Social work and the search for meaning under conditions of modernity
Social work and the search for meaning under conditions of modernity

Summary/Abstract: Social work is a clear product of modernity although it builds on values and helping traditions ofpre-modern times. Therefore, its practice reflects and needs to confront many of the ambiguities thatcharacterize processes of solidarity and ‘helping’ under conditions of modernity. Both the progress ofsecularization and the widespread re-emergence of religious affiliations bear witness to this ambiguityand require differentiated responses that neither pay naïve homage to rationality nor advocate anauthoritarian ‘return to traditional values’. It is proposed that a critical acknowledgement of the importanceof dimensions of human finality, derived from, for instance, the theological thought of DietrichBonhoeffer, can provide a basis for a sensitive, value-oriented form of social work practice thatacknowledges the fundamental openness and vulnerability of the human condition without condoningsuffering fatalistically

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