A Genealogy of the Good and Critique of Hubris : A History of the Discourse on Social Welfare in the United States

In A Genealogy of the Good and Critique of Hubris , Phillip Dybicz employs a deep historical analysis to the field of social welfare in a highly untraditional manner. Rather than seeking to map out a tale of linear progress and advancement in society's understanding of social welfare and its administration, this book seeks to address the following question: "Are we morally progressing in our understanding of social welfare and its administration?" Geared toward both academics and practitioners, rather than focusing upon gains in technical know-how and knowledge of social welfare, Dybicz explores what gains are being made across various eras in our wisdom to humanely provide relief to those in our society that are oppressed, dispossessed, and in need in a manner that avoids moral pitfalls such as social control. Adopting Michael Foucault's genealogical method of historical investigation, Dybicz reaches back to the seventeenth century and describes four distinct eras in which a particular discourse dominated our understanding and efforts at social welfare. He examines how economic, political, social, and even geographic conditions shape society's perceived needs in social welfare. As well as examining how prominent intellectual thought, a philosophical paradigm describing reality and knowledge generation, defining cultural features and themes, and concepts of the self, all serve to shape our understanding of social welfare and what its desired qualities and aims should be. Together, the above elements coalesce to form a grand discourse that in the Foucaultian tradition speaks to an underlying urgent need of society, and various rules-of-right that shape knowledge generation. ""Is this intervention effective?" This is a question that social workers have asked themselves since the birth of the profession and which social welfare agents have asked since the birth of our country. In our attempts at advancing the social welfare of the client and society, it is essential that we constantly evaluate the impact of our interventions. Over the years, however, the above question has yielded some surprising answers. During the Colonial era, those individuals suffering from mental illness who demonstrated a proclivity for aberrant and sometimes harmful behaviors were locked away in barns or small rooms. During the late 1800s in New York City, social welfare agents organized the orphan trains, sending poor immigrant children-many who were not orphans-out to the more "wholesome" environment of family farms in the Midwest. In the 1950s, social workers placed themselves in the role of social police by conducting midnight 'raids' (i.e. unscheduled visits at midnight) at the homes of welfare recipients to ensure that welfare mothers were not benefiting from a man's company in secret, and thus, disqualifying themselves from receiving aid. Looking upon these interventions with our present eyes, from a viewpoint firmly grounded in notions of self-determination and empowerment, our profession can easily see the moral failings of these interventions. From these examples, as a profession we are able to note that simply applying good intentions-by themselves-are not adequate to ensure effective and worthy interventions. We are also able to note that simply having an outcome measure is not enough to ensure the worthiness of an intervention, as the examples above contained easily measured outcomes"-- Provided by publisher