Reality Check

[MacSpadger]

I'm the only kilt-wearer in my family (extended family included) as well. It's surprising what can happen in a few a generations. The immigrating patriarch of my family was, according to all accounts, incredibly proud to be Scottish, and was both a well-known political figure and one of the founding members of the Utah Caledonia Society.

Fast-forward 120 years, and it's just me, trying to revive that sense of pride in our heritage.

(And for those that think 120 years is a long time, I remember listening to my great grandmother talk about the Civil War veterans she knew when she was a little girl!)

Don't confuse the kilt with pride in your culture. For many a pride in Scottish culture might mean arts and literature, invention, politics, history, a unique sense of humour, or achievements such as the discovery of penicillin, the invention of TV and fibre optics, the invention of the reaping machine, leading the European Enlightenment, the invention of the steam engine, the telephone, the postage stamp, the rubber tyre, gas lighting, the threshing machine, the bicycle, the raincoat, antiseptics, Quantitative Chemistry, universities, the ultrasound scanner, etc, etc.
All these kinds of examples are probably more important to most Scots than, (let's face it), a bit of cloth that anyone can buy and wrap round their waist. As has been pointed out to me several times by members of this forum, the kilt is becoming less Scottish as different cultures appropriate it and more "Pan Celtic", a phrase which has very little relevance to most of us here, so that's the way it goes, I guess. I'd still say that does not discount pride in your heritage.
Perhaps Robert Louis Stevenson, one of our best Scottish writers, summed it up best long ago when he said it was not what you wore but "a strong Scotch accent of the mind" that made Scots stand out among other peoples and made them different. I don't know, but it seems the kilt no longer is enough or, in some lands, even appropriate. Would I wear a kilt in the USA nowadays? I doubt it. The one time I have worn the kilt on American soil was a mistake, as I seemed to spend most of the evening explaining I was not Irish. It was very boring.
Funny Indian weddings are mentioned here. Pipers are becoming really popular at Indian weddings in the UK, you can earn far more doing Indian weddings than Scottish ones. My area has a population of 12,000 and supports at least 6 pipe bands, Grade 3A, Grade 4, Event, Juvenile and there are also piping schools, training/feeder bands, school bands and cadet training bands, (the local being the 5th Argylls under 16's). There are maybe 3 or 4 pipers in every street. Most of them are at a very high standard. Pipers are not a rare or unusual sighting for native Scots, but have a level of "the exotic" for immigrant communites.

[Cygnus]

Don't confuse the kilt with pride in your culture....

I didn't mean to imply that strapping on a kilt would revive this sense of pride (though it does seem to work for some), and that isn't all I am doing. I have done a good deal of genealogical research to help inform family members of their heritage, have pointed out common phrases taken from the works of Scottish authors, and have mentioned a number of the inventions and breakthroughs listed in your post (mostly those from before my forebears left for the US).

So the goal isn't to have the family in kilts, though I do encourage wearing them in appropriate circumstances - especially in the case of my single brothers, but rather to get our minds "accented" as you and Robert Louis Stevenson so aptly put it.

Thanks for sharing your insight, MacSpadger, it is appreciated!