Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community

Robert Putnam's books was several books in one.

The first section (about the first 4 chapters) drew me in with a synopsis of the decline of community in America.

The second section, through chapter 15, nearly put me to sleep. :) Thankfully, however, I kept reading because from chapter 16 until the end of the book was so good, that I give it 5 stars despite the slogging in the middle. Putnam's five keys for social capital was worth the entire book. Here is my takeaways:

Putnam list five specific areas where the trust and understanding inured by social capital helps translate aspirations into realities:

1. Social capital allows citizens to resolve collective problems more easily through improved teamwork.
2. Social capital greases the wheels that allow communities to advance smoothly through improved trust.
3. Social capital helps widen the awareness of fellow citizens that their fates are intertwined through improved understanding.
4. Social capital serves as conduits for the flow of helpful information and resources to accomplish community and individual goals.
5. Social capital improves individual lives through psychological and biological processes. In fact, numerous studies suggest lives that are rich in social capital cope with trauma and illnesses significantly more effectively.

Despite social capital’s overwhelming advantages, Putnam acknowledges its decline, writing, “Americans have had a growing sense at some visceral level of disintegrating social bonds.” Furthermore, he writes, “More than 80% of Americans said there should be more emphasis on community, even if it puts more demands on individuals.” In sum, social capital isn’t just the fuel for Social Power – a necessary check on State Power – but it also enhances individual lives through the sense of belonging engendered within communities. Strikingly, then, the decline of social capital, not only attacks society’s freedoms, but also attacks an individual’s well-being. Simply put, America cannot remain free without a revival of Social Power through building social capital in voluntary communities. With so much at stake, why aren’t more people focused on restoring voluntary communities throughout America and the West?

The trend continues, according to recent research. See the Pacific Standard article, n  Americans Are Staying as Far Away From Each Other as Possiblen.

That article also links to Putnam's original 1995 essay, the genesis of this book, n  Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capitaln in the Journal of Democracy.

See also the collection of responses within Social Capital: Historical and Theoretical Perspectives on Civil Society by David A. Schultz [personal note: available at SFSU; HN65.S567 2002]

So, I am extremely late to the party, here. I have been seeing references to "Bowling Alone" for twenty years, since well before I became concerned about the topic. As a young adult, I was a somewhat extreme individualist libertarian, not terribly good at socializing anyway, so I saw no reason to be concerned about, for example, a decline in membership in bowling leagues. Reading books is a rather private form of recreation (aside from writing Goodreads reviews, of course), and I was more interested in a hike in a state park alone than in accumulating a stock of "bonding" or "bridging" capital (Putnam's terms for the links within, and between, groups of people).

As time passed, I became gradually convinced that I was incorrect in this, and that it did actually matter if people in a society knew one another well enough to offer a hand to another in need. Maybe it was the times I was moving from one apartment to another, and found that having some friends to be able to call upon helped. Maybe it was seeing and hearing enough tales of people who did not have such a circle of support, and the problems it could result in (some of them a lot worse than having to hire a moving company). Most likely it was a slow accumulation of knowledge, that revealed that life is complicated and uncertain, nobody has all the answers, and you are much better off if you have a stock of "social capital" to draw upon when in need (which requires that you be there for others as well). At some point, I'm not exactly sure when, it occurred to me that I should read "Bowling Alone", but it never quite rose to the top of the mental TBR stack until now.

I will leave it to your imagination to figure out why I decided at this point to read a book about the importance of face-to-face socialization, and why it may be problematic to replace (to take one example from the book) active membership in a local political movement, with meetings and speeches and teach-ins and so forth, with "checkbook advocacy", where you send in money to a group of professionals and have them advocate for you.

Because, in many ways, this is simply part of the ever-widening circle of specialization that has been moving through human society for millennia. We used to all grow (or hunt) our own food, but now most of us pay specialists to do that for us. We used to weave our own clothes, but now we have specialists to do that for us. We used to craft our own tools, tell one another tales or sing songs together for entertainment, build our own homes. All of these are now done for us by specialists, and we in return do our one thing (whatever it is), and that is how we earn the money to pay for those specialists to do all of the other things. We are, therefore, a lot less practiced at how to grow food, make tools, build homes, and so forth. In many ways, our atrophying ability to cooperate in a democracy is just one more example of this general process.

But, as Putnam goes to great lengths to show, it is not inevitable. In particular, he wants in this book to tell us a tale of "this has all happened before". In the late 19th century, America was at a similarly low point of "social capital", and found the wherewithal to rebuild it through the Progressive Age, ending up producing a generation (now called "The Greatest Generation" by Tom Brokaw) that was better at cooperating and socializing in all its facets, than had been seen in living memory. Therefore, he posits, it is possible to reverse the current trend of decay once more.

First, of course, he must convince the reader that we are in fact seeing something new, and this is not just a typical case of nostalgia causing us to imagine the past to have been superior in some way. He calls upon a great diversity of data sources to demonstrate that we have, in fact, seen a significant decline in "social capital", and it takes 150 pages or so. The most convincing source of data, for me, is that provided by studies in which people provided information on a daily basis of how much time they had spent doing this, that, and the other. Sure enough, we spend a lot more time alone than we used to, and it shows up in crime rates, voting rates, volunteering rates, and membership rates for nearly every kind of organization. We trust each other less, and we are right to do so.

Second, he looks at a variety of possible causes, while informing us from the beginning that he has no single smoking gun. The closest he has, at that point in 1999, was television, which was not only clearly correlated to the problem (chronologically, geographically, and demographically), but also expanded to fill the hours in our day which had once been filled with bridge clubs, PTA meetings, board meetings, political rallies, and the like. But this does not explain all of the decline, as even those who do not watch much TV have become less socially connected over the decades. In some ways it seems that TV, like excessive alcohol or inappropriate use of opiates, may be exacerbating problems whose origin comes from elsewhere. Putnam looks at a variety of other potential causes, and finds them mostly less convincing: pressures of time and money (mostly not actually greater than in the past), the automobile and associated sprawl (but people have the option of living closer to work and mostly choose not to), divorce and the rise of two-career families (but the decline in social activities is also seen in that portion of society which is living in single-career, two-adult families). He concludes this section with a partial explanation, and to his credit admits that there are substantial parts of the mystery left to explain.

Third, Putnam takes us through a long list of studies and other evidence that all of this matters. Many, like my young adult self, find the prospect of having a lot of neighborhood meetings to be psychologically exhausting (I guess that's still true of me today), and perhaps its decline a matter for relief rather than concern. Putnam believes (probably correctly) that the less practice we have at getting along with other people in person, the worse we are at it, and the less likely we are to have help when we need it. Suicide rates go up, connecting job seekers with employment gets harder, neighborhood schools do not work as well, and both property and violent crime rates tend to go up, when social capital goes down. Some of this may be partly effect rather than cause (if you think you live in a dangerous neighborhood, you are less likely to want to leave your house to go out into it), but some of it is not, and much of it is both. The rates of mental illness and suicide do seem to be connected to the general decline in social capital, and it is difficult to argue that this is cause rather than effect. I was not (anymore) especially skeptical, but I thought this section was fairly convincing. Throughout this book, I would regularly use my smartphone to check on wikipedia for some topic or other, to see what had changed since it was written over twenty years ago. Things had almost never gone in the direction one would wish. Violent crime was one of the only exceptions, but unfortunately in the last year and a half murder in particular has gone back up to levels not seen since the early 1990's. A decline in social capital is perhaps not the only problem, but I am convinced it is part of the problem.

The fourth and final section looks at the episode in American history which he hopes for us to take inspiration from. Rapid technological change, an influx of immigrants from many nations who did not know or trust one another, the movement from country to city, all led to a decline in social capital. Putnam acknowledges the imperfections and downsides of the Progressive Age (Prohibition comes to mind), but clearly wants us to see it as a validation of hopeful prospects, and as evidence that if we decide to do something about the rising tide of alienation, we can succeed. Unfortunately, he lays out throughout this section a series of goals for the year 2010, which actually made this section of the book rather dispiriting. Let us just say, our stock of social capital in 2020 did not seem to be better than it was in 1999 when he was writing this.

So, in the end, what does a reader in 2021 take away from it?

1) real life, in-person socializing matters, and an absence of it is strongly associated with a plethora of ills

2) we are not as good at this as we were a few generations back

3) we could get better, if we decided to, although it might take something like World War 2 to make us decide it was worth the effort

Given the current aversion to being in the same room with other people, even for work, it is not easy to be optimistic about the near future. On the other hand, perhaps the current collapse of social capital is what is required to lead to a general consensus that it is a problem that needs addressing? Regardless of that, Putnam's book holds up for the most part rather well, at least in its framing of the problem, and I'm glad to have finally gotten around to reading it.

Putnam argues that civil society has declined over recent decades due to technology, declining social capital and urban sprawl.

there are so many better and clearer papers surrounding this topic, older and newer. it's not groundbreaking stuff and the things he mentions are some things to me that are closed-minded and not fully explained with sociology or other contexts (ie historical)... perhaps things were better in the past, but for who, exactly? I'm not sure everyone would agree. to me, it just screams "back in my day blah blah" and while he raises some good ideas he's not using it for the right reasons or with the necessary follow-up.

a revolutionary book however, and a must read for anyone interested in social policy and anthropology, due to the way this book has legitimately shaped america and influenced many other countries in the world

America was once a place where people routinely and enthusiastically interacted with their community members in clubs, organizations, political campaigns, parent-teacher associations, neighborhood picnics, dinners and volunteer opportunities – and yes, bowling leagues. We are now a nation where volunteering is struggling, many clubs and civic groups have disappeared and too many of us scarcely know our neighbors.

What is to blame? Racism and income inequality? Television? Women who overwhelmingly work outside the home? Work hours that take place at night or on weekends? The physical distance between where we live and where we work (and meetings take place)? Or maybe that children are now involved in so many more activities that require involvement from exhausted parents?

All of the above may play some role. (And television, which eats into American’s attention and habits, may be a major culprit.) But repairing the broken bonds that once provided us with healthy communities will be a crucial part of our future.

The work was published in 2000 but includes an update on how the rise of the internet has impacted society, in ways both good and bad.

Reading the book is important. The next step is talking to each other about how to address the problem, and that will require effort.

Do Americans still have the ability to dig deep and make that effort?

I’d been meaning to read this one for a while after hearing about it online and, while it was pretty dense and academic at times, it did offer a lot to think about. I think it was very helpful to have hard data to back up things that can seem like just nostalgia in the decline of American community life, and this book offered plenty of data to show that it’s not just rose-tinted glasses. I really enjoyed the section at the end discussing how the progressive era of the early 1900s went about trying to deal with a similar issue, and I’ll hopefully check out Putnam’s new book on that topic at some point soon.

Texty opisujúce nevrlosť personálu na úrade, či v nemocnici , patria už medzi klasický žáner slovenskej blogosféry a facebooku. Každá bytová schôdza končí hádkou a zároveň je to jediné miesto, kde so svojimi susedmi prehodíte viac než pozdrav. Blbé vzťahy na pracovisku. Blbá nálada.

Dôvera medzi ľuďmi je kľúčová pre chod spoločnosti. Ak je vysoká, hovoríme o veľkom sociálnom kapitále. Ten sa prejavuje okrem dôvery aj vo väčšej kvantite a kvalite interakcií medzi ľuďmi. Znamená to viac spolkov, krúžkov, komunitných aktivít. Pre väčšinu z nás to znie ako z iného sveta. Nečudo, Slovensko sa v rebríčkoch úrovne sociálneho kapitálu vyskytuje na posledných miestach. Doslova.

V prieskume OECD z poslednej jesene sme skončili na poslednom mieste v odpovedi na otázku, či dôverujeme svojim spoluobčanom. Nedôvera a neexistencia sociálneho kapitálu je jedna z hlavných príčin na pozadí mnohých našich spoločenských problémov. Prakticky vôbec sa o ňom nehovorí a politika ho ignoruje.

Bowling alone

Americký politológ Putnam videl pred 20 rokmi v americkej spoločnosti podobný problém. Komunity sa rozpadávali a vzájomná nedôvera medzi ľuďmi sa prehlbovala. Bowling alone(“hrať bowling osamote”) sa stalo klasickým dielom, ktoré skúma príčiny a dôsledky úpadku sociálneho kapitálu.

Suburbanizácia, dlhé dochádzanie za prácou, či televízna zábava nahradzujúca potrebu ľudského kontaktu patria podľa Putnama medzi hlavné príčiny toho, že v druhej polovici 20. storočia došlo k úpadku sociálneho kapitálu v každej oblasti - od počtu spolkov, dobrovoľníctva, dôvery v demokraciu až po neformálne stretávanie sa ľudí.

Ešte zaujímavejšie však je vyzdvihnúť efekty dobre fungujúceho sociálneho kapitálu. Spoločnosť nemôže fungovať len na základe donucovacieho aparátu štátu. Ak ľudia majú dodržiavať pravidlá a efektívne spolupracovať, musia to robiť hlavne dobrovoľne a z presvedčenia.

Efekty takéhoto prístupu sú obrovské. Ekonomická veda opakovane potvrdila, že v spoločnostiach s vyšším sociálnym kapitálom sa ľahšie obchoduje, získava kapitál na podnikanie, platia sa faktúry a menej sa podvádza. Sociálny kapitál je bariérou pre kriminalitu mládeže. Ak žije v silných komunitách a väzbách, ťažšie skĺzne na šikmú plochu.

Rovnako výrazné sú efekty v prípade zdravia. Výskumy opakovane potvrdili, že sociálny kapitál je jedným z najvýraznejších faktorov ovplyvňujúcich našu spokojnosť a následne zdravie - od náchylnosti na civilizačné choroby až po mortalitu. V prípade duševného zdravia či depresií je tento vzťah očividný.

U nás mimo radar

Vráťme sa na Slovensko. Krajinu, kde si navzájom neveríme. Prvou poznámkou v takýchto debatách býva výčitka politikom. Žiadna kauza sa nevyšetrila, klamú nám do očí. Bezpochyby, má to obrovský dopad na spoločenskú atmosféru a vôbec to nebagatelizujem.

Moja výčitka slovenskej politike v tejto téme však ide hlbšie. Problematika neexistencie sociálneho kapitálu sa na jej radare prakticky nenachádza.

Pre ilustráciu. S nástupom extrémizmu a jeho popularity u mladých počúvame veľa o potrebe naliať do nich správne hodnoty a svetonázor. Je podivné, že popri tejto ambícii napríklad ministerstvo školstva od roku 2008 znížilo dotáciu na podporu mládežníckych aktivíttakmer o polovicu.

Podpora občianskej spoločnosti skrz daňovú asingáciu je spochybňovaná a mimoriadne vrúcny zákon o sponzoringu slúži jedine na podporu profesionálneho športu a daňové odpočty veľkých podnikov. Naše územné plánovanie, forma akou tvoríme verejný priestor na tieto veci nemyslí a výrazne ustupuje preferenciám súkromných aktérov. Cielená podpora spolkov finančne alebo poskytnutím priestorov úradov/škôl či tvorba komunitných centier sú vecou náhody a nikdy sa nepostupuje systematicky.

Odvrátenou tvárou existujúceho dopytu po spoločnosti sú potom vlakové hliadky, alebo polovojenské jednoty ako “branci”. Je na nás, aby sme ho napĺňali niečím zmysluplnejším.

Fungujúca spoločnosť, potom štát

Je zrejmé, že to ako funguje náš verejný sektor musí prejsť zmenami. Štát sa musí správať funkčnejšie - normálnejšie. Ak však tieto zmeny majú mať nejaký efekt, bez zmeny v tom ako sa správame k sebe v spoločnosti to nepôjde. Štát nevyrieši každý problém, nebude dozerať na pokoj a vľúdnosť v každom susedstve. Čo je však ešte dôležitejšie, zmena v politikách štátu nemusí viesť k tomu, o čo v podstate ide - k väčšej spokojnosti ľudí. Na ktorú, ako ukazuje Putman vo svojej knihe môžu mať efekt práve veci mimo záber toho čo očakávame od politiky.

Vo svojej podstate však ide táto téma ešte do niečoho hlbšieho. Potreby nájsť v našej spoločnosti niečo, čo ju spája. Konzervatívci by na tomto mieste povedali cirkev. Dnešná doba však ukazuje, že toto už nefunguje pre všetkých. Extrémisti pracujú so zvrátenou verziou nacionalizmu. Musí existovať aj niečo iné. Predstava o spolupatričnosti, záujme jedného o druhého, pod ktorú budú spadať bieli, čierni, fialoví - všetci čo tu spolu vedľa seba žijeme. Nie negatívne vymedzovanie sa.  Záujem o krajinu (ozajstný patriotizmus?), ktorý stojí na moderných a občianskych princípoch.

Rovnosť, bratstvo, sloboda. Základné demokratické krédo. Veľmi často sa zaoberáme slobodou a rovnosťou. Až symbolicky je uprostred bratstvo. Nezabúdajme nato. Bez toho to celé nebude fungovať.

I finally finished it! Took six months, but well worth it. This is a robust and really interesting piece of scholarship. It’s also accessible and charmingly written, providing a fantastic example of an academic work that’s comprehensible for the public at large. This is a great book that I recommend for any person interested in civil society!