What is to be done? PLUS, some special guest appearances!

The final section of Bowling Alone gives us some challenges that the author would like to see society meet by 2010. What, 2010 is already passed? Yes, well, as I think I've mentioned before, this book was published in 2000. So, to try to bring us up to date a bit for this final posting, I'll include some information on what the author, Robert Putnam, has been up to since this book was published.

First, Mr. Putnam's challenges to our year-2000 versions of us are that we:

• "Ensure that workplaces are substantially more family-friendly and community-congenial, so that American workers will be enabled to replenish our stocks of social capital both within and outside the workplace."

• "Spend less time traveling and more time connecting with our neighbors. 

• "Will live in more integrated and pedestrian--friendly area, and that the design of our communities and the availability of public space will encourage more casual socializing with friends and neighbors."

• "That we will be more deeply engaged in one or another spiritual community of meaning, while at the same time becoming more tolerant of the faiths and practices of other Americans." 

• "Spend less leisure time sitting passively alone in front of glowing screens and more time in ative connection with our fellow citizens."

• "Foster new forms of electronic entertainment and communication that reinforce community engagement rather than forestalling it."

• "Participate in cultural activities and discover new ways t use the arts as a vehicle for convening diverse groups of fellow citizens."

• "Participate in the pubic life of our communities - running for office, attending public meetings, serving on communities, campaigning in elections, and even voting." 

So, how do you think society has done in the last ten years?

I decided to check in with Bowling Alone's author, Robert Putnam, to see what he's been up to in the last decade. Indeed, it appears that he thinks we still need more work in the above areas. So, Mr. Putnam and is colleagues have begun some fascinating websites with current research and tips on how to improve social capital in our society. If you're interested in this topic, I'd suggest taking a look at these websites that are both the result of a report that calls for "a nationwide campaign to redirect a downward spiral of civic apathy."

Better Together
www.bettertogether.org

The Saguaro Seminar
www.hks.harvard.edu/saguaro

Oh, the special guests appearances!...
One chapter towards the end of Bowling Alone compared the era that most research was taken from for this book to an era that the author believes to have been comparable in terms of being a time with tremendous change across many aspects of society: the years between about 1870 and 1900. In this chapter, it was nice to see names pop up from past CSU classes:

• Jane Addams was was praised for creating Hull House which brought the social challenges that many Americans were facing to the attention of others. Nice "bridging social capital" here!

• John Dewey "blames cheap entertainment for the decline of civic involvement" during this time. He thought it was so easy for people to entertain themselves that this created a "diversion from political concern."

• The Chautauqua Movement was a great creator of social capital as it traveled across the country, providing education and many opportunities for Americans to bond.

It was nice to see these familiar names and learn about how they felt about and contributed to social capital in their age.

Thanks to all of your for your great comments and posts to my blog! I enjoyed reading your thoughts.

So What?

The second to last section of Bowling Alone is titled "So What?" So, what do all these dizzying statistics about social capital and the author's conclusions about these statistics mean and why does it matter?

The author claims that "social capital makes us smarter, healthier, safer, richer, and better able to govern a just and stable democracy." Wow, all that! Where do we sign up? Here are just a few highlights about why social capital may be the key to all these wonderful qualities:

• Societies can resolve collective problems easier and more efficiently if we're all working together and trusting one another to do our part.

• When we join community groups, especially those composed of people from various backgrounds, we tend to be more aware of the struggles that others face and, therefore, do more to make our community a better place for everyone.

• Most people get their jobs through social connections, so more time spent in the community means more employment opportunities.

• "Mounting evidence" says that social capital helps people deal with trauma and also helps fight physical ills. Social capital may even be a substitute for many of the pills and vitamins that Americans take to feel physically better.

• Only poverty is more harmful to children than a lack of social capital in their lives. Kids who grow up in social capital-rich communities are healthier and drop out of school less. They are even (according to the stats in the book) abused less by parents.

• Small schools have more social capital than large ones. The author suggests that more social capital among these lucky students who attend small schools may lead to less tv watching among the students which, in turn, leads to better grades and a healthier lifestyle. The book mostly studied social capital and children's education. I wondered if the same conclusions could be draw considering adult education and social capital.

• There is more crime and violence in cities with low social capital. According to the book, murder rates are connected more to levels of social capital than education levels. This made me wonder if increasing social capital inside prisons also would create a less violent prison environment. 

• Social capital isn't always positive. Gangs are a form of social capital. However, these gangs are often created because there is a lack of healthy social capital elsewhere in young people's lives.

• Social isolation (the opposite of social capital) is "a chronically stressful condition" that actually makes people age faster and die sooner than those who are connected to the community. Moving to a place with high social capital would do as much good as quitting smoking!

So, if social capital is so great, how do we get more of it? The final section of this book is about exactly that. To be continued...

"The Moral Equivalent of War"

The good news is that I've gotten a lot Bowling Alone reading done lately but the bad news is that I was left with little time to blog. So, now I don't know where to begin with the plethora of topics and comment-worthy statements that I've covered in the book since I last wrote. How about I just get right to the answer to the mystery of what has caused Americans to be less civicly engaged since the mid-1960s? The author was even so clear as to put it in a pie chart (keeping in mind that, by the author's own admission, this is only a "guesstimation.").

Spoiler Alert! Maybe you don't want to know what the author comes up with before you read the book yourself! For the rest of you:

What caused a decline in social capital?

10% - pressures of time and money
10% - suburbanization, commuting, sprawl
25% - more time spent with electronic entertainment with TV being the #1 culprit
50% - "generational change" - the slow, steady replacement of the best civic generation (those who lived during WWII) with their less involved children and grandchildren.
The leftover is "other" or "unknown" reasons.
***And, 10%-15% of the generational change percent may be a combination of generational change and the introduction of TV.

Basically, WWII brought the nation together. Then, people were born and grew up who never experienced the war and once television came along, well, forget about it! Then, too much television, too much of the wrong KIND of television (just stick with PSB and you'll be okay) and even HOW we watch television (don't channel surf-ever again!) has made us depressed, unmotivated, and, like my Mom said to me many times, "a lump on the log." Of course, there are the other reason of time, money, suburbanization, commuting, changing family structures, and sprawl but the book was very damning concerning the impact of television on society.

One more point before this post gets too long:
The author quoted the movie Saving Private Ryan when he stated that what we need to boost social capital is "the moral equivalent of war." If WWII brought the nation together to the point of creating what the book calls the "civic generation," did the U.S. experience the same thing after 911? This book was published one year before 911. My thought is that the nation came together and then became quickly divided among ourselves. Why was 911 so different than WWII? They were certainly different events. There was no great collective victory to celebrate with 911 as with the battle victories and marches of WWII. Maybe it was just a different time and a different generation?

I'd better finish this book soon before my husband throws it out the window. Every time he flops on the couch and channel-surfs or watches some mindless entertainment he has to hear from me start, "The book says..."

Is the internet killing social capital?

The main criticism of this book is that it is over ten years old so the data is a bit dated. While I still think it's interesting to learn about data from a historical viewpoint (plus, what happened in the past still impacts us today), the most obvious place where new data could really add to this book deals with the internet and social media. The book states that on one hand, "computer-mediated communication will breed new and improved communities." One the other hand, it list four challenges to this improvement in community-building:

1. The digital divide refers to inequity in access to the online world due to education, income, race, and family structure. The 1997 census cited the most inactive internet groups were the rural poor, rural and inner-city racial minorities, and young, female-headed households. The book suggests that the internet has not "mobilized these inactive groups but has instead reinforced existing biases in political participation." Ten years after this book was published, do you think this is still the case?

2. Non-verbal, non-face-to-face communication seriously hurts our ability to fully communicate with each other. Do you still think this is the case with communicating via computers or has technology advanced enough that we can get the same level of communication using video technology as we would in face-to-face talks?

3. When we communicate non-virtually, we are foced to interact with more people who are different from us. But, in virtual-world communication, we can choose to only interact with people with similar interests to us. Do you agree with the book that this virtual communication hurts "social cohesion" with people who are different from us?

4. The book states that "digital technologies are adept at maintaining communities already formed" but are "less good at making them."  With social communities like Facebook in full swing now, do you agree that the internet is better at keeping communities together that formed face-to-face but not so good at actually making new communities?

Small Groups and Social Movements

SMALL GROUPS
While it may not make up for the loss in social capital in other areas, small groups like support groups and self help groups are going strong. These small groups take all kinds of forms and serve a plethora of needs including anything from a book club to a group for those with drug problems, struggles with eating, or gambling additions. Interestingly, the book notes that, unlike other realms of social capital, small group participation doesn't correlate to civic involvement like voting and volunteering.  What I think is food-for-thought though is that before these self-help and support groups came along, huge numbers of people dealing with serious challenges (like drug problems) had no healthy place to have interactions with others that would produce social capital. I don't think it's surprising that such groups are so popular. After all, it may be this population who are the hungriest for social capital opportunities.

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
From this book, I noted a few opposing types of social movements:

Grassroots vs. Professional
Grassroots organizations both create and are created by social capital. The group meeting in a church basement may become inspired to change the world (using social capital to create a social movement) and, as their movement grows, more social capital is created (using the movement to create social capital). They feed off of each other. On the other hand, when there is great support for a change in society but a lack of social capital in that area, professional organizations are created. These social movements are run from an office with paid staff rather than many volunteers coordinating themselves.

Symbolic Membership vs. Personal Membership
Personal membership with a social movement involves being involved with a local action group, attending meetings in person, attending rallies and protests, and anything that makes supporters feel personally involved in the fight. These people are physically taking part in the movement and consider themselves important to the cause. Symbolic membership usually involves supporters writing a check to a professionally run organization. There are no local chapters or development of social capital. Such supporters may not consider themselves an integral part of this struggle for social change.

Ground War vs. Air War
A ground war is a grassroots, personal membership, social capital rich social movement. Examples of these are the civil rights movement and the pro-life/anti-abortion movement.  You can literally see the movement "on the ground" in the form of rallies, vigils, and protests.
An air war social movement utilizes symbolic members, professional organizing, and social capital poor environments. Examples of an air war campaign is the pro-choice abortion movement and numerous large environmental groups. You often times can't literally see action "on the ground" but it is there, waging war from "the air."

Old versus New
The "old-fashioned" way of developing organizations and social movements is through face-to-face communication. These members tend to stay devoted to the organization, probably because of this human element. The new way of organizing can be attributed to the beginning of direct mail. It became very cheap and easy to send huge mailings to households across the country asking for donations (often in exchange for some kind of token like a coin or calendar). These campaigns are lucrative and have been developed into a science. However, members drop out in very large numbers, in my view because of a lack of personal involvement.

***It's important to note that neither side of these "verses" is better or worse than the other side, just different. Indeed, I can see pros and cons to each. I'm involved grassroots, personal membership, ground war movements so those are especially close to my heart. No other type of movement generates such strong rallies, brings people out of their houses, and generates such energy. But, it can be frustrating trying to find and organize volunteers, raising funds without a professional fundraising and finance department, and feeling a lack of organization with so many local groups and individuals involved.

I'm curious what experiences any of you have had with each type of social movement.

Volunteering, Philanthropy, Honesty, and Trust

I'm going to change things up a bit today and pick a few topics, along with some questions to think about.

According to the book:


1. Americans donate to philanthropic causes more when they're in periods of high social capital, not when they have the most money. In other words, when we're social, we give; when we're not social, we give less. The economy doesn't matter one way or another.
Can you think of any reasons why that would be the case or are you skeptical that that is the case at all? 

2. Americans are doing more one-on-one volunteering and less volunteering on projects with groups of volunteers.
Is this the case with you? Why do you choose the type (one-on-one versus group) of volunteering that you do and has this changed for you over the years?

*** By the way, apparently Americans are volunteering a ton but it's mostly due to an increase in volunteering in the 60 and over age group.

3. People live longer in trusting communities.
Have you ever heard that before? Does it surprise you? Why do you think it's true (or not)?


4. The author distinguishes between "thin trust" and "thick trust". Thick trust is the trust we have with those closest to us (we know we can trust them). Thin trust is trusting someone we barely know (giving someone the benefit of the doubt). The author contends that thin trust is better because we know we can count on thick trust whereas thin trust expands our boundaries of people we feel we can rely on.
So, let's take that exercise class that has been mentioned in a comment on this blog, do you (hypothetically or actually) trust that person on the other side of the exercise room that you barely exchange a smile with before exercise class?
Or, how about trusting someone that responded to your craigslist posting for a piece of furniture that they'll get the money to you. Would you trust them?

Religious, Work, and Informal Participation

Since last writing, I've covered a few different aspects of life that can contribute to the amount of social capital for Americans. I wasn't surprised that faith communities are very important for getting people together, socializing, and forming bonds. What I didn't realize is that folks who are active in religious communities are also much more likely to be involved in other, non-religious, aspects of life like voting and participating in politics. This isn't terribly surprising either but I guess I never thought about a connection. As seems to be the trend with everything in this book though, no statistics are ever that simple!

Faith communities may be great places for growing social capital but this isn't as common as it used to be. Participation in religious worship is lower today than in past decades. I was struck by a similarity between how people connect with a religion and how they connect with organizations. As I wrote about in my last entry, many members of organizations are connected to that organization simply by writing a membership check and not actually participating. Similarly, many people these days consider themselves members of a religion not through participation in the faith community but in name only. This is important when thinking about impact on social capital since being a member without participation doesn't build social capital.

Workplace social capital follows a similar trend to both organizational and religious trends. Fewer people are participating in unions as members. What really struck me about our changing work lives though is a thought from this book that we're not forming social bonds at our workplaces in part because we're forced to think more of ourselves as individuals these days instead of thinking of ourselves as a part of a work community. People change jobs a lot, worry about getting let go, and feel that they have to compete with their coworkers to get promoted or even keep their job at all. This creates stress, anxiety, and makes it difficult to form real friendships as work.

I loved the section on informal participation when it defined a schmoozer. I've heard this word my whole life as someone who kind of "kisses up" to others. I had no idea it is a Yiddish word and has an opposite: macher. Also, "kissing up" isn't really accurate. A schmoozer is someone who basically likes to socialize for the fun of it. In contrast, machers socialize as part of formal organizations with a purpose like improving aspects of the community.

The informal participation section was not full of too many surprises but was a bit depressing to read. Time spent with family is dwindling including family meals, watching tv together, simply talking, and attending religious services as a family. Many people don't form strong friendships with their neighbors anymore and try to make neighborhoods safer by buying guns and locks rather than looking out for each other through neighborhood watch programs.

This is where the important bowling example from the book's title comes in. The idea isn't that people are literally bowing by themselves. As the book states, it's not like bowling alleys are full of solitary bowlers. But, we're not bowling as part of formal bowling leagues anymore. An occasional trip to the alley with friends is still popular but we don't regularly meet with the same group of bowlers like we would have as part of a bowling league, sharing the camaraderie of team play. I guess the good news is that people are still bowling though.

I'm interested to read the next section on volunteering since I spend considerable amounts of time doing volunteer activities. In fact, I'd say that nearly all of my social relationships are through volunteer meetings and activism. This isn't always the kind of socializing I'd like but, more on that in the next post...