Conclusion

In commenting upon the chapters gathered together in this volume I have had certain guidelines in mind. To the best of my ability, I have tried to consider the significance of the chapters on their own terms. I have tried to do so without reference to such commentary as may have occurred since they were first presented. I have tried to confine my observations to the relationship of the chapters in this volume to the most meaningful issues for the present dialogue and near future of the field. For the purposes of this reflection, the new public administration of Minnowbrook I and the papers gathered in the companion volume to the present one have served as background, but I have tried to restrain the temptation for detailed comparison. I hasten to avow that this approach—and the inescapable frailties of personal and perhaps idiosyncratic intellectual predilections and perceptions—has undoubtedly caused me to neglect some content of this volume which might strike others as more significant than that which I do discuss. I offer only a corollary to “Miles’ Law”:⁽¹⁾ what you see depends on where you stand on the path and what you have seen on other paths.

A quarter of a century ago, in commenting upon Minnow-brook I, I thought the main themes were relevance, antipositivism, ethics, innovation, concern for clients, antibureaucratic philosophy, social equity, and repression.⁽²⁾ With the exception, perhaps, of “repression” (which mainly surfaces in this volume only in the sense of the repressiveness of technicism), this could serve as a reasonable sketch of important themes of the chapters in this volume. The present discussion is organized under not very different headings. After a brief discussion of themes which seem central, I attempt a summary of some general impressions of the Minnowbrook perspective as it has evolved. Throughout, I try to indicate where I believe additional investigation and reflection might well serve the field and its future.