Gen. McChrystal writes:

We have let the concept of service become dangerously narrow, often associated only with the military. This allows most Americans to avoid the sense of responsibility essential for us to care for our nation—and for each other. We expect and demand less of ourselves than we should.

He follows this with a call to a national service program in order to foster a sense of responsibility for and ownership of our American society. 

I’ve been trying to say something like this for a while. We need to stop idolizing service and start embodying it. To do this, we need to expand our definition of service.

America doesn’t need a hero class which makes service someone else’s responsibility and makes you feel like you’ve discharged yours as long as you support the military. America needs a service mindset in which people consider service their own obligation and look for ways to participate.

The reward is that we would grow trust, responsibility, and community. Along with it will come respect for ourselves and others.

McChrystal’s suggestion of national service is one way to do it. I think education plays a role as well. The separations that certain mental habits cause are comfortable lies. Seeing service as the exclusive domain of the military, seeing mathematics as someone else’s knowledge, seeing history and social studies as inapplicable to our lives, they excuse us from engaging in all but the most superficial ways. Anti-intellectualism drives some of this; academics are accused of holing up in ivory towers while anti-intellectuals dig moats and mires for themselves and our children.

These attitudes are stultifying, sapping our society of its heart and strength. But it seems to me that these separations are at the heart of it, working against participation, cooperation, collaboration and even simple communication as our discourse diverges and we can no longer understand each other.

We need a broader understanding of service, and broader participation.