtue.

I never said it wasn't but that's not the point.

You're missing the point of my post.

Thank you everybody for the feedback. I've got some old threads that I would like to say more stuff on, I will get to it. :smile:

I really like that chart, thanks.

Speaking for myself, all the times I've been rejected (100% of the time), there's always been a very good reason for the rejection. I don't know whether to :smile: (good thinking) or :sad: (I'm defective)! — Agent Smith

So you must handle it much better than Paris did from Gilmore Girls when she didn't get into Harvard.

Yes, this is the harm. But it's not considered a loss. — L'éléphant

So perhaps a better way to put it would be, "nothing ventured nothing gained, and that includes not gaining stuff you don't want," since when you do venture you might get what you want, but you also take the risk of getting stuff you don't want, namely pain.

I get what you're saying. In that regard, let's change your question to What's the harm to you if you venture out or take a risk? — L'éléphant

You risk pain, that's how I see it. When you don't get the job promotion you wanted its painful. When you don't get into the college you wanted to get into its painful. When the girl that you wanted so much to have as a girlfriend tells you no when you ask her out its painful, ect. So I would say you risk pain.

Yes. The law of 100%.

Well even if you aren't losing anything the fact remains that rejection can be very painful, painful to the point in which it might lead to suicide, an example would be in Japan when people don't get into college.

*Sigh* you just repeated yourself while ignoring what I just said. You are speaking in terms of emotional perception. You didn't have the job of a manager, but you're hoping to get promoted and get that job. But now, you didn't get promoted, so you lost that job? Wrong.

And no, you didn't lose the increase in salary. Or you didn't lose that corner office with large windows overlooking the bluff.

So you're saying that when you get rejected you aren't losing anything because whatever you got rejected from was stuff you didn't have in the first place.

But you don't have to. I don't think you're understanding what I say when I say, you didn't lose something you didn't own in the first place. I'm talking about concrete. But you're talking in the sense of emotional perception. If you don't risk going after something, then you don't risk losing your ego-- this is what you're saying. Some people actually do not lose their ego.

Lets say you were hoping to get a promotion. You were looking forward to getting the promotion, you were looking forward to taking on the new position you would take on if you got the promotion. You were looking forward to making more money as promotions usually involve raises and you were looking forward to living the kind of lifestyle you can live when you make more money which you would've been doing had you got the promotion, and you don't get the promotion. You had all these hopes to do all the stuff that I mentioned above and now those hopes are dashed. So is that a loss? I will say this much, it can be very painful when you don't get the promotion you were hoping to get and you don't get to do all the stuff you were hoping to do when you got the promotion, which you don't end up getting.

I beg to differ. Think of the law of 100%. You could only lose something that you already own. If you didn't get that promotion, you didn't lose anything since you never had in the first place. I think we often make a mistake in thinking that the opposite of gain is loss. It's not. The opposite of gain is not-gain.

What you could lose by not getting the promotion is that your ego could be hurt and your hopes could be dashed, so there's that to lose.

Yes. But I think Psychology, Sociology, and the other "soft" sciences are still primarily theoretical & philosophical, with a scientific veneer of statistical probabilities. In the early 20th century, premature psychology was dismissed by scientists as "mere philosophy". So, Skinner proposed to make it a "hard" science by studying only objective behavior, instead of speculating on subjective ideas & feelings. That approach faded away after a while, since outward behavior is not a reliable indicator of inward thoughts & motives. What we now know is that humans evolved from apes, yet still have much in common with them. :smile:

Speaking as somebody whose got a four year college degree in Psychology I would have to say that Psychology is both a hard science and a soft science. Psychology can get very mathematical, an ANOVA is just one example, but it also gets much into areas that are hard to measure with just numbers, so as far as being a hard science or a soft science, I would say it's both.

I’m not entirely sure you understand what authority is: the power to give orders, make decisions and enforce obedience. If I pay someone enough so that they agree to work for me, I haven’t given them authority in that sense. We’ve entered into an agreement, and we both retain authority over our own part in that agreement. I give them an agreed sum of money, they give me an agreed allocation of their time, effort and attention. Anything outside of this agreement is subject to further negotiation.

So there you have it, when you mention that you both retain authority over your part of the agreement that means they do have some authority. Im not saying their authority is exclusive or that you don't also have authority, Im just pointing out that if you depend on somebody else that person has power over you in some form or another. In this example it would be the power to get money from you, however much you've agreed to pay them in exchange for them working for you. You have to obediently pay them the agreed upon amount otherwise they won't work for you.

As Obi Wan Kenobi would say, "From a certain point of view."

Employees or labor has collective power if they can coordinate. That's why socialism is such a dirty word.

But even without the collective power, even if you've got just one person working for you, you've still got to pay them enough so that they will work for you. So they've got authority over you in that sense.

This is false, for the simple fact that authorities rely on those without authority. Short of physical force, no one actually has power over others. A president is only a president because enough people agree that they are a president. It is an illusion, or rather a social construct. Societies are constructed on a series of ideas and agreements, nothing more.

But if you rely on somebody else they do have authority over you in some form even if you think you're the one who has the authority. Lets say you're a boss and you've got people working for you, you've got to pay them otherwise they won't work for you. You might think you've got all the authority since you're the boss but they've got authority too. They've got the authority to get money from you, however much you've agreed to pay them.

So anyway, to earn the rank of Eagle Scout in Boy Scouts there are minimal time requirements. Before you can be an Eagle Scout you have to be a Life Scout for six months and before you can be a Life Scout you have to be a Star Scout for six months and before you can be a Star Scout you have to be a First Class scout for four months. Such time requirements are not put in place by a scoutmaster but by the National Executive Board of the Boy Scouts of America located in Texas so it is a universal requirement for all Boy Scouts regardless of your scoutmaster and regardless of your troop.

Therefore if you do want to be an Eagle Scout it does require some planning ahead. Since you have the time limit of your eighteenth birthday to become an Eagle Scout you will have to be a Life Scout at least six months before you turn 18, you will have to be a Star Scout at least a year before you turn 18, and you will have to be a First Class Scout at least a year and four months before you turn 18.

I can see why they would have minimum time requirements however if a scout has met the minimum time requirements and has fulfilled all the other requirements for becoming an Eagle Scout there is no reason to hold him back from the rank of Eagle Scout especially if holding him back will take him past his 18th birthday at which point he will not be eligible for the rank of Eagle Scout. Scoutmasters should be banned from doing that.