Jan Libourel
Well-Known Member
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- 866
In today's Los Angeles Times there was a story about a recently-founded charter high school in Los Angeles' Koreatown. It seems that across the street from the school, homeless bums have set up an encampment of tents and tarps. The bums are publicly urinating and defecating in the street to the dismay of students, faculty and parents. At one point, a prostitute set up business in one of the tents.
Understandably, many in the school community would like to see the bums cleared out. However, the paper reports, this problem had forced the school into "an uncomfortable clash of its own values." It seems that one of their itemized values states: "Service to others and the community is the responsibility of an educated person."
I would raise the question, why is anybody, educated or not, morally obligated to perform community service? I pay my taxes, I obey the laws and I maintain my property in a decent manner. However, beyond that, I don't see how I am under any obligation to go out and perform good deeds for the community. If people want to go out and volunteer to help "special needs" children, tutor inner city schoolchildren, jolly up old people in hospitals, work in soup kitchens for the poor, that kind of thing, it's very admirable of them, I'm sure, and I hope they get their rewards in Heaven. However, I don't see my failure to participate in community service activities of this sort to be evidence of positive moral delinquency on my part.
What then are your opinions on this: Community Service--Optional or Obligatory?
Understandably, many in the school community would like to see the bums cleared out. However, the paper reports, this problem had forced the school into "an uncomfortable clash of its own values." It seems that one of their itemized values states: "Service to others and the community is the responsibility of an educated person."
I would raise the question, why is anybody, educated or not, morally obligated to perform community service? I pay my taxes, I obey the laws and I maintain my property in a decent manner. However, beyond that, I don't see how I am under any obligation to go out and perform good deeds for the community. If people want to go out and volunteer to help "special needs" children, tutor inner city schoolchildren, jolly up old people in hospitals, work in soup kitchens for the poor, that kind of thing, it's very admirable of them, I'm sure, and I hope they get their rewards in Heaven. However, I don't see my failure to participate in community service activities of this sort to be evidence of positive moral delinquency on my part.
What then are your opinions on this: Community Service--Optional or Obligatory?