Careless Society: Community and Its Counterfeits
Amid all the hand-wringing about the loss of community in America these days, here is a book that celebrates the ability of neighborhoods to heal themselves from within. John McKnight shows how competent communities have been invaded and colonized by professionalized services—often with devastating results. Overwhelmed by these social services, the spirit of community falters: families collapse, schools fail, violence spreads, and medical systems spiral out of control. Instead of more or...
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McKnight shows how the experts’ best efforts to rebuild and revitalize communities can actually destroy them and celebrates the ability of neighborhoods to heal from within.
IntroductionProfessionalismJohn Deere and the Bereavement Counselor3The Professional Problem16The Need for Oldness26Professionalized Service and Disabling Help36MedicineThe Medicalization of Politics55Well-Being: The New Threshold to the Old Medicine63Diagnosis and the Health of Community70Politicizing Health Care80Human Service SystemsA Nation of Clients?91Do No Harm101Redefining Community115A Reconsideration of the Crisis of the Welfare State124The Criminal Justice SystemThinking About Crime, Sacrifice, and Community135Rethinking Our National Incarceration Policy145On CommunityCommunity Organizing in the Eighties: Toward a Post-Alinsky Agenda153Regenerating Community161Christian ServiceOn the Backwardness of Prophets175Notes181Acknowledgments185Index187
