Service Isn't About Self-Congratulation
To the editors:
The whole point of David A. Fahrenthold's column "Join the Harvard Corps" (Column, Feb. 29) is that the real world will make us realize that we've "already made it." This statement is disturbing. There's not a thing in Fahrenthold's column about striving for social justice or collaborating with and empowering communities. What there is is a sorry excuse for community service aimed at letting us pardon our apathy and making us feel like decent people when we're not.
It's lovely if you come out of the experience with a better sense of self, but if the point of Harvard students working in the community is so that they can realize they've "already got it made," nothing could be worse. What's good for the community is not good for some foreign group called "them." It's good for all of us. And none of us "have it made" until we all do.
Priscilla Chan '01
Charity D. Shumway '00
Feb. 29, 2000
The writers are programming chairs for the Phillips Brooks House Association.
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