Lead: Social work originates from humanitarianism and democracy, and its values are based on respect for equality, value and dignity of all people. Based on the history of one hundred years, today's social work practice has always focused on meeting people's needs and developing people's potential. Human rights and social justice are the driving force and legitimacy of social work. Together with the social vulnerable groups, we are committed to alleviating poverty and liberating those who are vulnerable and oppressed, so as to improve the social participation of the vulnerable groups. The values of social work are rooted in national and global professional ethics.
Of course, there is no insurmountable gap between social work and China society. It is the product of industrial revolution and modernization and the development of human society. Therefore, for China, which is in the process of modernization, developing social work is an unavoidable reality, and it is also the internal demand of China's modernization. It's just that when we are developing, we should base ourselves on China's national conditions and explore a road of social work development suitable for China society. In view of the important position of values in social work, this paper intends to explore the value basis of social work in China.
Analysis on the Value Basis of Western Social Work
To explore the value basis of social work in China, we need to understand and analyze the value basis of western social work first. This paper holds that the value basis of western social work mainly includes the following aspects:
The happiness theory of ancient Greece holds that happiness is shared with others. If the rich want to gain physical and mental happiness, win the love and praise of others, and even control others, they should provide wealth to the poor. This idea gives the poor a chance to get help from the rich. Of course, it also urges people to do good deeds.
What about Christianity? Emphasizing love for the weak is reverence for God, and indifference to the weak is harm to God. ? Think that human nature is homologous and human nature is marked? Original sin? Jesus' atonement liberated the brand of "loving God". Whether people can get the ultimate salvation depends on whether they love God or not, and whether they follow God's instruction to love others as themselves. In this way, in the lofty name of God, Christianity abolished the inequality between man and nature and morality, and the Christian love became the expanded love between father and son, and brotherly love, that is, altruistic fraternity, which urged Christians to actively care for others and help people in trouble, which is precisely the main reason for the church to engage in charity.
2. humanism. Humanism is a trend of thought that represents the interests of the emerging bourgeoisie in the European Renaissance and opposes the theocracy of the feudal church in the Middle Ages. It advocates human nature and opposes divinity: it advocates restoring human dignity, emphasizes human value and strength, and demands freedom, equality, fraternity and individual liberation; Advocating the liberation of people from the shackles of the church and feudal hierarchy; Oppose the idea of being born, oppose asceticism, and affirm the happiness and enjoyment of this life. [4] Humanism has had a great and far-reaching impact on the West and even the whole world, and set off a revolution. Humanism and human rights theory are also its important products.
The initial development stage of humanitarianism is the humanistic trend of thought in the Western Renaissance. It is a social philosophy that human beings pursue truth, goodness and beauty, carry forward human nature, and put human values, dignity, rights, freedom and development in the first place. It directly faces the social reality, opposes human alienation and totalitarianism in social and political life, attaches importance to the psychological analysis of human existence, and pays attention to the change and perfection of human nature.
The theory of human rights is still the product of humanism in the Renaissance. At that time, humanists put forward? Human rights? In order to oppose feudal privilege and theocracy, they emphasized that people have the right to enjoy happiness, meet their own interests and needs, demand freedom and safeguard human dignity. French bourgeois enlightenment thinkers Voltaire and Rousseau established a set of? Natural rights? 、? Sovereignty lies with the people? According to the theory of human rights, all people are born equal, and everyone enjoys personal, ideological, property and freedom? Natural rights? , put forward? Freedom, equality and fraternity? Slogan. Although the theory of human rights served bourgeois politics at that time, its progress was obvious.
3. Democratic thoughts. The word democracy comes from demokratia in ancient Greece and consists of demos and kratos. Demos is? People? And then what? Region? What does Kratos mean? Power? With what? Rules? What is the basic meaning of Greek? The power of the people? Or? People directly or indirectly manage or rule through the representatives elected by regions? . Obviously, democracy is originally an idea that ordinary people pursue political rights, which has nothing to do with it? Autocracy? And then what? Totalitarianism? On the contrary
The foundation of democracy is equality. As far as the social and political field is concerned, its essence lies in liberating the people from the shackles of dictatorship, gaining the right to speak and manage the society, and making the rights of the majority reflected in social and political life. Democratic politics supports pluralism and accepts and promotes a pluralistic society. At the same time, democratic politics opposes violence and oppression and solves conflicts by reasonable means.
After the Renaissance, democratic thought has been widely developed, with more meanings, and has also spread from the political field to many other fields such as culture and art, which has had a great impact on human society.
4. Socialism. Socialist thought originated in the early days of capitalist society, when people found themselves building a new society on the ruins of feudal society? Capitalism is still full of evil, more unfair and more exploitation. When every pore is dripping with blood and dirty things, they look forward to and design a new, rational and fair ideal society without exploitation and oppression. This ideal social form is a socialist society, among which utopian socialism, scientific socialism, Fabian socialism and democratic socialism are the most influential. The latter two have a more direct impact on social work.
The social values of Fabian socialism are: individuals must work for society and devote themselves to public welfare, and society must ensure individual self-realization in return. People maintain cooperative relations on the basis of equality, and the income of the rich and the poor should not be too wide. Poverty is not only a personal problem, but also a social problem. Spencer's theory of social organism is partially weakened, which will inevitably endanger the organism itself. It is everyone's right to get rid of poverty and live a dignified life, which is in line with humanitarian principles. Politically, it believes that capitalism should be replaced by socialism through gradual improvement.
Democratic socialism is the general name of the socialist party's international political ideology. It denies the irreconcilability of social class contradictions in capitalist countries, thinks that social development needs constant improvement without revolution, advocates peaceful political power through parliamentary elections, establishes a multi-party government in turn, opposes violent revolution, and advocates developing social welfare undertakings and eliminating polarization by levying high progressive taxes and inheritance taxes.
5. Welfare state (welfarism). Based on welfare economics and Keynesianism, the welfare state advocates that the state can improve social welfare by means of progressive tax system, social security, unemployment insurance, price subsidies and housing subsidies, and believes that these measures can ensure full employment and economic prosperity and eliminate poverty and class forever. ? Broadly speaking, the welfare state is the product of the confrontation between the humanitarian spirit and capitalism's ideology and behavior of the law of the jungle and harming others and benefiting themselves. In a narrow sense, it is mainly social policy, that is, the national legislation that the government directly or indirectly provides welfare to the society or a certain class of people. ?
The core of a welfare state lies in the sociality of its welfare. Not a few privileged people enjoy welfare, but most members or all members of society enjoy equal welfare. The welfare state later became the goal pursued by Fabian socialism and democratic socialism. Fabian socialism's welfare thought is: 1) based on the theory of social organism, it emphasizes that in order to improve the efficiency of the country, the people's minimum living standard must be guaranteed (the weakening of a part of the whole will inevitably damage the efficiency of the whole organism); 2) Inferring from the social values of equality, freedom, democracy, cooperation and humanitarianism, it is the natural right of every citizen to enjoy this minimum civilized life; 3) The government has the responsibility and obligation to organize various social services and adopt various means, including some form of wealth redistribution, to achieve this goal. [8] and the social democratic party in western European countries realized the establishment of a welfare state after the 1950s? Democratic socialism? One of the tasks and goals. The close combination of welfare state and western socialism has become one of the biggest changes in western developed countries in the 20th century.
Of course, the value basis of western social work is not only the above five parts, they are undoubtedly the most important. The most direct function of the above-mentioned value foundation is that it is the source and soil of social work values or value system, and provides direct or indirect ideological guidance and methods for social work to look at and solve social problems.
After nearly a hundred years of development, western social workers have formed a relatively mature value system. Limited by space, this article will not discuss it in detail. For details, please refer to the discussions of bartlett (Butler) [10], Morales (Morelis) and Schaefer (Cheval).
From the values (system) of western social work, we can see that the two basic elements of social work are people and society. People are the core and the fundamental starting point. People have inherent value and dignity, equal opportunities for personal survival and development, and natural rights to participate in social management and construction. Individuals have their own uniqueness and self-determination rights. Society is the most dependent partner. It is made up of people, but it transcends and is stronger than a single person. It should create democracy, fairness and environment, mobilize its own resources, provide people with opportunities to give full play to their personal potential, and safeguard people's rights to survival and development.
Because social work is primarily concerned with people, in real life, this concern is manifested in love and help for people, especially for the weak. Of course, this kind of love is altruistic fraternity, and improving the quality of life of the whole people (welfarism) is its highest criterion. Concern for society is manifested in strict requirements for the normal operation of social mechanisms, that is, actively preventing and controlling the failure of social development motivation, because in essence, these problems are
It can be seen that the values (system) of western social work are not groundless, but rooted in the western cultural soil, shining with the brilliance of fraternity, democracy, humanism and socialism.
Social work is a profession to help others, and its basic function is to solve social problems (essentially helping others). Therefore, the charitable activities of Christian church groups and individual believers are regarded as the origin of social work, and the ideological motivation of such charitable activities comes from the Christian philosophy of loving others and helping others. Although a professional social worker team was formed later, the influence of Christian philosophy on social work has not ended, and the existence of a large number of Christian believers in social workers is the most powerful fact.
Where does the idea of fraternity and helping others in Christian philosophy come from? Christians are brothers? This idea that everyone is equal, but this kind of equality is more spiritual equality, teaching people that freedom and equality can be obtained in the kingdom of heaven (the other side). As a result of this concept of being born as a human being, church groups and believers can only give passive, shallow and powerless help to people in need, either by giving them some food and clothing or by pulling people into the church and the kingdom of faith in order to get rid of this world (the other side). This kind of help. So Martin? Luther and others launched the religious reform movement, which is the Renaissance.
The Western Renaissance is an important era. Feudal theocracy seriously hindered the development of production. Advanced bourgeois relations of production are budding, and society is gestating revolution. Cultural movements, such as humanism and democratic thought, launched a charge against the feudal theocracy system. The influence of this ideological emancipation has spread to every corner of western society and affected the whole world.
Compared with Christian philosophy, humanistic thought pursues and realizes secular equality, which is direct and true and occurs in secular life, not in the other side of heaven. It conforms to the requirements of the times and realizes human equality, freedom, dignity and happiness in real life. Therefore, it is more practical, deeper and more comprehensive than Christianity. In this case, as a social work that pursues human welfare, it is inevitably deeply affected. ? This is why many social workers often regard themselves as humanitarians. Of course, social workers are not purely humanitarians, but many of their values are obviously based on humanitarianism. ? The first article of the American Code of Ethics for Social Workers also writes that social work is based on humanitarianism and democratic ideals.
The influence of democratic thought on social work is that the pursuit of democracy has become one of the goals of social work. Morales and Schaefer said in The Value System of Social Work. People must have equal opportunities to participate in shaping society. ? Society must give people the right of democratic participation and management, provide opportunities for members to grow and develop, and let everyone play their greatest potential. At the same time, only when people gain extensive democracy can they have more opportunities to contribute to society and realize what Bem said? Everyone has the obligation to seek ways of self-realization in order to make contributions to society? . Democratic thoughts also affect the methods of social work, and there are also elements of democratic thoughts in community work and group work.
Social work actively participates in solving social problems, but never resorts to violence, which does not exist in the values of social work? Violence? Second, social work pursues a fair and just society, and the means is bit by bit improvement. They believe that class contradictions can be reconciled and problems can be solved in a gentle way. This concept comes from western socialism (excluding Marxism), which is one reason why social work can survive and develop in western society without being accepted by socialist (Marxist) countries. Socialism broadens the horizon of social work and makes it have a clearer social goal. An ideal society should have the obligation and ability to provide everyone with enough opportunities to solve difficulties, prevent problems and promote the realization of self-ability? [Ben Park Jung Su]? Society should provide resources and services to meet people's needs, so that people can avoid hunger, cold, pain, dropping out of school or discrimination? These values are the reflection of socialist thought.
The welfare state grew up in the confrontation between socialism and capitalism. What is the impact on social work? More and more people understand social work from the concept of social welfare. With the emergence of social security system and welfare state, the concept of social welfare has become the main theme of social work in some regions or countries. Social welfare has become one of the important contents of social work, social welfare management has become one of the main ways of social work, and social workers have become the main force to carry out welfare work.
It can be seen that although social work is rooted in the charity view of Christian philosophy, it grows and grows on the soil of humanism, democratic thought, socialism and welfare state. These thoughts are the most important social thoughts in western society for hundreds of years. They all have profound social backgrounds, social crises abound, and contradictions and conflicts intensify. They are guided by the idea of solving problems and have a profound impact on all aspects of society. It is in this process that social work absorbs its essence and gradually perfects and establishes its own values. Therefore, the value basis of social work is not a static and closed system, but a developed and open system. Solve social problems.
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