What Can You Do for Your Country?

What does it mean to serve your country? All ethical systems train the individual to relinquish self-interest in favor of a larger communal good. When you applied to Stanford, you answered many application questions designed to elicit evidence of your ability to serve others, which is considered a sign of good character, leadership, and ability to thrive beyond the confines of your family and private world. Knowing you've wrestled with this question at length, showing sacrifice, endurance, empathy, and understanding of higher goods, this course asks you to examine the nation's view. How can the nation present itself as worthy of your personal sacrifice? Do you need to believe in the greatness of your nation to serve? What kind of cause demands your devotion? Nations have differently articulated such a commitment. Some make modest demands and promise you your own sovereignty. Others request only that you dream of national greatness as your own and that you lend a hand. But all nations require at some point, everything from you. What and when are you prepared to give? This course begins with the shortest and most powerful demand for the last full measure your devotion. President Abraham Lincoln's 'Gettysburg Address', which presents the ideals of the American nation as worthy of returning to war. Following this question of devotion to your nation, the course moves to President JF Kennedy's 'What can you do for your nation' speech, and then to diverse periods and perspectives around the globe.