The Limits of Idealism When Good Intentions Go Bad
If the truth be known, I am only a partially reformed idealist. In the secret depths of my soul, I still wish to make the world a better place and sometimes fantasize about heroically eradicating its faults. When I encounter its limitations, it is consequ
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CLINICAL SOCIOLOGY Research and Practice SERIES EDITOR:
Pennsylvania State University~Harrisburg Middletown, Pennsylvania John G. Bruhn,
C L I N I C A L SOCIOLOGY: An Agenda for Action John G. Bruhn and Howard M. Rebach T H E LIMITS O F I D E A L I S M : W h e n G o o d Intentions Go Bad Melvyn L. Fein T H E PARTNERSHIP M O D E L IN H U M A N SERVICES: Sociological Foundations and Practices Rosalyn Benjamin Darling
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The Limits of Idealism When Good Intentions Go Bad
Melvyn L. Fein Kennesaw State University Kennesaw, Georgia
Kluwer Academic / Plenum Publishers New York, Boston, Dordrecht, London, Moscow
L i b r a r y of Congress C o t a l o g l n g - l n - P u b l l c a t l o n
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F e l n , Melvyn L. The l i m i t s OF l d e a l l s m : when good i n t e n t i o n s go bad / Melvyn L. Fern. p. cm. - - ( C l i n i c a l s o c i o l o g y ) Includes bibliographical r e f e r e n c e s and I n d e x . ISBN 0 - 3 0 6 - 4 6 2 1 1 - 7 1. R a d l c a l l s m - - H 1 s t o r y - - 2 0 t h c e n t u r y . 2. R a d l c a ] t s m - - U n l t e d States--Hlstory--2Oth century. 3. I d e a l l s a - - H l s t o r y - - 2 0 t h century. I. Tltle. II. Series. HN17.5.F44 1999 303.48'4--dc21 99-42793 CIP
ISBN 0-306-46211-7 ©1999 Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York 233 Spring Street, New York, N.Y. 10013 l0
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A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher. Printed in the United States of America
In memory of my uncle, Milton Tarriff, the best human being I have personally known.
No period in history has ever been great or ever can be that does not act on some sort of high, idealistic motives, and idealism in our time has been shoved aside, and we are paying the penalty for it.
Alfred North Whitehead, January 13, 1944 By these intellectual maneuvers, radicals have been able to resurrect the utopian vision and the destructive enterprise it engenders. The perfect future is once again invoked to condemn the imperfect present. Nietzsche observed, 'Idealism kills.' Without the noble utopian idea, the evil practice would not exist. David Horowitz, The Politics of Bad Faith, 1998
Before we praise radical egalitarians for their noble if unrealizable ideals, we do well to remember that noble ideals can themselves be the source of ignoble actions .... It is not enough to declare an idea noble and one's hands clean; one needs to ask what will happen to that uplifting ideal when people behave not like angels but like fallible, biased human beings. Richard J. Ellis, The Dark Sid
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