Civic Engagement (take II)

I still think civic engagement is for people other than myself. Despite our talking about the perils of self-righteous behavior following volunteering I still think most of us are imbued with that feeling. To put this in context, I try very hard to live up to my expectations of myself. I have promised myself thought my life that there are things I will never do and things I will constantly strive for. I have never broken any of the 20+ promises I've made. I focus more on what I should be doing and how I should lead my life than anyone I've ever met. I also really hate people accepting ideas of what they should do without any thought. I felt like missing from our discussion today was the question why. Why should we volunteer for others? It seemed as if we accepted this without thought as just part of a larger social agreement that "engagement" is good. That it makes up for the moral abdication so many people go through while ignoring the necessity of formulating their own beliefs. I contend that helping people isn't the end all of human benevolence. Much more than help, I would prefer everyone left me alone. (not in terms of having no friends :), I mean in terms of not paying taxes for social goods or affirmative action, poverty assistance, telling me what I can't do with my body or in my spare time, or public welfare.) I'm more-or-less self sufficient and I would ask everyone else to be so, or at least not demand that I assist them. I don't ask anyone to volunteer for me, why should I have to help them? I'm under no moral compulsion by virtue of my being human. That grants them no title to my labor or benevolence. The only thing I owe them is not to violate their rights. As for these feelings of privilege that no doubt many of us feel, I'm completely opposed to that. I love my position in life but no system gave me this. My single-parent mom worked 3 jobs for years to see her kids through school. My brother and I worked incredibly hard to get where we are. No one gave us this, we earned it. I feel as though too many of us assume that we owe other people things without first asking why. This of course leads to the self righteous behavior when we do volunteer. People feel as though others should laud their accomplishment as part of a shared delusion about their purpose. Rather than strive to find their meaning in life, people buy into existing ones (religions, political parties, NGO's, and yes, volunteering.) Its trendy and popularly accepted so people do it with the hopes that this will finally confer meaning to their pointless life. I strive to be a good friend and a good person and I don't mean to imply that all volunteering is bad, it can be quite the force for good, we must however have this debate as to why we do it. I don't because it's enough for me by fulfilling my promises to grant myself that "good person" status all people crave. Seeing as how we have to though, I would recommend we asist the elderly in retirement communities. besides helping them (which we seem to have automatically accepted as a good thing) it provides us with knowledge about life. In trying to decide where I want to go and what I want to do in my future, knowledge of those who have previously traveled this path and know the dangers is invaluable. There is at least no debate here, we should do this because it helps us by giving a context for the rest of our lives. I'm not opposed to being with kids, I don't know what we can learn but I love children and their excitement. If we want to I'd like to do stuff with kids (or cute animals for that matter) but we should have clearer goals in mind for our own progress. I also like the idea of 3-4 person mini-groups as this would be diverse (good since I doubt we'll all agree on what we want to do) and yet large enough that we don't feel isolated or ineffectual. I would very much like to argue out why we're helping people, what we expect to accomplish, how often we should do this, what expertise we can bring, and how this fits into our individual conceptions of our purpose.