Lo, the ironies of our postmodern culture.
If the Internet is ostensibly igniting new communities, cellphones are making us easier to reach and home officing is keeping us closer to our loved ones, then why are we so lonely?
OK, maybe you’re not exactly lonely. But if you’re an average American, you’re not nearly as connected to the people around you as your parents or grandparents were, according to a new book.
You don’t vote as regularly.
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You don’t join clubs as much.
You don’t entertain at home as often.
Sounding a little more familiar?
According to Harvard public policy Professor Robert Putnam, not only are all of the above statements true, but they also threaten the very well-being of American society.
Putnam’s book, “Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community,” assembles a century’s worth of research to reveal just how disconnected we’ve become from our communities, our neighbors and even our friends. The professor argues that “social capital” — the bonds between people — is as important to a productive society as an educated work force and efficient factories. That is, the more we volunteer together, socialize together and stand up for causes together, the more we learn to trust one another and build strong civic foundations.
Unfortunately, television, mobility, computers and economics, as well as changes in family structure and age, have all contributed to the growing gulf between individuals in the United States, Putnam contends. As a result, Americans, especially younger generations, now suffer from what he terms “civic malaise.”
Since “Bowling Alone’s” debut in June, Putnam has crisscrossed the country, speaking to TV and radio audiences and drawing impressive crowds at public appearances. His research has undeniably hit a nerve.
“Some guy in Montana and a woman from Pennsylvania said the same thing,” notes Putnam during a phone interview. ” `Professor, you’ve described exactly my life. My mom was active and I would love to be active, but I don’t seem to be able to find the time or ways to do that.’ Or `My dad was active in the Moose Club, but I don’t want to belong to a funny hat organization.’ “
Putnam’s theory of disengagement first struck a chord in 1995, when he published an article in the little-known Journal of Democracy. (The title of the paper, and now the book, refers to the fact that participation in league bowling decreased by more than 40 percent between 1980 and 1993, while individuals bowling increased by 10 percent). The mainstream media somehow caught wind, and, as Putnam writes, “a deluge struck.” The professor was invited to Camp David by President Clinton and profiled in People magazine.
Why? Putnam believes that he had “unwittingly articulated an unease that had already begun to form in the minds of many ordinary Americans,” he writes.
But the critics were at his heels, too. “People said, `You forgot about soccer leagues or reading groups or self-help groups,’ ” Putnam recalls. So he went back to the data, looking for evidence. “To my shock,” he says, he found that the original article actually “underestimated” the extent to which Americans have become disconnected.
The disengagement that Putnam reveals “is typical of what sociologists are alarmed about in a post-modern society,” notes Howard Kurtz, a professor of sociology and criminal justice at Oklahoma City University. “We don’t have the local soda shop anymore where the kids hang out,” he says. “Today, people go to the mall and consume.”
Kurtz attributes some of the disconnectedness to an increased rationality among Americans. When making decisions about where we live, how many children to have or whether to invite a stranger to dinner, we use our heads more than our hearts.
“Let’s say you see a neighborhood kid who is doing something he shouldn’t be doing,” Kurtz says. “In the past you would have said, `Hey, quit doing that.’ Now, you think, `I better not say anything to the boy because his parents might sue me,’ or `The police are supposed to take care of that.’ “
The popularity of a show like “Friends,” he suggests, may be due to our yearning for the kinds of deep, emotional bonds that the characters seem to have — the kind Americans take less and less time to develop these days, according to Putnam.
Cindy Crain is a glaring exception. Sort of. Since moving to Ft. Worth in 1988, Crain has flexed her civic muscle almost ceaselessly in local and national organizations. Ten years ago, at age 27, she was the youngest member of the local League of Women Voters and eventually became its president. She recently quit her job as the city of Ft. Worth Web master to start her own business and work part time for a city councilman .
But despite her exhaustive public involvement, Crain can’t remember the last time she chatted with her neighbors. If she wanted to go shopping on the weekend, she admits, she wouldn’t know who to call.
“I have no strong relationships,” Crain says. “Probably because as a working mother there are so many social hours in a day and you choose.”
And more and more Americans are choosing to remain uninvolved, Putnam argues. Venerable national clubs and organizations such as the Lions, Masons, PTA, NAACP, American Legion and the American Association of University Women have been bleeding membership since their peaks (most often before 1960).
The Rotary Club of Ft. Worth — the third-largest Rotary Club in the world — has managed to buck the trend: The club is down only 38 members since its peak membership of 735 in 1989-1990. But that’s changing. A 10 percent drop in membership annually is average for most Rotary clubs, says the Ft. Worth club’s executive director, Neva Williams.
No one factor has caused Americans to disengage, but Putnam sees the main culprit as this: The postwar generations are simply less community-oriented than their parents and grandparents. They’re more materialistic, less patriotic, more cynical and less politically interested, according to the mountains of data that Putnam researched.
“Part of it is the experience of living through the great national challenge of [World War II]. That formed the grandparents in a way that none of us has ever been exposed to,” says Putnam. War is obviously not a solution, he stresses, “but we do need to find some, I think, moral equivalent of that — some challenge that younger generations will feel unites us.”
The generations are divided by more than wartime experience. Kids today have to deal with questions of sexuality, drugs and careers much sooner than their parents did, notes Joyce Williams, chairman of the department of sociology and social work at Texas Woman’s University in Denton. “We have to teach kids how to not trust strangers for their own protection,” Williams adds, “but on a certain level, we teach them not to trust anybody because we want them to survive.”
And what of our physical surroundings? Is it possible that strip malls and freeways have contributed to civic disengagement and social isolation? Putnam allows that metropolitan sprawl is a factor, but other cultural observers are far more adamant.
“As I see it, the central issue is that we have turned virtually every town in America into a place that is no longer worth caring about,” says James Howard Kunstler, the author of 1996’s “Home From Nowhere.” Kunstler has for nearly a decade been one of the most outspoken critics of suburban development. In his opinion, the insidious effects of ugliness can’t be underestimated.
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In Kunstler’s utopia, stately architecture would replace the big box aesthetics of Wal-Mart and Target. Wide sidewalks and public transportation would encourage people to leave their cars behind. And the rebirth of the public space would inspire citizens to reclaim their civic voice.
“This thing we call the public realm is also the physical container of our civic life,” Kunstler stresses. “It is the dwelling places of our community life … and when you degrade it and turn it into a universal car slum, you degrade the quality of our collective civic life.”
TWU’s Williams believes Putnam may be overstating the extent of disengagement. Like some of Putnam’s strongest critics, she suggests that the professor’s findings may be too focused on the lifestyles of white, middle-class and upper-middle-class individuals.
“Demographic changes in the population are probably more important than he made them out to be,” she says. “With the influx of Southeast Asians and continual growth and migrations of the Latino population, we’re just more culturally diverse, and it’s hard sometimes to build common bridges across those kinds of differences.”
Crain is less optimistic. She recently traveled as part of a U.S. State Department delegation to Skopje, Macedonia, to aid the process of democratization and was asked by members of the local women’s union about voter turnout in Ft. Worth. So she told them. In the May school-board and crime-district election, less than 5 percent of eligible voters went to the polls.
The women were horrified, says Crain, who thinks she knows why so few citizens showed interest.
“People think, `I’m not hungry, I’m not angry, my quality of life is not threatened, so my participation is irrelevant,’ ” she says. “We’re a consumer society, and until something impinges on our ability to consume, we’ll stay apathetic.”
Putnam did discover one positive trend that goes against the grain. The research seems to show that, in the 1990s, teens and people in their early 20s volunteered substantially more than in generations past. He’s planning a national summit for later this year, Old Guard Meets Vanguard, as an opportunity for civic-minded young leaders to connect with and learn from older generations. His Web site, www.BowlingAlone.com, provides a forum for what Putnam hopes will evolve into a national debate about re-engaging the American public.
“At this point, my role is to be sounding an alarm and say to people, `This isn’t your problem, it’s our problem [as a society],’ ” he says. “There are enormous strengths in this country. It’s not that we don’t have problems, but there is a lot of really creative thought going on about how to fix this, and I’m learning myself.”