Q: Is a national campaign to promote increased volunteerism a good idea

by Ariana Huffington , Michael S. Berliner

Yes: True conservatives will applaud the Presidents' Summit as a step in the right
direction.
What do conservatives want? With almost one voice, they've been telling the world for
years that they want impersonal, ineffective and expensive govermnent out of the way so
that private-sector charity -- personal and effective -- can help the poor.
Then along came the Presidents' Summit for America's Future which, whatever its
shortcomings, was a private-sector undertaking. In fact, it was so private-sector that the
values of the TV ratings market prevailed. It was a celebrity free-for-all -- with Oprah
Winfrey, John Travolta, Brooke Shields, four US presidents and every voter's favorite
never-ran, Colin Powell, a war hero and a by-the-bootstraps American success story, no
less. Too much? Perhaps, but still private-sector. Not a dollar 6f taxpayer money was
spent, and not a single legislative initiative was endorsed by the summiteers. It was what
conservatives have said for years they favor: a private-sector response to social problems.
Any reasonable person would agree that calling the summit an anti-american servitude
summit and an inversion of the principles on which this nation was established was a bit
much. Yet this is precisely the claim of Michael Berliner, executive director of the Ayn
Rand Institute. You have to marvel at the ideological purity of a critic who sees the
shadow of totalitarianism in LensCrafters' decision to provide eyeglasses for 1 million
needy kids (to name just one of the many corporate commitments made by summit
participants).
Not just the Ayn Rand Institute, but conservatives across the land were apoplectic. Take
Rush Limbaugh: Citizen service, he sneered, is a repudiation of the principles upon
which our country was based. Really? What about the Judeo-Christian tradition on which
American democracy is based -- little things such as St. Paul's exhortation to bear one
another's burden?
"We are all here for ourselves," Limbaugh clarified, completely oblivious to the spirit of
America's founding, given glorious expression as early as 1630 by the first governor of
Massachusetts, John Winthrop: "We must be knit together ... we must entertain each other
in brotherly affection."
"Each individual is an end in himself," Limbaugh went on. "His highest purpose is the
pursuit of his own happiness." But the pursuit of happiness was never intended to be
reduced to the pursuit of pleasure. It was the happiness of the Book of Proverbs: "Happy
is the man that finds wisdom," and "Happy is he that has mercy on the poor".
Limbaugh's biggest gripe seems to be that the producers and achievers of this country are
being told that they have to give something back. I suppose I can understand why the idea
of giving something back is repulsive to a man who earns an estimated $25 million a
year. But Jesus seems to think it's a good idea: "From whom much is given, from him that
much more shall be expected" (Luke 12:48).
It may be easy to dismiss Limbaugh as a popularizer of conservative principles. But
increasingly, Limbaugh has been sounding not like a popularizer or even a vulgarizer, but
like a parody of the ugliest liberal cliches about heartless conservatives.
So where is best-selling moral philosopher Bill Bennett, who in a 1992 American
Spectator article called Limbaugh "possibly our greatest living American"? Does he
consider Limbaugh's social Darwinism one of the virtues of the American spirit? And
where is Newt Gingrich, who during his first speech as House speaker, said that
balancing the budget "doesn't, in my mind, have the moral urgency of coming to terms
with what's happening to the poorest Americans"? Are conservative leaders willing to
have their movement identified with Limbaugh's bitter tirades against the principle of the
producers and achievers of this country giving something back?
Limbaugh is not alone. Thomas Sowell, a respected conservative intellectual who should
know better, used almost identical words to attack the idea that those who produce the
things we all live on are supposed to give something back to those who produce nothing.
But has not conservatism, from Edmund Burke down, been grounded in our Judeo-
Christian tradition?
Alfred Marshal called it economic chivalry; James Q. Wilson called it the moral sense;
Russell Kirk defined good citizenship as the willingness to sacrifice private desires for
public ends. Pick your own conservative heavyweight. The point remains that freedom is
not sustainable without a sense of social responsibility. Liberty is not an end in itself, as
the libertarian wing of the conservative movement would have us believe, but the best
available means to the Good Society.
"Gain all you can ... save all you can ... give all you can." Historian Gertrude Himmelfarb
tells us these words of John Wesley were at the heart of Victorian social morality. More
recently, Himmelfarb notes, Margaret Thatcher described it as the guiding principle of
conservatism.
What makes this moment so perilous for the conservative movement is the intellectual
confusion that permeates the thinking of its best and brightest: the confusion between
government action and the bully pulpit; between promoting civil society and expanding
state power; between obligations and entitlements. The Wall Street Journal went as far as
to call an article by Marvin Olasky attacking the Philadelphia gathering "The Entitlement
Summit." So, according to the new conservative gospel, a call to the private sector to
provide at least 2 million mentors for at-risk kids is another liberal entitlement to be
denounced?
Even more bitter and desiccated was Florence King's lament last January in the National
Review. She went to pieces at the prospect of "each one of us being assigned our own
personal illiterate to tutor." King, who writes her column under the title of "The
Misanthrope's Corner," is a patron saint of the leave-us-alone coalition, whose creed boils
down to: Cut our taxes, reduce government and all will be well -- including the poor
whose boats will be lifted up with the rest of us. And if not, what the heck? Our taxes will
be lower and government off our backs. Isn't that what really matters?
If that's what really matters to conservatives, they'll never have it. They never will be able
fundamentally to reduce the role of govermnent in our lives until they have convinced the
American public that there are other ways to care for those in need -- and until they have
demonstrated that this is not just idle talk. For now they seem content to glorify a
shrunken view of self-interest and, indeed, of human nature.
As Bob Novak put it: "What time have [ordinary Americans] got to go out and be Lady
Bountiful, like Nancy Reagan wants them to be?" Nancy Reagan accused by the right of
being too compassionate? That is news.
What was so revealing about the chorus of conservative attacks on the summit were the
reasons given. As Sowell put it: "Currently, 93 million Americans are volunteering. Why
will 94 million be able to accomplish what 93 million clearly have not accomplished?"
Variations on the same theme were repeated by Lamar Alexander and Novak, among
others. Even cursory research would show these good conservatives that, of those
millions of volunteers, less than 8.4 percent deal with social problems. Yet these numbers
were bandied about as if they proved that citizens already had discharged their
obligations to "the least among us."
The question that remained unanswered and indeed unasked was: If the government has
failed and the citizens already are doing their part, who then will help the millions who
need help? What made this such a damning moment for conservatives was the implicit
but inescapable conclusion that the problems of disadvantaged kids aren't their concern.
In fact, there was a quality of desperation in the arguments used. Conservatives grasped
for their favorite peeve with the exhortations to volunteer and dismissed everything else.
Topping the list was, of course, President Clinton's involvement. He was so reflexively
identified with the summit that, in article after article, the summit was referred to as the
president's summit, not as the Presidents' Summit -- which is what it officially was called
and what it was. For conservatives to attack a volunteerism summit because the president
endorsed it makes no more sense then for them to change their tune about the role of
government because the same president declared the era of big government over.
Conservatives can disagree with AmeriCorps and the president's $3 billion reading
program without throwing out the baby with the bath water. Yet that's exactly what many
of them did.
Sure, if I had been able to design and plan the summit on my own, I would have done
many things differently. I am sure this is true of everyone involved. But if we each had
been able to do things our way, it wouldn't have been a summit. The whole notion of a
summit presupposes people coming together who would rather stay apart. But for many
conservatives, the very presence of the Clintons tarnished not just the event but the
causes of volunteerism and civic responsibility.
This highlights a clear fault line in the modern conservative political movement. Born in
opposition -- first to communism and then to the liberal welfare state -- it has little
practice at doing anything except opposing things. What makes this contrarian tendency
even more destructive is a utopian impulse to make the perfect the enemy of the good.
Mercifully, there is another strand of conservatism -- not just among thinkers and activists
but among elected officials as well. Two dozen of them have come together and formed
the Renewal Alliance to promote nongovernmental solutions to human problems through
proposals that empower charities, families, small businesses and community
organizations to be more active in the hard, essential work of social renewal.
The week before the summit, they sent a letter to Powell joining him in his call to action
and commitment. Have the signatories of this letter -- who include Republican Sens. Dan
Coats of Indiana and Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and GOP Reps. John Kasich of
Ohio and J.C. Watts of Oklahoma -- talked to Limbaugh lately?
The summit was not perfect. Imperfection, after all, is the price you pay for bringing so
many different -- and often warring -- groups under one roof to work toward a common
purpose. But that purpose -- giving millions of at-risk kids the kind of support that might
make the difference between their becoming tomorrow's achievers or tomorrow's
criminals -- seemed worth the cost of some showboating, some conspicuous compassion,
some hot air and a few gratuitous photo opportunities. If Paris was worth a mass to Henry
IV, then the possibility that some serious good would come out of this was worth
suffering the preening of a few political peacocks and network prima donnas.
No: Beware of the bandwagon touting self-sacrifice and volunteerism as moral
imperatives.
The recently concluded Presidents' Summit for America's Future launched a moral
crusade, one with almost no opposition. After all, who possibly could be against helping
children? It seems to be a noncontroversial goal, one so universally accepted as to
warrant no discussion. But, in fact, the real goal is a deadly one.
Make no mistake: That goal is not the benign objective of helping children, of people
being kind to each other. No, we should take seriously President Clinton's proclamation:
"Our mission is nothing less than to spark a renewed sense of obligation, a new sense of
duty, a new season of service." The summit's goal was not kindness but servitude.
Kindness and helping others are not anti-American or psychologically destructive, but the
same cannot be said for the morality of duty and service.
Americans -- especially young people -- are urged by liberals such as Clinton, moderates
such as Colin Powell and conservatives such as Arianna Huffington to do something
"worthwhile" with their lives by dedicating themselves to serving those in need. Only by
serving, declare our leaders, can a person feel morally worthy. Dismissed as immoral --
or at best, amoral -- are those who concentrate on their own lives and seek their own
happiness. Powell considers such people to be on the moral sidelines rather than on the
moral playing field.
The goal of the volunteerism crusade is to establish altruism as the moral law of the land.
Altruism is the view that an individual has moral worth only to the extent he sacrifices his
own personal interests for the good of others. This view is a perversion of morality. The
opposite of altruism is rational selfishness, the view that each individual exists for his
own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself.
The volunteerism crusade wants to saddle young people with unchosen obligations. If
they don't want to serve others, they will be haunted by guilt. There is to be no joy in
achievement -- only guilt, leading achievers to give up their achievements to the needy,
who -- unless they reject altruism -- will, in turn, feel guilty until they give up what
they've received to someone needier and so on ad infinitum. Never mind the illogic of all
this: "Giving up" is what it's all about.
Supposedly meant to inspire young people, this bleak view is the exact opposite of what
they need. What they need are heroes: people who set a purpose in their lives and work to
achieve it. And what they need -- what everyone needs to be proud of themselves -- is to
practice the virtues required for human survival: thinking, producing, achieving. Thus,
what children need is not for our schools to turn them into serfs doing "socially useful
labor" (to use the old Chinese Communist slogan) and thus make them even needier,
educationally. What they need are schools to teach them to read and, above all, to think
rationally -- to acquire the tools and confidence to become productive, self-reliant and
happy individuals. Self-affirmation, not self-denial, is what brings one joy in being alive.
There can be no self-esteem without a self.
To hold the volunteerism summit in Independence Hall was a disgrace. It was a profound
insult to our Founding Fathers and to what this country stands for. "Every young
American," proclaimed Clinton, "should be taught the joy and the duty of serving." But
substitute the word "German" for "American" and this could be a proclamation by Adolf
Hitler. The philosophy of duty, obligation and sacrifice indeed was the philosophy of
Nazi Germany. It emphatically is not the philosophy of America. America stands for
individualism, self-reliance and -- above all -- independence. The Founding Fathers wrote
a declaration of independence, not a declaration of servitude. They were champions of
"the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." They were not champions of
service and sacrifice to the "needy." As Thomas Jefferson, the greatest of those Founding
Fathers, said: "Nothing could so completely divest us of liberty as the establishment of
the opinion that the state has a perpetual right to the services of all of its members." The
American philosophy is that your life is owned by you not -- in whole or in part -- by the
state or the community.
The campaigners for volunteerism would have us believe that self-sacrifice is needed to
cure such social problems as poverty and the lack of medical care. But self-sacrifice is the
cause of those problems, not the cure. The number of "needy" people -- those incapable
of taking care of themselves -- steadily has increased under the altruistic New Deal, Fair
Deal, New Frontier, Great Society, etc. Altruistically based economic regulations and
billion-dollar "entitlement" programs reduce production, destroy jobs and reassure people
that they needn't work to get what they need: After all, it supposedly is theirs by moral
right. Of course, were these self-appointed humanitarians truly interested in relieving
hunger, they would look at history and take the obvious step: Get the government out of
the economy, out of people's lives. It is no coincidence that the freest economies are the
ones with the fewest "needy" people. But altruism, not individual happiness, is their goal.
Many well-meaning people are seduced by the term "volunteerism," it seems to be
derived from that honorable word "voluntary." In a free society, voluntary action is the
only proper way for people to deal with each other. This principle rests on the premise
that we are and should be independent entities. However, volunteerism is quite a different
matter, for it rests on the opposite premise: dependence, duty to others. In fact, the
distinction between "voluntary service" and "mandatory service" is a false one. Already
the veneer of "choice" has slipped: Clinton has endorsed Maryland's policy and called for
volunteerism to become mandatory in American high schools and a requirement for
graduation. This should come as no surprise. Ethics and politics inseparably are linked,
and govermnent coercion is the necessary consequence of the ethics of altruism. If living
for others is what makes one moral, if each of us morally is the property of others, then
there is no moral restriction against forcing us to live for others; it's only a matter of time
before the government steps in. If we morally are obligated to give our money and live
our lives for the poor, then the state is justified in collecting our money and our lives and
using them as it sees fit. Under the morality of altruism, there are no individual rights, for
such rights are rejected as too personal, too private, in essence "selfish." And indeed they
are selfish. It is no coincidence that every tyranny in history is based on altruism:
sacrifice to the king, sacrifice to God, the community, the nation, the race -- and on
through the bloodbaths of history. And it is no coincidence that the freest country in
history -- the United States of America -- was founded on the individual's right to the
pursuit of selfish happiness.
"Sacrifice" means what it says: human sacrifice, the giving up of your self, the giving up
of your life to someone else who has a moral claim on it. There is nothing benevolent or
kind about owning someone else. There is nothing benevolent or kind about telling
someone not to value his own achievements but to value giving them to someone else.
Altruism is the enemy of true benevolence, breeding nothing but hostility and ill-will,
with every man a potential threat to his neighbors. Under altruism, each man is both an
owner and the property of everyone else, a sacrificer and a recipient of sacrifices, a
master and serf. One's only choice is to use his neighbors before they use him. This is not
benevolence; this is a war of all against all. It is the opposite of benevolence. True
benevolence is based on respect for another person's independence and worthiness. As
Ayn Rand observed, "The nearest approach to [altruism] in reality -- the man who lives to
serve others -- is the slave. If physical slavery is repulsive, how much more repulsive is
the concept of servility of the spirit. The conquered slave has a vestige of honor. He has
the merit of having resisted and of considering his condition evil. But the man who
enslaves himself voluntarily in the name of love is the basest of creatures. He degrades
the dignity of man, and he degrades the conception of love."
The advocate of rational self-interest does not oppose voluntary charity. In fact,
nonsacrificial help is a by-product of benevolence and respect for others. It is not wrong
to help others as a gesture of good will, but it is not a moral imperative or a moral duty.
Above all, helping others is not the standard of a person's moral worth. People should be
free to help those they want to help, but they also should be free from the duty to help
others.
America has been a beacon of hope for the truly oppressed from all over the world. They
have come here to escape dictatorships and tyrannies; they have come here to live their
own lives, where they aren't owned by the state, the community or the tribe. Now Clinton
and the other apostles of volunteerism want us to be owned by whoever claims to be
more needy. In so doing, they are advocating a morality of duty and service that was the
basic morality of the worst of those tyrannies: Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. And it's
the morality which justified the slaughter of young people in Tiananmen Square -- young
people who wanted nothing more than to live their own lives.
The president's call for national service is a potential chain around the neck of every
individual. We are not our brothers' keepers. We have a right to the pursuit of our own
happiness here on Earth. No individual belongs to another. In the words of Ayn Rand's
hero in The Fountainhead: "I do not recognize anyone's right to one minute of my life."
What this country needs is to reestablish the true meaning of the Declaration of
Independence: an individual's moral right to the pursuit of his own personal happiness,
his right to every minute of his life.

-1-