Art, Irony and Ambiguity

Abstract

This article examines Howard Goldstein’s contribution to social work, not least his enduring interest in social work as a humanistic endeavour wherein artistry, morality, spirituality, and values feature prominently. He believed that social work could be greatly enriched by literature and the arts and by what the humanities had to teach, and he constantly reminded us of the need to balance our scientific and humanistic projects. He was and will continue to be a source of great inspiration to many, for through his passion for writing he has left us many wonderful books, scholarly articles and essays. Through his wisdom he enriched the social work landscape. He lifted our minds and our souls and made us appreciate the complexities of the human condition that only artists could truly understand. ‘The social worker as a performing artist has the talent and will to move beyond the constraints of method and technique and respond imaginatively and creatively to the impromptu, unrehearsed nature of the special human relationship’ (Goldstein, 1998b: 250). For this she needs wisdom, which she gains when she begins to respect knowledge and information as incomplete and provisional, ‘when it is tempered by scepticism, curiosity, and perhaps a sense of irony, [by] the processes of reflective and analytic thought’ (Goldstein, 1998b: 251). There is no better way to understand the art of helping than to read what Howard has to say about passion, imagination, creativity, reasoning, judgment, reflective wisdom, morality, and choice. Such literature can only come from one who has involved himself in critical life situations, one who enlisted in the search for meaning at a moment when meanings were no longer fixed, one who enlisted in the quest for principle and ideal when the codes were no longer given (Green, 1966).

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