Community service
Today's blog is totally inspired by what happened in the school today. Very specfically our student village. Now this guy in a good-natured spirit took an initiative of keeping cold drinks in the common area. This was a no-profit-no-loss initiative, meaning the guy (say, A) would get the soda cans and keep them. Whoever takes the can has to write his/her name in the register so the cost is appropriately charged. As fate would have it a total 5 cans were taken without registering, so A stopped the initiative. But then he started this again, and within days same story happened again. As a result he sent a mail across to the SV junta expressing his dejection and anger/frust.
There are 2 ways to see this incident -
1. The "Social" way - All the SV is a community in itself. Therefore, if someone comes forward to do community's good, he should be backed by the community since its for communitys benefit in the end. Therefore, in the interest of the common good, junta should try to make sure there are no such incidents happen.
2. The "Individual" way - All the SV is a residence of people from different background, and though it is a community it is a forced one. So if someone takes an initiative, he/she runs a risk since he cannot guarantee the behaviour of a diverse crowd. Appealing to such a crowd is foolish since people only see whats good to them in a short term and it really does not matter what long term hold since as Keynes said "In long term, we are all dead".
I go with the second option. Everything including charity is ultimately a business where the owner should be benefitted. The incentives can vary and need not be financial alone but the cause should serve the purpose. While this was a noble cause and was going to benefit all, the market was not ready for this (obviously) and the unintended happened. A better alternative could have been to wait, and build a network so that there is a critical mass which upholds this venture. With that support I think there would have been less incentive to go "unregistered".
posted by Nissim @ 10:53 PM
2 Comments
2 Comments:
Nissime,
I would like to know some more:
+ Is this guy still continuing his initiative?
+ Why he started this? What was his real motive? If the sole purpose, was visibility - I bet he had got it and perhaps goodwill too.
+ Before starting this service, I am sure he would have foreseen such an act could happen. Atleast 2nd time, when he started, he must have accounted this, no?
But the way you have generalized this incident is great. You again remind me that we can learn from each and every incident of life.
But I disagree with you that charity is ultimately business. Charity or doing good to the society is not the business. It is something that we contribute from what we have and we should never weigh it in terms of profit and loss. If we do so, we are not doing good to anyone but are exploiting the needs of the society for our selfish means.
In log terms, such selfish exploitation would never benefit society and that individual.
+Yes this guy is still continuing it
+we don't get time to go to store, plus you might have an urge at unearthly hours hence..
+I guess, but thats the risk you take in any enterprise venture
Papaji, saying "If we do so, we are not doing good to anyone but are exploiting the needs of the society for our selfish means." gives a negative connotation. I'd put it as "If we do so, we are identifying a potential need in our society and fulfilling it to our self satisfaction". Does that convey what i want to say?
Ultimately all our social reformers wanted the society changed. We were only followers who upheld their views. If it were not for their selfish needs would it be possible for us to see a better society now? Ultimately self satisfaction is also a selfish need. And don't get agitated by the word selfish. As far as I have seen it has only done good to the society.
And my name is NISSIM... and not NISSIME... ;-))
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