While homeschooling my eleven year old son, the curriculum that we are following suggested reading Stephen Mansfield’s Never Give In: The Extraordinary Character of Winston Churchill. Mansfield writes, “Churchill’s early training, largely at the knee of his beloved nanny, taught him that privilege of birth demanded exceptional devotion and sacrifice. They called it noblesse oblige, the idea that nobility obligates, that to whom much is given, much is required in return. Churchill learned it well and it was a guide to him during his rich life of public service.”
Although we’re not born into nobility in this country, what this says to me is if you are smart that it should be your duty to take care of those who are not as smart as you are. If you are strong, you lend a hand to those who are not as strong as you are. If you are rich, you help out those who are struggling financially. Mansfield goes on to write that, “Churchill’s sense of duty lifted him above the comfort and self-absorption that satisfied other men and that the measure of the man is that he was willing to lay aside the very things he loved for a higher cause.” He then quotes Churchill, “We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.”
What is your sense of duty? What are you being asked to do today? We’re not being drafted to battle or told to surrender our guns….we’re being asked to wear a mask for the greater good. I always worry that people I care about might have regrets. Will we look back on this time and regret that what we were called to do, our duty, was too much to give? I’m actually appalled at how little I’m being asked to do, to wear a face mask around others, to protect the greater good.
I’m a Republican who voted for Collins and Trump, and yes, I’m disappointed with the results of the presidential election. This has nothing to do with my sense of duty and wearing a face mask. You may be young and the Covid stats are in your favor or you may be old and just feel that if it’s your time then Covid may take you, but this is not about you. This is about your sense of duty to the greater good, to others. Such a very minor thing for each of us to do and yet so many are chafing at the idea of duty.
I’m sure leaders such as Winston would scoff at the idea that our call to duty in 2020 is to wear a face mask and it’s why I’m so astonished that something so small to ask of people could be met with such resistance. Where is your sense of duty to the greater good? “Moved by an overriding sense of duty himself, Churchill knew how to help other men hear its call as well. Duty is one of the most-often used words in his speeches because he believed that if good men of pure intent unswervingly did their duty, victory would follow. To do so was to play the part Providence had ordained, to walk in the pathway of destiny. Therefore, men ought to ‘dread naught when duty calls.’ When the telling moment arrived, all that was required was to ‘stand erect and look the world in the face and do our duty without fear or favor.’”
Elizabeth Marble
Freeman Township
