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...

Social Capital

When I started this book, I thought, surely community interaction is dying. Now, after reading a bit into the book, I see that highs and lows of community involvement go up and down over the decades depending on all kinds of factors including wars and the economy.  Now, I'm asking myself the question of whether community is really worse off then it was decades ago. I'll keep working on this thought as I read further.

So far, the book has covered what the term "social capital" means. The concept is all about how social networks have value. Nowadays, when I hear "social networks" I think of online communities. So, it's been good to have a history lesson (as the book provides) about what social network meant in the past (and still today) before we interacted so heavily online.

There are all kinds of different forms of social capital which at times remind me of the different forms of teaching and learning. These include formal, informal, repeated, and anonymous. Plus, there's bridging social capital where all kinds of different people come together and bonding social capital where people who have the similarities bond among themselves. And, just like with learning in general, it's important to remember that social capital has an ugly side too like when networks are used for hatred and terror.

I've also enjoyed learning some sociological terms like "intracohort" where change is detectable within each age group and "intercohort" where change is only detectable across generations.

One more thing...I just read that while numbers of organizations are increasing, this doesn't mean that these organizations actually have members or that their members actually see each other locally. Many organizations with have members that are only members because they pay a due, not because they are actually involved.

Better get reading...a long way to go!

Why I chose Bowling Alone...

I chose to read Bowling Alone because it is about community, a topic that has interested me throughout multiple classes at CSU. I hope that reading this book will help me develop some of my ideas about community including my personal striving to be part of a community; the impact that the changing makeup of communities has on society; and the role that community has in prisons in terms of how incarcerated individuals form communities (both formally and informally), how teachers can be part of the community-forming process in prison, and the crucial merging of inside-prison communities with outside-prison communities.

Oh, and as for the title, according to the back cover, Americans no longer participate in the once-popular bowling leagues that used to exist all over the U.S. Instead, they are bowing alone, a sign that community just isn't what it used to be.