Northwestern University researcher John McKnight has spent the last two
decades examining the effects of human services on communities.  For a
fuller analysis on this topic, check out his book "The Careless Society,"
which is available from Recording for the Blind.  The URL for his latest
effort on asset-based community development is at the end of the article.
It offers an alternative to the issues discussed below.

kelly

URL:
    http://www.journalism.wisc.edu/cpn/sections/topics/community/civic_perspecti
    ves/regen_comm.html


                           REGENERATING COMMUNITY

                              by John McKnight

   Each of us has a map of the social world in our mind, and the way we
   act, our plans and opinions are the result of that map.

   The people who make social policy also have social maps in their
   minds. They make plans and design programs based upon their map.
   Indeed, if you carefully examine their programs, you can detect the
   nature of their mental map.

   Using this method, we have found that the most common social policy
   map has two locations: institutions and individual people. By
   institutions we mean large structures such as corporations,
   universities, and government mental health systems. These structures
   organize a large group of people so that a few of them will be able to
   control the rest of them. In this structure, there is ultimately room
   for one leader. It is a structure initially created to produce goods
   such as steel and automobiles.

   In the last few decades, the structure has also been used to design
   human service systems. While these newly designed hierarchical,
   managed service systems do not produce goods such as steel, they do
   produce needs assessments, service plans, protocols, and procedures.
   They are also thought, by some policymakers, to produce health,
   education, security, or justice.

   If it is correct that these systems can produce these service
   commodities, then it is possible to imagine that there are consumers
   of their products. For example, we have all heard that there are now
   people called "health consumers." They are the individuals who are the
   other part of the social map created by most social policymakers. They
   make a complete economic world by acting as the users (consumers) of
   the products of managed institutional producers of such commodities as
   mental health, health, education, and justice. Thus, we can see that
   it was necessary to create health consumers once we had systems that
   could produce health. Otherwise, there would be no purpose for these
   large hierarchical, managed systems.

   Once we understand this social map of institutions and individuals we
   can see why we have mental health providers and mental health
   consumers. We can also see how our developing service economy works.

   Because the gross national product is the sum of the goods and
   services produced each year, many policy experts have come to believe
   that the well-being of our society significantly depends upon the
   amount of the commodities called services that are produced by
   institutions and used by consumers. For example, a person with a
   perilous and extended illness (a health consumer) contributes
   significantly to our economic growth by using large amounts of the
   commodities produced by the health system. Indeed, a very ill person
   disabled for a considerable amount of time could cause production of
   much more medical dollar value through their illness than the value of
   their own production were they healthy.

   This amazing development is possible, in part, because of the unusual
   two-place map used by many social policymakers in designing social
   service programs. Unfortunately, this map and the program designs that
   flow from it have recently encountered three major problems.

   The first problem is that in spite of ever-growing inputs into
   institutionalized service systems, many individuals continue to reject
   their roles as consumers. This is the problem of intractability that
   has resulted in an increasing focus upon the "compliance" issue.
   Especially in our big cities, many intractable young individuals
   continue to refuse to learn in she local newspaper closes, the garden club and
       the township meeting will each diminish as they lose a voice. If
       the American Legion disbands, several community fundraising events
       and the maintenance of the ballpark will stop. If the Baptist
       Church closes, several self-help groups that meet in the basement
       will be without a home and folks in the old people's home will
       lose their weekly visitors. The interdependence of associations
       and the dependence of community upon their work is the vital
       center of an effective society.
     * The community environment is constructed around the recognition of
       fallibility rather than the ideal. Most institutions, on the other
       hand, are designed with a vision imagining a structure where
       things can be done right, a kind of orderly perfection achieved,
       and the ablest dominate.
       In contrast, community structures tend to proliferate until they
       create a place for everyone, no matter how fallible. They provide
       vehicles that give voice to diversity and assume that consensual
       contribution is the primary value.
       In the proliferation of community associations, there is room for
       many leaders and the development of leadership capacity among
       many. This democratic opportunity structure assumes that the best
       idea is the sum of the knowings of the collected fallible people
       who are citizens. Indeed, it is the marvel of the democratic ideal
       that people of every fallibility are citizens. Effective
       associational life incorporates all of those fallibilities and
       reveals the unique intelligence of community.
     * Associations have the capacity to respond quickly. They do not
       need to involve all of the institutional interests incorporated in
       a planning committee, budget office, administrative staff, and so
       forth.
       A primary characteristic of people who need help is that their
       problem is created by the unexpected tragedy, the surprise
       development, the sudden change. While they will be able to
       stabilize over the long run, what they often need is immediate
       help. The rapid response capacity of associations, and their
       interconnectedness, allows for the possibility of immediate and
       comprehensive assistance without first initiating a person into a
       system from which they may never leave.
     * The proliferation and development of community associations allow
       for the flowering of creative solutions. Institutions tend to
       require creative ideas to follow channels. However, the
       nonhierarchical nature of the field of associations allows us to
       see all of the budding ideas and greatly increases our
       opportunities for social innovation.
     * Because community associations are small, face-to-face groups, the
       relationship among members is very individualized. They also have
       the tradition of dealing with non-members as individuals,
       Institutions, on the other hand, have great difficulty developing
       programs or activities that recognize the unique characteristics
       of each individual. Therefore, associations represent unusual
       tools for creating "hand-tailored" responses to those who may be
       in special need or have unique fallibilities.
     * Our institutions are constantly reforming and reorganizing
       themselves in an effort to create or allow relationships that can
       be characterized as "care." Nonetheless, their ministrations
       consistently commodify themselves and become a service. For many
       people with uncommon fallibilities, their need is for care rather
       than service. While a managed system organized as a structure of
       control can deliver a service, it cannot deliver care. Care is a
       special relationship characterized by consent rather than control.
       Therefore, its auspices are individual and associational. For
       those who need care, we must recognize the community as the
       appropriate social tool.
     * Finally, associations and the community they create are the forum
       within which citizenship can be expressed. Institutions by their
       managed structure are definitionally unable to act as forums for
       citizenship. Therefore, the vital center of democracy is the
       community of associations. Any person without access to that forum
       is effectively denied citizenship. For those people with unique
       fallibilities who have been institutionalized, it isn't enough
       that they be deinstitutionalized. In order to be a citizen, they
       must also have the opportunity for recommunilization.

   In summary, the community of associations provides a social tool where
   consent is the primary motivation, interdependence creates holistic
   environments, people of all capacities and fallibilities are
   incorporated, quick responses are possible, creativity is multiplied
   rather than channeled, individualized responses are characteristic,
   care is able to replace service, and citizenship is possible. When all
   of these unique capacities of community are recognized, it is obvious
   why the social policy map that excludes community life has resulted in
   increasing failures. To exclude from our problem-solving capacities
   the social tool of community is to have taken the heart out of
   America.

   Why is it, then, that social policy maps so often ignore community?
   One reason is that there are many institutional leaders who simply do
   not believe in the capacities of communities. They often see
   communities as collections of parochial, inexpert, uninformed, and
   biased people. Indeed, there are many leaders of service systems who
   believe that they are in direct competition with communities for the
   power to correctly define problems, provide scientific solutions and
   professional services.

   In this competitive understanding, the institutional leaders are
   correct. Whenever hierarchical systems become more powerful than the
   community, we see the flow of authority, resources, skills, dollars,
   legitimacy, and capacities away from communities to service systems.
   In fact, institutionalized systems grow at the expense of communities.
   As institutions gain power, communities lose their potency and the
   consent of community is replaced by the control of systems; the care
   of community is replaced by the service of systems; the citizens of
   community are replaced by the clients and consumer of institutional
   products.

   Visions of Society

   Today, our society is the site of the struggle between community and
   institution for the capacities and loyalties of our people. This
   struggle is never carried out in the abstract. Instead, it occurs each
   day in the relations of people, the budget decisions of systems, and
   the public portraits of the media. As one observes this struggle,
   there appear to be three visions of society that dominate the
   discourse.

   The first is the therapeutic vision. This prospect sees the well-being
   of individual as growing from an environment composed of professionals
   and their services. It envisions a world where there is a professional
   to meet every need, and the fee to secure each professional service is
   a right. This vision is epigrammatically expressed by those who see
   the ultimate liberty as "the right to treatment."

   The second prospect is the advocacy vision. This approach foresees a
   world in which labeled people will be in an environment protected by
   advocates and advocacy groups. It conceives an individual whose world
   is guarded by legal advocates, support people, self-help groups, job
   developers, and housing locaters. Unlike the therapeutic vision, the
   advocacy approach conceives a defensive wall of helpers to protect an
   individual against an alien community.. It seeks to insure a person's
   right to be a functioning individual.

   The third approach is the community vision. It sees the goal as
   "recommunilization" of exiled and labeled individuals. It understands
   the community as the basic context for enabling people to contribute
   their gifts. It sees community associations as contexts to create and
   locate jobs, provide opportunities for recreation and multiple
   friendships, and to become the political defender of the right of
   labeled people to be free from exile.

   Those who seek to institute the community vision believe that beyond
   therapy and advocacy is the constellation of community associations.
   They see a society where those who were once labeled, exiled, treated,
   counseled, advised, and protected are, instead, incorporated in
   community where their contributions, capacities, gifts, and
   fallibilities will allow a network of relationships involving work,
   recreation, friendship, support, and the political power of being a
   citizen.

   Because so many labeled people have been exiled to a world expressing
   the professional and advocacy vision of an appropriate life, the
   community vision has frequently been forgotten. How will people know
   when they are in community? Our studies suggest that this universe is
   distinctive and distinguished from the environment of systems and
   institutions. The community experience incorporates a number of
   strands.

   Capacity. We all remember the childhood question regarding how to
   describe a glass with water to its mid-point. Is it half full or half
   empty? Community associations are built upon the recognition of the
   fullness of each member because it is the sum of their capacities that
   represents the power of the group. The social policy map makers, on
   the other hand, build a world based upon the emptiness of each of
   us--a model based upon deficiency. Communities depend upon capacities.
   Systems commodify deficiencies.

   Collective Effort. It is obvious that the essence of community is
   people working together. One of the characteristics of this community
   work is shared responsibility that requires many talents. Thus, a
   person who has been labeled deficient can find a "hammock" of support
   in the collective capacities of a community that can shape itself to
   the unique character of each person. This collective process contrasts
   with the individualistic approach of the therapeutic professional and
   the rigidity of institutions that demand that people shape themselves
   to the needs of the system.

   Informality.. Associational life in the community is a critical
   element of the informal economy. Here transactions of value take place
   without money, advertising, or hype. Authentic relationships are
   possible and care emerges in place of its packaged imitation: service.

   The informality of community is also expressed through relationships
   that are not managed. Communities viewed by those who only understand
   managed experiences and relationship appear to be disordered, messy,
   and inefficient. What these people fail to understand is that there is
   a hidden order to community groups that is determined by the need to
   incorporate capacity and fallibility.

   While institutions and professionals war against human fallibility by
   trying to replace it, cure it, or disregard it, communities are
   proliferations of associations that multiply until they incorporate
   both the capacities and the fallibilities of citizens. It is for this
   reason that labeled people are not out of place in community because
   they all have capacities and only their fallibilities are unusual.
   However, because there are so many community associations, there are
   always some sets of associational relationships that can incorporate
   their fallibilities and use their unique gifts.

   Stories. In universities, people know through studies. In businesses
   and bureaucracies, people know by reports. In communities, people know
   by stories. These community stories allow people to reach back into
   their common history and their individual experience for knowledge
   about truth and direction for the future.

   Professionals and institutions often threaten the stories of community
   by urging community people to count up things rather than communicate.
   Successful community associations resist efforts to impose the foreign
   language of studies and reports because it is a tongue that ignores
   their own capacities and insights. Whenever communities come to
   believe that their common knowledge is illegitimate, they lose their
   power and professionals and systems rapidly invade their social place.

   Celebration. Community groups constantly incorporate celebrations,
   parties, and social events in their activities. The line between work
   and play is blurred and the human nature of every-day life becomes
   part of the way of work. You will know that you are in community if
   you often hear laughter and singing. You will know you are in an
   institution, corporation, or bureaucracy if you hear the silence of
   long halls and reasoned meetings. Associations in community celebrate
   because they work by consent and have the luxury of allowing
   joyfulness to join them in their endeavors.

   Tragedy. The surest indication of the experience of community is the
   explicit common knowledge of tragedy, death, and suffering. The
   managed, ordered, technical vision embodied in professional and
   institutional systems leaves no space for tragedy; they are basically
   methods for production. Indeed, they are designed to deny the central
   dilemmas of life. Therefore, our managed systems gladly give
   communities the real dilemmas of the human condition. There is no
   competition here. To be in community is to be an active part of
   associations and self-help groups. To be in community is to be a part
   of ritual, lamentation, and celebration of our fallibility.

   Knowing community is not an abstract understanding. Rather, it is what
   we each know about all of us.

   As we think about ourselves, our community and institutions, many of
   us recognize that we have been degraded because our roles as citizens
   and our communities have been traded in for the right to clienthood
   and consumer status. Many of us have come to recognize that as we
   exiled our fallible neighbors to the control of managers, therapists,
   and technicians, we lost much of our power to be the vital center of
   society. We forgot about the capacity of every single one of us to do
   good work and, instead, made some of us into the objects of good
   works--servants of those who serve.

   As we think about our community life, we recognize that something has
   happened to many of us as institutions have grown in power: we have
   become too impotent to be called real citizens and too disconnected to
   be effective members of community.

   There is a mistaken notion that our society has a problem in terms of
   effective human services.. Our essential problem is weak communities.
   While we have reached the limits of institutional problem solving, we
   are only at the beginning of exploring the possibility of a new vision
   for community. It is a vision of regeneration. It is a vision of
   reassociating the exiled. It is a vision of freeing ourselves from
   service and advocacy. It is a vision of centering our lives in
   community.

   We all know that community must be the center of our life because it
   is only in community that we can be citizens. It is only in community
   that we can find care. It is only in community that we can hear people
   singing. And if you listen carefully, you can hear the words: "I care
   for you, because you are mine, and I am yours."

   The previous essay first appeared in Social Policy, Winter 1987.

   For more information, see:
   The Asset-Based Community Development Institute's CPN affiliate
   page.
     _________________________________________________________________

http://www.journalism.wisc.edu/cpn/ABCDI/ABCDI.html


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