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John McKnight

John McKnight

The Good Life? It’s Close to Home

Peter Block -
When family members do not work or live well together we sometimes call the family dysfunctional. We prescribe professional help for the family or advocate for social policies that would support it—child care, parental leave, extended unemployment insurance, debt...
John McKnight

The Therapeutic Neighborhood

John McKnight -
If you have a deeply troubling personal problem, where do you turn?  To a cleric? A psychologist? A counselor? A therapist? Each is a hired professional with different approaches to our dilemmas. But suppose they didn’t exist. Where would you...
Friends & Neighbors

Our Abundant Communities

John McKnight -
John, Peter and Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann explore themes of power and patriarchy; human fallibility and gifts; and accumulation and abundance in building and sustaining community in these uncut videos from their two days at Trinity University, San...
John McKnight

Escaping the World of Non-sense

John McKnight -
We are slowly surrounding our lives with electrical “inputs” called Internet, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, TV, etc.  As a result, many people have unwittingly entered a new land where there are no trees, chirping birds, sunsets, stickball, group singing, people...
John McKnight

How Much Harm Do Social Services Do?

John McKnight -
A few weeks ago, I received this email from Dan Oliver of Cleveland, Ohio, asking my thoughts on the role of social service agencies in undercutting the power of families and neighborhoods to solve their own problems: Dear Mr. McKnight, I...
Friends & Neighbors

Peter Block and John McKnight with Wayne Hurlbert – Part Two

bluefish -
Excerpts from Peter and John's comments on The Abundant Community – Part Two This is the second part of the transcribed excerpts from Peter and John’s interview with Wayne Hurlbert of Blog Business World. In Part One, they explored the...
Friends & Neighbors

Peter Block and John McKnight with Wayne Hurlbert – Part One

bluefish -
Excerpts from Peter and John's comments on The Abundant Community – Part One This is the first set of transcribed excerpts from Peter and John’s interview with Wayne Hurlbert of Blog Business World. Here, they explore the background and conceptual...
John McKnight

The Neighborhood Plague

John McKnight -
A plague has descended on many of our neighborhoods.  It is a plague intensified by recession, corporate drive for profit and confusion about what government can do that is useful. People are out of work; homes are foreclosed. All the public...
John McKnight

Powering America

John McKnight -
In a neighborhood, people are empowered by the work they do together.  Often, they use this power to confront institutions and advocate for the neighborhood’s self-interest.  In this kind of action, power is understood as our ability to get...
John McKnight

President Obama’s Speech Forgets the Primary Educators

John McKnight -
In his State of the Union address Tuesday night, President Obama once again urged parents to be active in supporting children to achieve in school. "Turn off the TV and do your homework," he advised. While this is a commendable...
John McKnight

Opening the Neighborhood Treasure Chest

John McKnight -
Increasing numbers of Americans are neighborless. They are, in reality, little more than residents occupying a house in an anonymous place.  They often admit that they really don’t know the people who live around them — except to say hello....
John McKnight

Jackie Kennedy’s Hidden Gift

John McKnight -
The year that the new South Africa was created after the fall of apartheid, I attended an international meeting in Switzerland.  There was a lively South African delegation full of song and joy because of their new freedom. One of...
John McKnight

Don’t Ask Your Doctor How to Live Longer; Ask Hispanic Families

John McKnight -
A recent report by the National Center for Health Statistics found that, as of 2006, the life expectancy of U.S. Hispanics at birth is 80.6 years.  This is 2.5 years more than non-Hispanic whites and 8 years more than...
John McKnight

Beware the Invasion of the Needs Surveyors

John McKnight -
A friend whom professionals call “disabled” says, ”If you’re coming to help me, you’ve come to the wrong place.  I refuse to fill your need for needs.”  It’s his wry recognition that many people have jobs that depend on...
John McKnight

Repairing Community

John McKnight -
In my ancestors’ native Scotland, there were people who were exiled or outcast from their clan.  They were called “broken men.”  They faced a sad destiny wandering the mountains and moors without a community of support or the protection...
John McKnight

Are We Raising Care-less Children?

John McKnight -
A powerful community depends upon its members’ willingness to step outside themselves and stand in the shoes of their neighbors.  A name for this ability is empathy. It is the essential bridge that changes the person next door from...
John McKnight

Breaking Barriers to Neighborliness

John McKnight -
I have a friend who makes lists of barriers to neighborliness.  His list includes the new ranch houses that don’t have a front porch where neighbors can sit and talk and greet each other. Air conditioning is also on his...
John McKnight

What Is a Neighbor?

John McKnight -
I was born in 1931 during the Great Depression. We lived in a working class neighborhood in Cincinnati with many country people who had migrated from the hills of Kentucky and Tennessee. Lots of men in my neighborhood were...
John McKnight

Two Kinds of Community Organizing

John McKnight -
Advocacy Organizing and Neighborhood Organizing While President Obama was campaigning, he made the words “community organizing” famous as he told about his youthful days as an “organizer” in Chicago.  That experience in a low-income neighborhood taught him more, he said,...
John McKnight

It Takes a Village to Raise a Child

John McKnight -
Everyone has heard of the African proverb “It takes a village to raise a child.” We find that not only is the saying universally known, it is universally agreed to with enthusiasm. But when we ask most neighborhood people about...
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Friends & NeighborsTim Schlak -

The Biggest Question You Can Ask in Life

A Buddhist teacher once nudged me along the path by rephrasing a question my mind kept posing to itself....
Abundant Community
Awakening the Power of Families and Neighborhoods

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