Bowling Alone : The Collapse and Revival of American Community

Rating:
Summary: Terrific & Penetrating View At American Loss Of Community!
Review: It amazes me how often an academic with an important piece of the truth about the nature of contemporary social reality becomes embroiled in an avalanche of escalating public expectations & hyperbole until suddenly he is expected to become a hopped-up social prophet singularly able to explain, detail and unravel the heretofore-mysterious elements of our existential dilemma. Such is the case here with Professor Putnam's provocative findings regarding social disintegration in the America of the '90s.

This is an absorbing book, the result of Putnam's efforts to expand a short article Putnam had written regarding the observable facts of increasing social isolation and personal disconnection within our culture. Here he employs new data substantiating and extending the details of his original thesis, indicating that on almost every measure investigated, individual Americans are less likely to regularly socialize with their peers, becoming more isolated, more fractious, and less friendly to others than they have been in the recent past. The book is written in an engaging way, and entertains and seduces the reader with amusing (as well as frightening) facts and figures regarding the degree of animosity and alienation individual citizens feel.

Of course, it is easy to become so enthralled with reading through the entertaining list of particulars he enumerates than to pay heed to the burgeoning shapes and images lurking beneath the data; i.e., concerned readers should engage themselves in locating all this information usefully within a meaningful social context. Increasing social isolation and the progressive breakdown in what sociologists call social cohesion are not new phenomena, but have been steadily eroding the social fabric and our feelings of connectedness to one another for over a century. In fact, at the turn of the 20th century both Emile Durkheim and Max Weber were warning of the social dangers associated with the rise of a rational, secular and materialistic social milieu. Reading other recent books such as Sales Kirkpatrick's "Rebels Against The Future" or Philip Slater's classic 1970 book "Pursuit of Loneliness" give one a much better grounding in how the degree of social isolation and civil alienation are related to what is happening in the larger social surround individuals find themselves in.

In essence, the kinds of isolation detailed so well in this tome are the result of the long-term corrosive effects of materialism, with concentration on capital acquisition and gaining more wealth and more affluent lifestyles. Indeed, if one reads the recent book "The Overworked American" by Juliet Schor, one gets the distinct impression that many Americans are so focused on "getting ahead' that anything interfering with this obsessive reach for greater material security gets short shrift in contemporary society. There should be no confusion about the nature of the problem that confronts us; we have no community because we have no culture left. The revolution of scientific change and technical innovation has systematically swept away the web of meanings we once had to integrate and make sense of all this. All we really have today is a mutual acquisition society, based primarily on our mutual lust for material goods and minimally constrained by the skeletal rules and regulations civil society sets for the nature of the material quest. This is a terrific book. Read it.

Rating:
Summary: by James A. Montanyne
Review: Robert Putnam's 1995 essay on civic disengagement in the United States ("Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital," Journal of Democracy 6 [January 1995]: 65-78) piqued the interest of conservatives and neoliberals alike en route to becoming perhaps the most discussed social science article of the twentieth century. Conservatives read Putnam's essay as a demonstration of the crowding out of private civic and humanitarian organizations by the rising tide of government social programs. Neoliberals, in contrast, saw an opportunity to advance public welfare by using government to promote programs geared toward rebuilding the social-capital infrastructure in the United States, which Putnam argued had depreciated during the last third of the twentieth century.

Conservatives are unlikely to be persuaded by the data and arguments Putnam has marshaled in this book-length version of the essay, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. Neoliberals, on the other hand, will find reasons to rejoice, not only because of the book's new material and policy prescriptions but also because attempts to meet the challenges Putnam has posed would revitalize the flagging communitarian social program. Whether or not scholars and policy analysts accept Putnam's analysis and conclusions, they must be prepared to deal with the points Putnam has raised because his book promises to have cachet in policy circles for a long time.

The book's central theme is simply stated: "For the first two-thirds of the twentieth century a powerful tide bore Americans into ever deeper engagement in the life of their communities, but a few decades ago-silently, without warning-that tide reversed and we were overtaken by a treacherous rip current. Without at first noticing, we have been pulled apart from one another and from our communities over the last third of the century" (p. 27).

The book is organized in four major sections. In the first, Putnam describes trends in civic disengagement that he claims have dissipated social capital in recent years. "[T]he broad picture is one of declining membership in community organizations. During the last third of the twentieth century formal membership in organizations in general has edged downward by perhaps 10-20 percent. Most important, active involvement in clubs and other voluntary associations has collapsed at an astonishing rate, more than halving most indexes of participation within barely a few decades" (p. 63).

In the book's second section, Putnam identifies the perceived causes of this deterioration-causes that he argues have left "Americans today feel[ing] vaguely and uncomfortably disconnected," a conclusion based in part on social surveys showing that "we wish to live in a more civil, more trustworthy, more collectively caring community" (p. 402).

In the book's third section, Putnam identifies the negative consequences of America's declining social capital for education and children's welfare, safe and productive neighborhoods, economic prosperity, health and happiness, and democracy. He admits that too much and the wrong kind of social capital also can have deleterious consequences-"too much fraternity is bad for liberty and equality" (p. 351), leading, for example, to an increase of organized crime-but he believes that on balance the benefits of copious social capital broadly outweigh those costs.

Putnam concludes the book by recounting the social movements that characterized the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era-political epochs that gave rise to the stock of social capital that Putnam argues dissipated during the last third of the twentieth century.

The book, however, offers no systematic demonstration that the benefits of its utopian agenda would outweigh the costs of "using government" to bring it into being. Any attempt to establish that conclusion almost certainly would fail: universal happiness and well-being have yet to flow from utopian social policies. The fact that private and public life presents a series of trade-offs fully escapes Putnam's purview: his policy prescription has superficial appeal (to the extent that it appeals at all) because he almost entirely ignores the costs of bringing it about. Consequently, no offhand proposal is too outlandish. For example, "why not [require] employer-provided space and time for civic discussion groups and service clubs?" (p. 407). The correct answer to questions of this sort is widely known, though not frequently acknowledged: because the market process resolves such issues in total far more efficiently than does legislative fiat.

Economic theory teaches that individuals seek to maximize the expected utility they can derive from their environment. "Social organization" is merely a composite view of individuals interacting in ways that enhance their separate private utilities. Coercing individuals to live and interact differently through the compulsions of law, as Putnam proposes, cannot increase aggregate social welfare; doing so would merely move most individuals away from their revealed optima while increasing the far-reaching disutility that is an unavoidable cost of coercive public policy. Putnam's proposals ultimately rest on the weakest and most potentially dangerous implication of the Standard Social Science Model that an omnipotent state pursuing normative policy ends can and indeed ought to treat individuals like sheep.

Rating:
Summary: An important book worthy of your attention!!!!
Review: Robert Putnam has written one of the most important books I have read in a long, long time. When was the last time you called a friend or associate and proposed going out to a ballgame or a show only to be rebuffed because there was a game on TV that night? And how many times has that sort of thing happened to you? "Bowling Alone" discusses the reasons why so many people have become isolated and out of touch with family and friends. The reasons are myriad. Obviously, the aforementioned "boob tube" is a major contributing factor. But as Putnam discusses there are so many more reasons. The go-go 24 hour a day economy has robbed us all of much of our leisure time. And even when we do manage to get some time off everyone else we know is probably working. In addition, our society's seemingly endless quest for "personal fulfillment" has made people withdraw into themselves. Given all of the choices we are now presented with in media and other activities, there are fewer and fewer common experiences we can share at the watercooler.
Putnam also laments the decline of the various fraternal organizations that sprang up in the first quarter of the twentieth century. Groups like the Elks, the Knights of Columbus and the VFW are all struggling to survive. No one joins groups like these anymore and that is really a shame. Our communities are the big losers because the services provided by these organizations have either disappeared or have had to be assumed by the government.
This is an extremely thought provoking book. Putnam certainly diagnoses the problems and offers up some solutions. But these problems are not easily solved. If the events of 9/11 did not wake us all up, then one has to wonder if anything will.

Rating:
Summary: Good Observations, Bad Conclusions
Review: Putnam's research on the decline of social interaction is extensive, and the book is interesting to read. In Bowling Alone's first nine chapters are graphs showing the chrononical trends for every activity from card-playing to church-going. Putnam shows that Baby Boomers and Generation Xers are significantly less involved in civic activities than their parents and grandparents.

However, while Bowling Alone does a good job illustrating the loss of community involvement, the last fifteen chapters of the book, which discuss the causes of civic disengagement, and how it can be reversed, are seriously wrong. Just to start, Putnam overlooks many of the events of the last forty years. He pejoratively notes that Americans have become more individualist and distrustful of institutions, but he gives little notice to the Vietnam War, Watergate, the failed War on Poverty, and the inummerable political, corporate, and institutional scandals, which have led to this culture of skepticism.

Furthermore, the book ignores the role of centralized government and litigiousness in weakening communities. People are less likely to vote or get involved in political affairs because top-down bureaucratic mandates and endless lawsuits have undermined local democracy. Putnam laments the drop in the number of Americans who vote, attend town meetings, or write to their Congressman, but does not realize that much of this apathy is comes from the fact that many Americans perhaps rightly believe that these activities are a waste of time. Why should a person give up several hours of their time to go to a town meeting when any decision of significance made at the meeting may be overturned by a federal judge or blocked by a Washington bureaucrat?

The whole book is permeated with an irritating longing for Babbitt-like organizationalism. Many American do informally interact with their families, friends, and coworkers, but have absolutely no interest joining a fraternal organization, with its secret handshakes and exclusive membership. Likewise, many Americans do give their time time and money to causes (e.g. environmentalism) that they support, but are unwilling to make donations to large, poorly-run charities who have nebullous goals (e.g., United Way, Red Cross). Unfortunately, Putnam seems to overlook the decentralizing social trends of the last several decades.

The last two chapters of the book are the absolute worst. He expresses some concern that communitarians need to avoid the 'big-brotherism' of the early twentieth century Progressive movement, but then offers some of his own proposals (e.g., more urban planning, campaign finance reform) which themselves seem heavy-handed.

In spite of these criticism, I do recommend the book. Public apathy is a serious problem, and though I disagree with some of Putnam's conclusions, the book is informative and well-written.

Rating:
Summary: Important Book for Nonprofit and Charity Professionals
Review: Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone is a well-planned and exhaustively researched examination of America's civic and social participation. Few bestselling books have 60 pages of endnotes, over 100 charts and tables, and an index spanning 45 pages. If for no other reason, nonprofit sector professionals should buy this book for its statistical and reference data alone. However, this book is far more than a reference volume; it uses data to tell a compelling story about America's civic and social involvement in the 20th century.

The data reported in the book confirm all kinds of influences that have been discussed by public policy experts, social researchers, and watercooler gossips for years -- declining civic club memberships; fewer people willing to take leadership positions in PTA, Boy Scouts, school boards, city councils, and countless other "community-building" pursuits. Mr. Putnam addresses changing lifestyles, from two-paycheck and single-parent families to the increasing time consumed by home-workplace commuting, television, and other "cocooning" activities that reduce time and energy for "other-directed" activity.

The book's subtitle, "The Collapse and Revival of American Community," is an apt description of the book that has been misunderstood by many of its critics. Although Professor Putnam (Public Policy professor at Harvard) spends much of the book demonstrating the decline of civic & social involvement and community in America during the last third of our century, he also discusses possible causal factors and even offers suggestions for renewal.

The book's final chapter compares America's late 19th century with the late 20th century. He identifies numerous similarities that, he believes, point the way to addressing the current crisis as he sees it. The chapter includes italicized goals for improvement in civic and social involvement.

The topic and thesis of the book, originally raised in a 1995 magazine article, will be with us for several more years. The Ford Foundation and a group of community foundations have given Mr. Putnam $1 million to conduct additional research on how communities are addressing community-building issues and how effective those initiatives are.

The exhaustive research, enduring interest in the topic, and guaranteed future events related to this book and author are three of many reasons why this book should be on all reference bookshelves. More importantly, Mr. Putnam challenges our assumptions and offers an important lens though which to view the social and civic habits of our co-workers, volunteers, friends, family, and, ultimately, ourselves.

Rating:
Summary: Get Up. Get Into It, Get Involved
Review: This is a powerhouse study on a subject that would hardly seem worthy of such attention to many Americans. However, most people, other than extremists and misanthropes, probably have nagging worries about America's plummeting levels of public participation, volunteerism, and civic engagement. This concept of "social capital" is Putnam's specialty. The reasons for America's collapsing social capital are many and varied, and Putnam takes us on an intricately considered and very heavily researched study into the causes and effects of this phenomenon. You are unlikely to see a more intensively documented and supported study than this. Like a true scientist Putnam knows that there are no easy answers, and that there are highly varied causes and effects. Also in a manner quite refreshing for social observation treatises of this type, Putnam freely admits that he doesn't have all the answers, that the data is sometimes missing or contradictory, and consistently invites readers to form their own conclusions.

Critics of this book often fail to see the big picture and tend to dwell on doubtful statistics in that old can't-see-the-forest-for-the-trees fashion. There are many examples of questionable stats in the book. One that I noticed was the contention in Chapter 6 that sit-down restaurants are decreasing in number. Putnam backs up the claim with data published by the National Restaurant Association, but that organization may be interested in downplaying their numbers in return for business opportunities. There are many doubtful examples like this, but in the long run Putnam's argument is an incredibly persuasive one. He convincingly demonstrates that time and financial pressures, suburban sprawl, mass communications, political ideology, and especially TV are all culprits in the problem; with appreciable effects on crime, education, voting, public health, and even neighborly politeness.

Putnam's data-intensive writing style and huge mountains of documentation and evidence lead to some readability issues, especially repetitive information overload. But in the end, it is very hard to escape his conclusions about the worrisome decline of American social capital, and he wraps up the book with great examples of why we should care. When you're done with this illuminating book, don't vegetate in front of the TV, but go out and do something for your community. [~doomsdayer520~]

Rating:
Summary: Try blaming capitalism instead.
Review: Putnam is correct in noting that Americans are increasingly disconnected and alienated from each other. The same thing is happening in Australia where I live.

The declining rate of civic and social engagement is, at best, a symptom not a cause. Otherwise, the problem could easily be solved by everyone joining a club or two. Not likely.

What about doing something about the obvious? The intensification of capitalism by new technology is enmiserating society. The food industry in its quest for profit has succeeded in making 95% of people overweight. People watch four hours of inane TV a day. Cities are being built around cars not people. Gadgets and goods are idolised, especially "luxury" goods. Capitalism is built on self interest, competition, materialism. Small wonder people are unhappy.

Unfashionable as it may be to say this nowadays, but Marx was dead right.

Rating:
Summary: Directly applicable to the lives of Public Administrators.
Review: The concept of "Social Capital," as it is discussed in Bowling Alone (Putnam 2001) is an attempt to quantify the loss of community connectedness that has been happening over the years. Putnam draws his title from the fact that in recent years people have become more likely to bowl alone than in more social leagues.
What is striking about the idea of Social Capital is its relevance. Public managers, especially those trying to garner public participation, will run headfirst into the phenomenon discussed in the book. According to Putnam's work on Social Capital, in the future, the Executive Director of a non-profit will have increasing difficulty soliciting volunteers to become involved in the non-profit's mission ((Putnam 1995). This is alarming because volunteers are a common resource such agencies turn to out of limited resources.
More than just being a warning of things to come, Social Capital gives public managers a framework from which to define the problem and seek strategies to deal with it. Knowing why people are less inclined to volunteer their time to a non-profit lets the Executive Director see the problem for what it is and start to think of creative, targeted strategies that account for social capital and help recruit new volunteers.
Furthermore, by taking into account Social Capital and seeking new ways to encourage civic participation, we do exactly what needs to be done in order to reinforce the very community we are trying to serve.

Rating:
Summary: Don't belive the hype
Review: I read this book about 2 years ago for a class. It was just horrible, and I am shocked that smart people can read this and not see it for what it is. Nothing he said was realy a new idea unless it was one of the areas where he was wrong. He will bury you in 20 pages of Evidence in numbers to support his idea, but fail to notice a huge glaring fault with his logic. He basicly hopes you get so into what evidence he puts out you will not think, wait he did not even factor in X, and that destorys anything he said. My class had to ask why we even read this, as it was so bad, and evry day was basicly a hour of talking about how wrong he is. This book should only be used to show how lots of numbers can make people fail to think logicly about anything. I know people will say this is a great book, but is worthless. Even the Title seems wrong, we have a very hard time find a lane that does not have Leagues going.

Rating:
Summary: most important read
Review: I found Bowling Alone to be the most important book I've read in a long time. It gives us an honest but sympathetic portraitof the increasing lonely and unconnected American people and the world we've created for ourselves. Putnam manages to display the many faces of community, or lack thereof, in a careful, balanced, and frigetning way. My only regret is that Putnam's "solutions" for our current atomization are less developed than the rest of the book.

A must-read for anyone who cares about American society.