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8 Int'l Soc. Work 1 (1965)

handle is hein.journals/intsocwk8 and id is 1 raw text is: Proceedings of the Twelfth International Congress of Schools of Social Work, Athens, Greece, September 9-12, 1964 HUMAN VALUES IN SOCIAL WORK EDUCATION Evanghelos Papanoutsos* T HE theses which I would like to present have been drawn from the simplest and shortest definition of social work which can be given: Social work is a service rendered by one human being to another, to help him to overcome the difficulties he encounters in the course of his life both as an individual and as a member of a group. Undoubtedly this definition, apart from its value, suffers from being too general. A logi- cian accustomed to the catalytic method of Socratic dialectic would have no difficulty in rebutting it by invoking the existence of other kinds of service render- ed to members of the community with an identical end in view without, however, entering the field of social work; for instance, the service which the lawyer offers his client in settling some family business, or that offered by the employee of a travel agency to a traveller in a hurry who wishes to get as soon as possible to a dis- tant country. I think, however, that it is a definition which is clear and indisputably practical and which can also, at the cost of losing some precision, escape more academic subtleties. If we insist, not on the help provided to overcome difficulties but on the service rendered by one human being to another, above all if we give a special connotation to the term human being then the concept of social work acquires at once an overtone which is completely appropriate and dis- tinguishes it as much from the learned argument of the lawyer as from the adroit timetable of the travel agent, to adhere to my original examples. In our case, it is the human being who succours the human being, and that help is given in its own right, independently of the nature of the help and the outcome. One human being helps another. What does the phrase mean? This is the beginning of the problem which we wish to examine. Greek Civilization - A Universal Heritage As soon as I pronounce, in the course of reflections like these, the term human being, all those who have been brought up in a culture such as ours find them- selves immediately transported into a definite historical climate, on the soil which nourishes the roots of our civilization, ancient Greece. I do not say this from vanity, or because my language and my country are Greek, nor yet because our Congress is being held to-day on the spot where formerly the ancient city shone in the brilliance of its learning, and the beauty of its art. The heritage of the ancient Greek civilization is a uni- versal possession and does not belong exclusively to any one people, not even to those who live and die to-day in the geographical setting where that civilization flou- rished. Moreover, our discussion could develop to-day in Siam or Paraguay and our thinking would not be the less influenced by Greece, as soon as that term which compels respect passes our lips - the term human being. Why? Because that existential dimension, as contemporary philosophical language terms it, the human being (humanum) made his first historical appearance and was established decisively in the heart of the social and spiritual world of ancient Greece. Man and Greece are correlates, their grandeur co-extensive. One cannot be conceived or exist without the other. It is not apparently significant that, before the Greek era, history had not yet discovered man and his problems. It would appear as if we claimed that world civilization began with ancient Greece, but this claim would obviously be false. But it is significant that never before had the human being been affirmed and recognised in so much that forms life and moral values, with such full aware- ness and such great pride, as in the civilization of ancient Greece. It is there that he attains his apogee and his triumph. He dominated political life (concept of democracy), poetry (concept of tragedy), thought (concept of philosophy). You will have noticed, when visiting the great museums where treasures of world history have been brought together and exhibited, that you have no need of guide or catalogue to tell you when you leave the galleries of the most ancient and remote civilizations and enter the world of Greece: a forest of human beings existing for themselves sur- rounds you, sculpted in marble or painted on the clay of vases, and a new spirit arises within you: you are in the kingdom of man. Everything here, the natural elements, animals, gods, have become or are striving to become men, because there is here the substance which henceforward incorporates the greatest presence and the highest worth in the heart of the Universe. This is exactly the spirit which classic hellenic thought * Professor Papanoutsos is Secretary General of the Ministry of Education. Greece.

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