Among the many mindless mantras of our time, "making a difference" and "giving back" irritate me like chalk screeching across a blackboard.
I would be scared to death to "make a difference" in the way pilots fly airliners or brain surgeons operate. Any difference I might make could be fatal to many people.
Making a difference makes sense only if you are convinced that you have mastered the subject at hand to the point where any difference you might make would be for the better.
Very few people have mastered anything that well beyond their own limited circle of knowledge. Even fewer seem to think far enough ahead to consider that question. Yet hardly a day goes by without news of some uninformed busybodies on one crusade or another.
Even the simplest acts have ramifications that spread across society the way waves spread across a pond when you drop a stone in it.
Among those who make a difference by serving food to the homeless, how many have considered the history of societies which have made idleness easy for great numbers of people?
How many have studied the impact of drunken idlers on other people in their own society, including children who come across their needles in the park -- if they dare to go to the parks?
How many have even considered such questions relevant as they drop their stone in the pond without thinking about the waves that spread out to others?
Maybe some would still do what they do, even if they thought about it. But that doesn't mean that thinking is a waste of time.
"Giving back" is a similarly mindless mantra.
I have donated money, books and blood for people I have never seen and to whom I owe nothing. Nor is that unusual among Americans, who do more of this than anyone else.
But we are not "giving back" anything to those people because we never took anything from them in the first place.
If we are giving back to society at large, in exchange for all that society has made possible for us, then that is a very different ballgame.
Giving back in that sense means acknowledging an obligation to those who went before us and for the institutions and values that enable us to prosper today. But there is very little of this spirit of gratitude and loyalty in many of those who urge us to "give back."
Indeed, many who repeat the "giving back" mantra would sneer at any such notion as patriotism or any idea that the institutions and values of American society have accomplished worthy things and deserve their support, instead of their undermining.
Our educational system, from the schools to the universities, are actively undermining any sense of loyalty to the traditions, institutions and values of American society.
They are not giving back anything except condemnation, often depicting sins common to the human race around the world as peculiar evils of "our society."
A classic example is slavery, which is repeatedly drummed into our heads -- in the schools and in the media -- as something unique done by white people to black people in the United States.
The tragic fact is that, for thousands of years of recorded history, people of every race and color have been both slaves and enslavers.
The Europeans enslaved on the Barbary Coast of North Africa alone were far more numerous than all the Africans brought to the United States and to the 13 colonies from which it was formed.
What was unique about Western civilization was that it was the first civilization to turn against slavery, and that it stamped out slavery not only in its own societies but in other societies around the world during the era of Western imperialism.
That process took well over a century, because non-Western societies resisted. White people, as well as black people, were still being bought and sold as slaves, decades after the Emancipation Proclamation freed blacks in the United States.
Those who want to "give back" should give back the truth. It is a debt that is long overdue.
gary
7 Comments
True alturism: that no man has the right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the only justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, virtue and value (Rand, Philosophy: Who Needs It), governs the idea of "giving back" but I doubt there are very few TRUE alturists that exist in this world.
And since that is the case.. the decision to give back and making a difference must involve personal accountability. :)
well said!
Without me, the lads that benefitted from our football club may have grown into hardened criminals, and without me recognising the symptoms, a child could have died from a bee sting. Without me, my dog, who lived with me for 15 years may have been beaten by a dreadful owner, or put in a sack to drown. Without me, the accident that could have happened last night didn't, because I was the guy in front and I reacted quickly. Had I not been there, the car behind me may have been in front and he may not have braked in time.
I've made a difference. To each and every friend I've passed on a 'Good Morning' to, or had a joke with. To each and every lover who looks back on the things we did that day with nostalgic fondness. Almost everything we do or say makes a difference, somehow, to someone. Although the differences I make do not change worlds, they do, I hope, have a positive effect on those I consider important. And those I do not know, who have been impacted by something I've said or done - well, I hope that they are the richer for it. Having said that though, richer or poorer - I've made a difference.
As a teacher, as a newsman, as _ like snak _ simply a person, I also have "made a difference." Everyone makes a difference in myriad and usually small ways, simply by living and interacting. I know of instances in which I made a difference in some negative ways, too. Legislators speak of "the law of unintended consequences." I've never heard anyone articulate that "law" but have understood it means that one can't know which ripple from a tossed stone will rock someone's boat, or how, adn thus questions whether one should ever toss a stone.
Gary, your post undermines your argument in a sense by its mere existence since, by posting, surely you expect your comments to make a difference one way or another, and since, other than mere venting or self-aggrandizement, there probably can be little reason for posting than a belief that you have something of value to give to others _ an insight.
To this I, (in my understanding of your post), have to disagree. Though a valid point that a lot of people say they want to make a difference and leave it there, many do not.
As snak pointed out, we affect the lives of many people even if we do not recognize it. But on a grander scale, there are others that truly do make a difference.
For example, there is a man in California who runs a martial arts school. He is trying to video record one million random acts of kindness. http://www.onemillionaok.com He is passionate about the power of kindness and wants to "make a difference". He is hoping to teach empathy and compassion. I believe he will succeed.
There is a very wealthy man here in Canada, by the name of Stronach, who built an actual town in Louisiana called Canadaville. http://www.cbc.ca/news/ba...ofnature/canadaville.html It was designed and dedicated to the survivors of Hurricane Katrina. He built and supplied homes to more than 200 Katrina evacuees rent free for 5 years. Is he not "giving back"? He is wealthy and from another country than those directly affected. Why should he care about the poor of another nation?
I realize you are frustrated and ranting, but again, there is good in the world if you look for it.
And does one need to be an expert in a subject to do something? Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses, that is given. But does that mean we should just throw up our hands and say why bother recycling? I'm not an ecological engineer, or a biologist. To me that encourages people to remove responsibility for their actions and to not bother trying. Many hands make light work. But again, it's just a thought.
http://www.appscout.com/2...e_social_networking_f.php
"The service is dedicated to signing up and connecting people around the world who want to make a difference on important social issues .... The service is built on the idea that individuals and groups could change the world if they could easily connect with one another ...."
And another:
A food-linked word game wherein by clicking away, participants help provide food through the United Nations. For the article: http://www.reuters.com/ar...ews/idUSL0943085520071109
For the game: www.freerice.com
Hey you know AdGuy always gets the last word! ;)