The Colby Echo

Issue date: 3/2/07 Section: Opinions

Many students are doubtlessly familiar with required community service, either because they have had to do it themselves due to a minor offense, or have had friends do it for the same reason. Service activities can range from picking up trash on the side of the road, to tutoring school children for a couple hours a week. It is community service, but does the fact that it is compulsory undermine the altruism of the act?

First let's say no. This topic is the result of a conversation that I had at Bobs the other day, and the students to whom I was speaking brought up some valuable points. For example, for whatever the reason, the service is getting accomplished, and I am quite sure that the "community" would not care if the individual was being forced into the act or was engaged in it for the profound value of the experience. Society, from a utilitarian standpoint, benefits from actions and not the warm feelings brought by volunteers. Volunteers serve some vital roles, and the jobs that they fulfill are not carried out less effectively if the volunteer's heart is not particularly committed to the task. This is purely a practical view, and I address efficiency and volunteers in the same way that a supervisor would contemplate an employee who completes a task, but with considerably less zeal than desired. But who cares?

The point is that there are many needy people and organizations in the world and it makes some people disconcerted to hear of others who have been required, either by law or by some authority, to give up their time and "willingly", and in the name of "philanthropy", do their part to reach out to someone or something. Community service is selfish, but it is the right kind of selfishness. Both the individual as well as society can benefit, and a beautifully symbiotic relationship can develop. However, without the heart and passion for "making a difference", a phrase used so much it is starting to become a cop-out, the fact that the task is simply completed becomes meaningless, because it's an empty and self-serving gesture.

So when is it all right for volunteerism to be required and when is it inappropriate? It would be entirely arrogant for me to presume to differentiate between the right and wrong types of volunteerism, because it is volunteerism all the same. Yet something just doesn't seem right, even though it occasionally seems to make quite a bit of sense. For example, I do not think anyone would be opposed to Colby students performing volunteer hours in lieu of a hefty fine, but does society suffer a loss when that is what it takes to push young adults to give of themselves?

This author does not think so, and after much deliberation I am of the school of thought that people will not be turned aghast to community service because they were once required to volunteer ten hours for being late to homeroom in high school. Furthermore, there is always the chance, and it has happened before, that once people realize how nice it feels to play an active part in the community, they will find that it is a very healthy addiction.

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