The Tragedy of American Compassion - Softcover

Olasky, Marvin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0891078630 ISBN 13: 9780891078630

Publisher: Crossway Books, 1995

Synopsis

Can a man be content with a piece of bread and some change tossed his way from a passerby?

Today's modern welfare state expects he can. Those who control the money in our society think that giving a dollar at the train station and then appropriating a billion dollars for federal housing can cure the ails of the homeless and the poor.

But the crisis of the modern welfare state is more than a crisis of government. Private charities that dispense aid indiscriminately while ignoring the moral and spiritual needs of the poor are also to blame. Like animals in the zoo at feeding time, the needy are given a plate of food but rarely receive the love and time that only a person can give.

Poverty fighters 100 years ago were more compassionate--in the literal meaning of "suffering with"--than many of us are now. They opened their own homes to deserted women and children. They offered employment to nomadic men who had abandoned hope and human contact. Most significantly, they made moral demands on recipients of aid. They saw family, work, freedom, and faith as central to our being, not as life-style options. No one was allowed to eat and run.

Some kind of honest labor was required of those who needed food or a place to sleep in return. Woodyards next to homeless shelters were as common in the 1890s as liquor stores are in the 1990s. When an able bodied woman sought relief, she was given a seat in the "sewing room" and asked to work on garments given to the helpless poor.

To begin where poverty fighters a century ago began, Marvin Olasky emphasizes seven ideas that recent welfare practice has put aside: affiliation, bonding, categorization, discernment, employment, freedom, and most importantly, belief in God. In the end, not much will be accomplished without a spiritual revival that transforms the everyday advice we give and receive, and the way we lead our lives.

It's time we realized that there is only so much that public policy can do. That only a richness of spirit can battle a poverty of soul. The century-old question--does any given scheme of help... make great demands on men to give themselves to their brethren?--is still the right one to ask. Most of our 20th-century schemes have failed. It's time to learn from the warm hearts and hard heads of the 19th-century.

"We are indebted to Olasky for bringing past lessons of history to bear on a present cultural crisis. Another great work by one of today's foremost thinkers." --Charles W. Colson, Chairman, Prison Fellowship

"A comprehensive, well documented, and much needed study of the decline of true compassion that provides fresh analysis and provocative insight into the causes and cures of this American tragedy. Must reading for people who want to understand and help correct the plight of hurting people." --Dr. Anthony T. Evans, President, The Urban Alternative

"Those who read and understand Olasky's work will be better prepared to move creatively in affirming the dignity of the poor, and in affirming work as a virtue." --John Perkins, Publisher, Urban Family magazine

"Marvin Olasky's perceptive book shows how we, as individuals and in community with one another, can best demonstrate the genuine compassion that the poor need most of all." --Doug Bandow, Senior Fellow, Cato Institute

"Finally someone has put the horse and the cart in the right order. Marvin Olasky neither shuns compassion nor assistance for the poor, but rather gives the historical definition of each and assigns them their proper priority. Not only can this book benefit the truly needy, it can benefit the country. Not a bad accomplishment for one book." --Cal Thomas, Los Angeles Times Syndicate

About this title

About the Author

Marvin Olasky (PhD, University of Michigan) is the editor in chief of World magazine, holder of the distinguished chair in journalism and public policy at Patrick Henry College, and senior fellow of the Acton Institute. He was previously a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, a Boston Globe reporter, and a Du Pont Company speechwriter. He is the author of twenty books and more than 3,500 articles. He and his wife, Susan, have four sons.

Amy L. Sherman (PhD, University of Virginia) is a senior fellow at the Sagamore Institute for Policy Research, where she directs the Center on Faith in Communities. She is the author of six books and over eighty articles in a variety of periodicals. Sherman has served for several years as a senior fellow with the International Justice Mission’s Institute for Biblical Justice.

Review

"One of the 50 most influential policy books of all time."
—Policy.comPolicy.com

"A richly documented, controversial history of the welfare state."
—Publisher's Weekly

"Significant changes in government social welfare policy have unfolded since The Tragedy of American Compassion emerged in 1992-just think about the paradigm-shifting federal welfare reform of 1996. Both the book's critics and its promoters would argue that Olasky's ideas mattered and gave shape, to some degree, to some of those changes."
—Amy L. Sherman, Senior Fellow, Sagamore Institute for Policy Research; author, Kingdom Calling: Vocational Stewardship for the Common Good

"Those who read and understand Olasky's work will be better prepared to move creatively in affirming the dignity of the poor, and in affirming work as a virtue."
—John M. Perkins, President, John M. Perkins Foundation for Reconciliation and Development

"For domestic policy understanding, no better book recommends itself than Marvin Olasky's splendid The Tragedy of American Compassion."
—Orange County RegisterOrange County Register

"One of 'eight books that changed America.'"
—Philanthropy Philanthropy

"Illuminating."
—Colorado Gazette-TelegraphColorado Gazette-Telegraph

"Fascinating."
—Wall Street JournalWall Street Journal

"There is no disagreement between liberals and conservatives about whether to help the lot of the poor, but there is grave disagreement about how to help them, especially because the wrong kind of 'help' is more likely to harm. In The Tragedy of American Compassion, Marvin Olasky shows that although government can assist the merciful efforts of persons, organizations, and communities of faith, it cannot take their place."
—J. Budziszewski, Professor of Government and Philosophy, University of Texas at Austin; Author of What We Can't Not Know: A Guide

"A comprehensive, well documented, and much needed study of the decline of true compassion that provides fresh analysis and provocative insight into the causes and cures of this American tragedy. Must reading for people who want to understand and help correct the plight of hurting people."
—Anthony T. Evans, Founder, The Urban Alternative

Edition details

• Publisher: Crossway Books
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0891078630
• ISBN 13: 9780891078630
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 302