原文: The Careless Society

For most of our civilization's 30,000-year history, most of us made our living in agriculture. Then, about a thousand years ago, we began making other goods in a more organized fashion, through guilds, apprenticeship systems etc. Later still, about 250 years ago, with the advent of the industrial era, we realized that mass production could allow us to produce more, for more people, than personal craftsmanship. This era was powered by inexpensive energy -- slaves and animal power and then coal, and now, oil. The problem with this cheap energy is that, while it was powering mass production, bringing more and more of the labour force into manufacturing, it was also enabling automation, that was destroying those same jobs, and destroying jobs in agriculture. By the middle of the last century, we began to realize that there were far too many people to keep gainfully employed in manufacturing or agriculture. We needed to find something else for billions of people to do, so we could justify paying them so they could buy more and more of the products that our industrial economy produced -- an economy now addicted to endless growth, as the failure of the Great Depression so clearly showed. What we invented were "service" businesses, businesses that produced nothing tangible, but instead did things for us that we (as members of communities) had always done for ourselves and for each other without charge. The first of these services to be developed were the risky services -- fire, police, justice. Soon we added education (including 'babysitting') services and a raft of health services. More recently we added 'professional' services (legal, accounting, consulting etc.), construction and maintenance services, nursing home services, bereavement, funeral and other counseling services, financial services, security services, mental health services, religious and spiritual services, and so on. In each case we took some activity that we once self-managed, collaboratively within our communities, and made it into a 'specialty' someone else did for us, for money. We went from self-sufficiency to helpless dependence, from collaborative citizens to 'clients'. Now, the large majority (and growing) of our society's jobs, costs, and GDP, all come from this vast, amorphous 'service sector'. This is the principal message of John McKnight's 1995 book The Careless Society. He blames our headlong rush to turn everything we used to do for ourselves and for each other into a 'service' for the breakdown and alienation of our communities, for the vulnerability of our economy, and for an anomie and indifference to others that comes from being paid to care -- health care, child care, elder care, funeral care etc. that are increasingly care-less. We can't care for an assembly line of people who take a number to be served, and who we don't know. These services have 'colonized' our communities, he says, and they are distinguished from authentic provision of care by three pervasive characteristics: Commodification: Services are provided as one-size-fits-all commodities (it's more 'cost-efficient' that way) instead of customized filling of individual needs.  "Professional" Management: The hallmarks of professional 'management' are hierarchy, corporatism and control, rather than local self-empowerment, prevention, collaboration and self-management.  Curricularization: Every profession has its curriculum that dictates how services must be delivered, and what professional credentials you must have to 'care' for another person. The shocking reality is that the 'customers' of these service 'industries' don't need these services -- the service-providers need us as customers. We are no longer the customer at all -- we are the product, the raw material to be 'processed' into a 'serviced' end-product. As a consequence, when we attempt to look after these 'services' ourselves, the response from the service industry is annoyance: We are competing with them, unprofessionally, not letting them do "their" jobs, depriving them of the raw material they need. The service industry lobbies to prevent us from doing so, with money we can't match, and point out that when they do something it's part of the GDP while when we do it ourselves it is not. It is unpatriotic of us not to outsource our caring for our children, seniors, and sick loved ones. And it's difficult now, as anyone trying to look after these loved ones in our own homes quickly discovers. No matter that eight out of the top ten reasons for admission to hospital are not disease issues, but holistic community issues that the hospital 'service' industry is not designed to address -- traffic accidents (mostly caused by overtired or drugged drivers), personal attacks (often related to the anger and hopelessness of poverty), and misuse of drugs (in search of escape, or because of mis-prescription). The hospital 'service' merely processes bodies, it does not concern itself (i.e. it does not 'care') about the cause, or possible prevention, of the circumstances behind the presence of those bodies in the hospital. What's worse, our feelings of helplessness as the mere product of these systems exacerbates other social problems -- reduced self-worth, poverty (because of the high cost of these 'services'), alienation and segregation from community and family (schools, hospitals, jails, old age homes, nursing homes, and child 'care' services all incarcerate us away from our loved ones), and disempowerment. McKnight offers some solutions to this problem, but they will take a great deal of political and social will to implement: De-institutionalize services and re-integrate them into community life, through "communities of associations", such that these associations are interdependent, self-managed, essential to the community's success, acknowledged as fallible (and hence capable of great, local learning), open and participative, diverse, responsive, creative, adaptable, individualized, and expressive of that community's identity and ideals Cease treating people as products and clients who are "labeled, exiled, treated, advised, counseled and protected", and instead "incorporate them into community where their contributions, capacities, gifts and fallibilities allow a network of relationships involving work, recreation, friendship, support and the political power of being a citizen". Stop counting the cost of services that people could be doing for themselves in community for free, as part of the GDP In short, he says, we must regenerate communities, and allow them once again to take charge of their responsibility for the essential services of community, collaboratively and inclusively, to genuinely care for their members. "There is a mistaken notion that our society has a problem in terms of effective human services", he concludes. "Our essential problem is weak communities." This is our "essential problem" in many other areas as well. The breakdown and alienation of our communities has allowed them to be colonized not only by "service" industries but by hollowed-out workplaces where people do not live near where they work, and where faraway owners do not care a whit for the welfare of anyone living in these communities. It has destroyed our sense of place, and the differentiation of place that made our homes what they were. It has produced the Tragedy of the Commons. It has prevented our young people from learning what they can do, and are meant to do, in the communities in which they leave, forcing them into exile. It has hugely complicated the simple tasks of sharing local knowledge and capacities, and of collaboration and innovation suited to local needs. It has made us terribly vulnerable to economic events that occur far away and over which we have no control. It has eaten a hole in our souls and in our sense of identity and belonging. This task of "regenerating community" may well become one of the greatest challenges and imperatives of this century. Kurt Vonnegut famously said: Human beings will be happier -- not when they cure cancer or get to Mars or eliminate racial prejudice or flush Lake Erie but when they find ways to inhabit communities again. That's my utopia. Before we can inhabit them, we need to build them, create or recreate them. We have a lot of work to do. Category: Building Community

译文: 世态炎凉，冷暖自知。

对于我们3万年的文明史而言，人类中的大部分生活于农业社会。大约1千年之前，我们开始通过组织更为严密的方式得到物品，如行会，学徒制度等。约250年前，随着工业时代的到来，我们意识到大规模生产比个人手工业生产产值更高，受众面更广。这个时代由廉价劳力/能源驱动——先是奴隶和动物的劳力，之后是煤燃料，现在是石油。

这种廉价劳力/能源的问题在于，它推动大规模生产的同时把越来越多的劳动力带入制造业，但另一方面，它也促使自动化生产的进行，这又使许多从事同样工作的工人丢了饭碗，也占去了农业生产中人类的一席之地。直至上世纪中期，我们开始意识到已经有太多的人正从事着制造业或农业的工作。我们需要找到其它一些工作让上亿人做，以保证他们取得固定收入，从而使他们有能力购买工业经济生产出的越来越多的产品——工业经济是一个已沉溺于无止尽增长中的经济，正如经济大萧条清晰显示出的那样。

因而，我们开创了“服务”业，不生产有形产品，而是做些我们（作为社会成员）经常为自己或无偿为他人做的事。服务业的第一阶段是风险服务——火警，警察，法官。我们没过多久把教育（包括“保姆”）和一些健康服务加入其中。近来，“行业”服务（法律，会计，顾问等），建筑和维修，护理，丧葬以及其它咨询服务，财政，安全，心理健康，宗教及精神服务等，也被纳入了“服务”业的行列。

每种服务都是把一些曾经是我们自己独立解决或是与他人合作解决的活动当作是一个“行业”由另一些人来为我们解决，并支付给他们报酬。我们由自给自足走向依赖他人，由团结协作走向“雇佣关系”。而今，我们社会中的大部分（这一比例正持续增长）工作，成本价值和国内生产总值，均来源于这个巨大且含糊的“服务业”。

这是John McKnight1995年出版的《The Careless Society》一书中的主要观点。他驳斥我们草率地把我们曾经能独立解决或相互解决的事变成一项服务。使得人情味变少，社会成员间关系疏远，造成经济衰弱，另外，因其尽注意义务是基于雇佣关系基础之上的，从而导致人们冷漠他人，社会出现反常状态——卫生保健，儿童照料，老人看护，葬礼布置等，这些服务变得愈加冷漠。看到成群结队想要接受服务的人群我们已麻木，且素不相识。

这些“服务”吞噬着我们的社会，他说，并且，它们的三个普遍特征使其区别于真正的照料服务:

• 商品化: 这些服务被定格为“一刀切”服务（那样一来它们的成本效益就更高了），而非为满足特定人的特别需求而设立的服务。 
• “行业”管理: 行业管理被烙上了等级制，极权国家领导下的社团主义和控制操纵的印记，而非本地区自我授权，预防，合作和自我管理。
• 教程化: 每个行业都有其总教程，规定其服务应如何进行，在“服务”他人之前必须取得的行业资格。

现实是残酷的：这些“服务业”的“顾客”并不需要这些服务——而服务供应方却需要我们成为顾客。因此，我们已不再是顾客——而是产品，将被加工成“服务型”最终产品的原材料。

造成的后果是，当我们试图自行应付这些“服务”之时，服务业的回答是恼人的：我们这些外行在与他们竞争服务，妨碍他们进行他们的工作，从他们手中夺走了他们所需的原材料。服务业进行游说以阻止我们这么做，他们拿我们无法匹敌的金钱当作论据，向我们阐明，他们的举手投足都将影响GDP，而我们的自我服务却微不足道。如果我们不请外人来照料孩子，看护年长者和生病的至爱之人，我们就是不爱国。而今人人都想在自己的家中照顾爱人，这就使得形势变得复杂。

尽管进医院的原因，10个里面有8个不是疾病问题，而是社会整体问题，但医疗“服务”业还是未肩负起宣讲——交通事故（大部分由疲劳过度或嗑药的驾驶员造成），人身攻击（通常出于贫穷引发的愤怒和绝望），和药物滥用（为寻求解闷，或由于乱开药方）的责任。医疗“服务业”仅关注身体，而非事故本身（例如：不“关心”）医院伤亡背后的缘由或可能的预防措施。

更为糟糕的是，我们产生于这些系统的绝望心理加快了其它社会问题的恶化——自我贬值，贫穷（由于这些“服务”的高成本），社会成员及家庭成员间的疏远和隔离（学校，医院，监狱，福利院，养老院和托儿所，所有的这些都使我们与至亲之人彼此疏离），剥夺了我们应有的权利。

McKnight针对此问题提出了一些解决方案，但它们需要大量政治和社会支持保证其执行:

• 通过“联合社区”的建立，使服务非制度化，完整地保留于公民社会生活中。这些社区是相互依赖，自我管理的。它们是社会成功改造必不可少的要素。它们被认为是易犯错的（从而习得伟大的局部学习的能力），开放的，全民参与的，形式各异的，负责任的，有创造力的，适应力强的，有个性特点的，是社会特征和理想的传达体。
• 停止把人们当作商品和“被贴上标签的，放逐的，经过加工的，审慎的，劝导过的，受保护的”顾客 ，相反地，“使他们成为社会的一员，他们的贡献，能力，天赋和他们的犯错天性促成一个包含热河公民应享有的工作，娱乐，友谊，支持和政治权利的关系网”。
• 停止对服务权衡得失，人们做自己能解决的事且不用花钱也是GDP的一部分。

总而言之，他说，我们必须重整社会，再次让社会成员自己肩负起必要服务的责任，互相协作，在践行责任的过程中真正做到关心其他成员。“人们有一个错误观念，他们认为我们的社会就有效的人为服务而言存在一个问题。”他总结道，“但我们的实质问题是功能不佳的社会体系。”

这也是我们在许多其它领域内的“实质问题”。我们社会衰竭和成员疏远不仅产生于“服务”业，还产生于人们离家很远的挖空的工作场所以及不负责任的工厂主对居住于偏远社区的员工福利（如：节假日）的忽视。这导致我们归属感的丧失，我们的住宅坐落地分化了我们的地位高低。这引发民众悲剧的发生。年轻人被剥夺了学习他们会做，照道理应该做的事的机会，他们逃离那个社会，不得不流浪。它使分享局部知识和能力，致力于满足当地需求的合作和创新的简单任务复杂化。它使我们在经济事态面前变得极其脆弱，为遥远的还看不到的动向担惊受怕，并且对于它们，我们无能为力。它在我们的灵魂，身份感和归属感上狠狠地咬了一口。

这项“再生社会”的任务也许会成为本世纪最艰巨，最迫切的任务之一。Kurt Vonnegut有句著名的话是这么说的:

在居住之前，我们得先把它们造起来，对其进行创造与再创造。我们要做的还有很多。