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Wednesday, January 18, 2006
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Getting College Students To Give Blood As a gallon donor and more, UD read with interest a negative review in today’s Slate of a Red Cross public service ad. I watched the ad online and I don’t think the Slate writer’s being fair. The ad seems to me remarkably good. It’s hip and amusing and makes a reasonable point: While deciding on your political activities and commitments takes a good deal of thought, compromise, patience, etc. (given how complex and intractable world problems tend to be), donating blood is a public-spirited activity whose simplicity -- logistical as well as intellectual -- is a strong mark in its favor. You know you’re doing something good for society when you give blood. Of course it’s a much more modest sort of activity than joining the Peace Corps or militating against child labor, but it’s nonetheless valuable. The Slate writer thinks that by drawing a contrast between giving blood and being politically active the Red Cross is “bash[ing] the competition,” but it doesn't read like that to me. The ad is merely making a plausible distinction among various moral activities that might appeal to idealistic young people (it’s distinctly targeted to young people, who as a group don’t give blood very often). Mentioning the competition in this ad doesn’t come across to me as bashing it. It comes across as taking it seriously. As to the Slate writer’s argument that “Blood donation is just a maintenance measure. It may save lives, but it won't make the world a better place …” -- not so. It’s routine for some of the blood you donate to be used in scientific studies. And the life your blood saves may go on to do spectacular things for the world. One of the reasons I give blood at the National Institutes of Health in ‘thesda is that you’re in the same building - the Clinical Center - where sick people are being treated, and your blood goes directly to them and to the scientists at NIH carrying out research. |