I'm going to play off of Erin's post a little bit here, but I'll try to make it different enough that you can answer it without repeating yourself. Her post made me think quite a bit, actually. It is true, what Professor Bateman said about our generation's community service hours: countless historians and sociologists are increasingly making the claim that Generation "X" is in fact the most aware and active in history in this regard.
Yet, the scope--in fact the very definition--of community service is changing, and I can't help but wonder what effects this both has and will have on the community as well as society's perception of what defines the public good. With the advent of globalization, community concern is increasingly focused on the international front. Americans as a whole are no longer satisfied with helping their communities, rather we are crusading to end global poverty, end hunger, build homes in Africa, provide heathcare to everyone worldwide, etc. Of course, this is wonderful for promoting global awareness, but the problem is that not everyone can feasibly do this. Instead, Americans are by and large choosing to support those who do such service in other ways--primarily, through utilizing the internet's one-click donations and online petitions. Thus, serving the public good is becoming more and more about not what you do but how much you donate and to whom.
My question, therefore is this: how do these new changes and developments affect society's definition of the public good? Do they at all? Is the "click here, make a difference" mentality of community service a helpful addition to an already community-oriented society or a "quick fix" excuse for an instant-gratification society? What should community service entail? I'm interested to get all of your reactions.
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I really think this goes back to the discussion that we had in class about the internet and whether or not it distances people and impersonalizes our lives. community service is being redefined by the internet and, as frazer put it, by the click-here-to-donate mentality. community service, at least in my opinion, is something that involves interaction with other human beings, not simply you and your computer. and isn't part of the idea of community service is that the individual that is doing the volunteer work also gets something out of the experience? how can this really be accomplished by simply entering a credit card number into a box and pushing donate now?
on the other hand, the fact that the average joe can save a life in africa by donating $30 a month to the red cross online or something is quite miraculous really. the internet has allowed for more and more people around the world to help others without having to commit their entire lives to volunteer work. so i'm not sure if the classical idea of community service has changed so much as a new sort of civic engagement is evolving. because although more people are simply donating money over the internet to help others, this doesn't completely eliminate those that actually physically participate in community service projects around the world - money alone can't build houses. it can't hammer nails into wood and plaster walls. human participation is still completely necessary.
I am going to be a bit of a devil’s advocate here.
Public good is manifested when our own individual interests happen to coincide with doing kindness to others. I have never done community service because I wanted to lift someone out of his misery or to make his life better. I do community service because I enjoy being active and because this service often involves working with friends. I am selfish and self-serving but have been complimented on my altruism simply because my own interests happen to meet the needs of others. If a person’s motivation is personal at least you can be sure they are acting with enthusiasm, passion and dedication rather than some ego driven pursuit hiding under the guise of compassion.
In relation to the Internet and our increasingly anti-social lifestyles surrounding it, I think the public good finally has a chance to manifest itself free of any rhetoric or allusions of grandeur. Why is ladling out soup at a homeless shelter any better than donating money to buy the soup? You can’t have service without money to support it. That capital needs to come from somewhere. The only reason we are forced to discuss the possibility of a discrepancy between these two services is that those who donate their time instead of just their money see themselves as better.
Technically, I suppose that online donations to charities and philanthropic organizations do qualify as community service: certainly it fulfills the ongoing need for financial resources that are used to improve the community—either local or international. However, I can’t help but feel that clicking away on the computer is still a far cry away from true and genuine community service and a world away from civic engagement.
No matter how much money someone donates to an organization, I simply don’t believe that it can substitute for the tangible interactions that occur between people during a physical community service event. Those who donate financially to the organization are tremendously important (you can’t create change without materials and the money to buy them). However, I would question whether donations counts as “civic engagement” when there is, in truth, little or no physical engagement at all. Is it possible to reach a better understanding of the needs and character of the community by reading from a computer screen? Will the experience impact and shape the donor?
Community service, I think, is a two-way street in which both the servant and those being served are affected by the experience, and a “click here to donate” situation seems to neglect one of these aspects.
Although I can appreciate the "click here to donate" mentality and often take advantage of it for the hunger website etc, I truly believe that this cannot be defined as helping the public good or as community service. Clicking on a box on your computer screen is all about instant gratification in the manner that you can tell yourself that you did something that day. The reality however, is that all you did was click on a button. Yes, you took the time to go to the website and click, but how are you going to see the results of your "effort"? How much do you really care about the cause or the organization if all you are willing to do is click that button? I realize that we are all extremely busy with our lives when it comes to school, friends, family, jobs, sports, other activities, clubs, etc but how much time do we waste just perusing facebook or other internet sites? How much time do we spend sitting around doing nothing? Everyone needs time to wind down. In fact psychologists recommend 1 hour every day should be spent doing a mindless activity purely for pleasure.
I guess my point is, that if we truly want to make a difference, if we truly care about the cause, if we truly want to do "community service", then we will take or make the time to volunteer for a few hours at a site, or to complete a project. It is these activities that seem to make a larger impact because the volunteers can often see the results of their efforts. Not to mention that they get to interact with other people, which creates memories and a connection within the community.
Which do you think would have a bigger impact on your life: clicking a button that says food will be donated and delivered according to how many people click each day, or actually delivering the food that is making it possible for people to survive?
America is very rooted in the actions of Hollywood. Unbelievably so at times. Americans pick up certain diction from movies, thoughts and beliefs expressed become adopted, and morals are challenged. Think about how many people were influenced by Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth or Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11. People believe what they see in movies. Thus I would be willing to say that people define the public good by way of the media. For example the NFL, NBA, and MLB have all instituted various volunteer oriented programs aiming at the middle aged man. This is clearly an attempt at targeting their average watcher, which most likely led to more community service being do by that age group.
Furthermore, note when Hurricane Katrina happened and everyone donated money to that cause. The result was that every other aid organization that didn't have anything to do with the area was left short funded. Most Americans would not donate money unless something was well covered in the media.
Everyone is able to contribute to the public good in a different way. Those who are able-bodied use their physical presence. Those who excel at invention and organization put these non-profit and relief efforts together. Those who have political clout attempt to work the system from the tip-top. Those with charisma and passion succeed at initiating grassroots programs. And yes, those with big pockets help make it all possible. No, it's not the optimal method of contribution. It isn't the human-to-human contact that is so important to our expanding our horizons. But it is SOMETHING. I think most would agree with me that 100 millionaires that are willing to "fund" the public good are better than 100 millionaires sitting on their rich butts, doing nothing.
I very much agree with Sarah. Tangible efforts made through face to face interactions with others may be the "ideal" kind of public good. However, just because a method of contributing to the public good isn't "ideal," does that mean it should be discredited completely?
Bill Gates, Bono, Oprah. True, they aren't volunteering at their local community centers or delivering meals. But they are helping millions. Do we really think that the 400,001st child that receives affordable malaria medicine from a billionaire donator is unimpressed with their lack of one-on-one connection?
True, click and donate campaigns don't give US a sense of great satisfaction that comes with true involvement. But why is it always about us? Those who benefit from the money are better off because of it, and to me that's what matters.
It seems that the arguments against click-to-donate campaigns and against monetary donations rather than actual physical service are mostly related to the volunteer not having a meaningful interaction with whomever they are serving. But this is focusing on the volunteer, which is contradictory. If we truly want to serve others, why does it matter if we are meeting with them face to face? Because if we as volunteers need that gratification of being moved or learning something from such an experience, then I would question what our motivation is for doing service. Are we more concerned about bettering ourselves or our self-esteem or about genuinely helping someone? This is not to say that volunteering of time is not a wonderful way to serve our society. Neither do I mean that people who physically serve others are doing it because they are selfish. I would simply acknowledge that community service can occur in many ways, all of which can be genuine and helpful. Money, after all is as necessary to an organization's mission as personnel is. It is the spirit of the giving rather than the form which is important.
People are questioning how something so simple can make a big difference. Society assumes that when you volunteer, it needs to have some type of "sweat" off of your back. There has to have been some "suffering" such as donating your personal time or your money.
But we question how can something that requires neither be effective? Although I think much more can be done than "clicking it", if it is a valid website or way to help someone, it shouldn't be diregarded based on how minute or easy it is to accomplish.
As much as I hope for more involvement and more personal connections to the causes, realistically that can't happen with everyone. For those who can manage the big commitments, I think they should go for it. But for those who are new to the "helping" experience, then "clicking" to donate food is something that can be settled for. In the long run (this is my idealistic side), I hope they make an effort to reach past just clicking.
I have rather mixed emotions about the "click here to donate" element of contributing to society. On one hand, the electronic means by which they are enacted seem to draw away from the humanity and the involvement of volunteering and donating. We cannot put faces to those people we are helping, and we do not usually associate this with any other effect on us other than a tax deduction. However, its ubiquitous nature appears to be a form of advertisement in and of itself. It does not cost very much money to set up these electronic donation "sites" and thus is very cost effective. Further, it is possible that these methods could elicit more donations than typically "traditional" methods because they are easily accesible and thus provide a means by which normally un-involved citizens may begin to feel "involved". Accordingly, while electronic donations may not preserve a true essence of involvement in the community, I would argue that it is a helpful way of eliciting money for a good cause.
I will say that the "click here to donate" mentality may help community service, but it does not promote civic engagement. How much are we really engaged when we join a cause on Facebook? Perhaps, Facebook is a good forum to get a discussion about a cause going, but said discussion is just words on a page. In our technological society, we lose the connection and therefore, lose the engagement.
Sarai Glass wrote:
I don’t think that these changes are necessarily great ones to be honest. I think that the “click here, make a difference” mentality, has distanced us in our connection to community. I’m not even sure we can consider it a civic connection at all. In the pits of our stomachs, we know this. Throwing money at a problem just is not as gratifying as spending a solid two hours at a soup kitchen, or even something as simple as driving around delivering meals. It really is only instantaneous gratification- just as quick as it comes, it leaves. I don’t think that our definition of community service has changed. Going back to the last blog, things that we do to get into college, or to graduate, or even for resumes, that is what community service is to us- serving the community we live in. I have never heard of someone who has thought of donating money as time spent serving a community, because it just isn’t the same. I think that donating money is needed, just not needed in replacement of physical time spent. In response to the “saving the world” service Americans are trying to provide, I don’t think this is a problem at all. If all service was to stop in America, we’d still be better off than almost all of the countries in the world. I think it is great that we are trying to help out other countires, especially seeing that America is oftentimes seen as a very self-centered nation. However, the means by which we are trying to meet these ends are horrible. If the issues of world hunger and global poverty are things we really want to fix, then we must physically go there to make a real difference. Handing money to an agency is no civic connection. All the money in the world couldn’t solve these issues.
While the possibility of tapping into a demographic that would not otherwise participate in volunteer work is lucrative, true community service is much more valuable than internet based giving. Community service which puts one individual in contact with others in the same community that are less fortunate, it builds bonds in a community that money cannot strengthen. Donating online has the potential to raise enormous sums of money with little capital, but the givers in this circumstance are never in direct contact with the recipients. The bond is not built. Money sent overseas may save more lives and help those in more dire situations, but the communities we live in are not strengthened by the action. If one wishes to be involved in giving online, they should also work in their own communities so that they can benefit as well.
It seems to me that the click-here-to donate thing is intentionally designed to distance us from those we are helping. After all, who wants to feel guilty about their ability to kick back and surf the internet on weekends, go to the movies, order pizza, etc. while people elsewhere in the world (or even right here at home) have to wonder where their next meal is coming from?
In the communications class I am in with Sarai and Kirsten, we have talked a lot about the "face of the Other" and how a person's face is a unique cry for help that we find difficult to ignore. As I believe we have mentioned before, an example that comes up a lot in the communications class is the homeless person with a cardboard sign - no one wants to look at this person because their face makes us feel uncomfortable or guilty.
I admit I felt uncomfotable - though not guilty - on my delivery shift with PAH. There is something very unsettling about being face-to-face with someone you have mentally labeled as "less fortunate" than yourself and whom you are trying to help.
That "click here to donate" button eliminates the discomfort, but I think it also eliminates a healthy and spiritually meaningfull human interaction. Certainly such virtual service can be helpful and should continue, but not at the expence of the human care and contact that remains a more basic and essential need than anything any ammount of funding could provide.
I very much so believe that this is just another manifestation of how lazy we Americans are. Lets face it; we are only willing to help people anymore as long as we don't have to raise a finger. This matter has been maddening to me over the past few years, and coming to DU has only exacerbated my frustration.
But before I rant, let me at least explain what has brought this on. All of my life I have had to do community service to fulfill requirements: I needed 20 hours before I could be confirmed in the Catholic Church, I had to do a lot during middle school, and I had to do nearly 75 hours of community service in order to graduate. I am not saying that this is a lot (some of my eagle scout friends had to upwards of 300 hours), but the mentality it promotes in the students is unwholesome. It causes community service to be viewed as an obligation, and one tat you definitely do not want to do.
Then their is the whole issue about public image that goes along with us. To our society, it seems that community service is not so different from working out–we don't really enjoy doing it, but we like how it looks to others. Really, the only difference is that instead it tones our "compassion muscles" instead of our abs and biceps. And any more it is something to brag about: "Yeah, I just got back from a rally to end world hunger". Sounds an awful lot like "Yeah, I just maxed out at 200 lbs. on bench press," doesn't it?
Further, there is a sense of fake sincerity to the whole bit–at least for me. Earlier last quarter, my friends dragged me to a protest against the Burmese government for imprisoning monks. Throughout the entire thing, people got up and started spouting their ideals and how wrong what Burma was doing to those monks was. The entire time, I just thought to myself how ridiculous this whole thing was: how does reciting the values we hold dear change anything half way round the world? Back to the original topic, at least the one click donations help people who are actually over there doing something about it. Sorry if I sound cynical, but words have never really accomplished anything. Sure , they can sometimes motivate people to take action, but the actions are what truly changes the situation.
I guess in the end all I have to say is that I am sick of the current norm. Cortney is right in saying that community service involves interaction with other human beings, not simply you and you computer, our even you and the public. If we really want to change the world, then maybe we should start focusing on the individual, rather than keeping our broad focus on global issues. If we want to actually make a difference, than instead of simply sitting at our computer clicking away at icons on our computer, we should actually go to where the problem is a actually help.
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