What Barr describes is a long-term shift from an understanding that a robust civil society, including religious institutions, could promote healthy norms such as sobriety and self-discipline to a belief that government could be relied upon for rehabilitation, the term emphasized by the Kennedy administration when it first authorized federal grants for social services. This has not simply been a change in who pays for the same types of services. Rather, we have moved away from an emphasis on the formative — values that guide a productive, purpose-based life — to the reformative, based on the idea that social workers, paid by government, can cure our ills.
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