ABSTRACT
The creation of a community requires a shift in focus toward work as communal effort-in other words, attention is given to the importance of providers as persons and to the importance of their working relationships. In words, the creation of a caregiving community requires that attention be given to the growth and development of human connections and relationships more so than the growth and development of individuals as separate beings. As human beings approach the 21st century, personal care increasingly becomes a political issue. Personal care in an impersonal world requires the need to find a new metaphor-one that defines human beings as elements in a context of relationships with all of the living and nonliving elements that make human existence possible. The values that have priority in Western societies are manifestations of the influence of Cartesian thinking and the power of science to determine what is important.
