By Mark Bowles, Ph.D.
Professor of History at American Military University
In a departure from a traditional career article, I want to address civic engagement. We are not building social capital–our physical connections with other people–at rates we once did as a society. There is a cost for this loss.
My interest in this began when I first read Robert D. Putnam’s book, Bowling Alone, in 2001. In it he argues that as a society we have become disconnected from each other. We no longer know our neighbors, we are physically separated from our friends and family, and we do not participate in civic groups anywhere near the rate we once did in the 1950s. Putnam’s title comes from his observation that people are now even bowling alone, as opposed to the team spirit that once thrived in ubiquitous bowling leagues.
We risk not only a diminishing investment in helping the less fortunate in our society, but we lose something of ourselves too. Reciprocity is at risk, a give and take that satisfies self-interest on one hand while also a giving expression of altruism on the other.
The former is quid pro quo “I will do this if you return the favor.” Yogi Berra broke it down like this: “If you don’t go to somebody’s funeral, they won’t come to yours.” The latter represents the more altruistic, generalized reciprocity, “I will do this for someone without expecting anything in return.” This is the Golden Rule, present in some form in every religion on the planet.
Why should we care about the diminishing social capital and reciprocity? And if we do, how might we recapture what we once had?
One model is Rotary International. Putnam wrote, “service clubs, like Rotary…mobilize local energies to raise scholarships or fight disease at the same time that they provide members with friendships and business connections that pay off personally.”
When I first read that roughly 15 years ago I recalled those types of clubs that people belonged to when I was a kid and wondered if they still existed.
Indeed they do. Rotary is a 110-year-old organization that has membership in 200 countries and territories, 1.2 million active members, and thousands of clubs in the United States. Putnam said, “In other words, Rotary alone has nearly twice as many chapters as all eighty-three public-interest groups.”
I am now learning about this first hand.
I recently published a book with Katie Spotz. She is notable in part for being the youngest person to row a boat alone across an ocean. The row was not just a 70-day endurance test, it was a charity endeavor to raise funds to support those impacted by the global water crisis.
Her local Chagrin Valley Rotary Club, in Ohio, helped to fundraise to make her journey possible. The Dakar, Senegal Rotary in West Africa served as her host family before she began to row. And the Guyana Rotary in South America was waiting for her when she completed her voyage.
Now that our book, Just Keep Rowing, is out, Katie and I have started a Rotary Club speaking tour, with the support of Rotary International District 6630 Governor, Cheryl Warren, as a way of giving back.
What have I learned through my Rotary speaking engagements?
I have seen first-hand the value of a group of civically minded people meeting together on a regular basis. They form friendships, laugh, and share fellowship over breakfast, lunch, or dinner. They take time for an invocation and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. They support each other professionally, and they enrich each other educationally by bringing in compelling speakers.
The bottom line though is that the personal benefit is a byproduct of making the world a better place. This sounds trite, but it is true.
What Rotary does is not simply quid pro quo, it exemplifies generalized reciprocity in action. Here is one example. Rotary began to fight polio globally in 1979 with a project to immunize 6 million Philippine children. This vaccination program has been so successful that today only three countries remain polio endemic. I can recall several excited Rotary discussions about what’s next after we defeat polio.
The bottom line is that, for me, visiting a Rotary Club is like returning to a patriotic moment in the 1950s, and yet at the same time it has a global dimension that resonates perfectly with today’s modern citizen of the world. It is a blend of old and new, in a way that provides hope for the future–as long as people keep attending.
What can we learn from this? First, from a personal level as a teacher, we should consider looking at ways to invest our time and talents back into the community where we physically reside. Becoming civically engaged not only helps to lessen local and global problems, it also does much to energize us as human beings.
I know that the reaction is often that there is not enough time to serve with the demands of work, family, and other obligations. I cannot speak for anyone but myself, however I have found when I literally schedule my civic activities over long blocks of time, I find it becomes part of my routine.
Rotary members are a perfect example of this as members make time to connect weekly. As Putnam pointed out, in Texas, Rotary members are required to attend 60 percent of the weekly meetings, while most aim for perfect attendance.
The second take away comes from my perspective as an online professor. The danger is that we are learning alone in our classrooms. Our online students do not meet in the same room with their professors. Students are not forming study groups at the local library because quite often they live in different countries with vastly diverse time zones. We should look for online opportunities to bring a sense of technologically mediated community to our classes.
The other positive classroom byproduct is that we serve as good role models when we share our civic-minded experiences with our students. If they see us giving back, then they might find a similar desire to look beyond themselves. This is an important lesson in global citizenship.
As a historian, I naturally want to conclude with a historical observation. In the early 19th century, Alexis de Tocqueville eloquently wrote on a central characteristic of American democracy. He said, a person “will be led to do what is just and good by following his own interests, rightly understood.”
This sounds very much like Rotary’s combination of reciprocal self-interest with altruistic generalized reciprocity. Rotary’s official motto even echoes this: One Profits Most Who Serves Best.
Self-interest, rightly understood, works. It is the perfect antidote to our selfie generation.
About the Author: Mark Bowles is Professor of History at American Public University System. To learn more about his latest book visit JustKeepRowing.com or visit his website ProfessorMDB.com.
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