The dual exchange experienced in helping

More than a few Columbia students devote a great deal of their time to helping others—teaching fifth graders the wonders of long division, working with parents to find affordable child care, or raising awareness on campus about freedom-of-speech restrictions abroad. Many of us see ourselves as fortunate beneficiaries of the ivory tower’s power and privilege. Because we can, we seek to lend our hands to those in need. We have to remember, though, that lending is temporary. Our acts are not “selfless,” for we ourselves are a part of the community (or the world) we serve. To make real change, Columbia students must acknowledge the reality that “help” requires attention to all the parties involved—and that means keeping ourselves in mind.

To claim that our aid moves down a one-way street is to tell a dangerous lie, for help never comes through monologue. If we speak for those who do not have the freedom to speak, rather than helping them gain this freedom for themselves, how different are we from the cruel oppressors who have denied them their rights? It is even scarier to realize who benefits from our “service.” Those whose speech was restricted still cannot speak.

We speakers, after a brief period of complacency, become discouraged when we discover that our efforts were in vain. In the end, only the original oppressors, whose cruelty we sought to combat with our good intentions, have reason to celebrate.

We help only if we liberate, and liberation is a dialogic process. To teach long division to a fifth grader is not to inculcate into him the phrase “600 divided by eight is 75”—it is to work with him so he can develop an understanding of the method that makes the equation true. In a dialogue, the fifth grader conveys his difficulties with the material to his teacher, who, if attentive, can recognize the specifics of the student’s struggle and lead him to the key that unlocks in his mind the once-mysterious mathematical technique. Both the boy and his teacher now have freed themselves from functional and pedagogical constraints. Trite as it may seem, each teaches—and learns—from the other. This dual exchange is true liberation, helpful to both parties.

Because we ourselves benefit from this two-way process, we must look critically at our own situation. The fact that we attend Columbia University leads many of us to believe that we are in a perfect place—that our ways are the best ways and that, surely, freedom and felicity would come to all who adopt them. But is this really the case?

To be fair, we know that everyone thinks and acts differently, that values are relative, that one person’s trash is another person’s treasure. Still, we often lose sight of how indoctrinating we can be. The Golden Rule that commands us to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” is, as W. E. B. Du Bois would say, a “half-truth.” Indeed, the dual exchange of liberation requires reciprocity: We want them to help us, so we will help them, and they want us to help them, so they will help us. Nevertheless, our operative word is “help,” and help comes in different forms. If we attempt to help others by employing a form of help that would work in our favor but not in theirs, we are in fact not helping at all.

Our goal must be to move beyond humanitarian (one-way) action and toward humanist (two-way) action. We can realize this goal only if we place ourselves on the same plane as those we seek to help, understanding that our efforts should benefit us as well as them.

This is precisely what the term “give back” means: We give because we have received, and we then receive the giving of those to whom we have given. Now, let us act—with ourselves in mind.

The author is a junior at Columbia College. He is majoring in English and concentrating in comparative ethnic studies. He is a member of the Columbia University Amnesty International Executive Board and the editor in chief of its newsletter.