Bowling Alone: A Communitarian's Call

Someone at the university I currently attend wrote in 1958: "The most dangerous threat hanging over American society is the threat of leisure." They seem rather misguided from today's perspective, where I'd place reckless avarice, antiAmerican groups, NBC weapons, oil shocks, and even antibiotic-resistant drugs over having too much leisure. I might even put too little leisure above that.

Dr. Putnam devotes the first third of his remarable book to chronicling the fall. Participation in group social activities has declined steadily since the 1960s. Furthermore, a strong cohort (or age-based) structure has developed; each generation has become less likely to engage themselves civically. His research is difficult to countermand; the evidence stands tall.

It's not this purpose of this review to deal with proposed solutions; you can read the book for that. I do want to describe Dr. Putnam's allocation of blame. It doesn't surprise me that the South has lower levels of social capital, given its history. Across the nation, he allocates the plurality to "generational change", with support from TV, Sprawl, and work demands. He also leaves some unknown. The case for insulation from autos, the tube, and increased business effort make sense, and I have no problem with that.

Bowling for Columbine: Fear Factory

Nevertheless, Putnam misses a factor that looms large, at least in the way I see my generation interacting compared to my parents and grandparents. It's the deliberate introduction of fear by societal leaders and media. Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine, looks a different way. After all, murders are down since 1980, not only on a per capita basis (according to my World Almanac 2000, 10.2 per 100,000 in 1980, 7.4 in 1996), but also on an absolute basis (23,040 to 19,650). Two minutes of research does wonders.

So why do we feel so unsafe? And more interestingly, why, according to the Department of Justice figures, are over one-half percent of American adults in jail, a rate roughly on par with South Africa and Russia? Mr. Moore presents some ideas of the culture, like the fact that reporting on violence is up by a factor of several times. Yet he fails to provide a definite thesis on the subject, or why Canadian gun ownership is also quite high yet gun murders are less than 1 per 100,000, and lots of people leave their doors unlocked. It's not the place here to critique the movie, as lots of others have and will. Just a thought.

Don't Talk to Strangers

For those of us under 35 or so, how many times did we hear those words? Don't take candy from strangers, because two people in Arkansas slipped razor blades inside. Don't talk to strangers, because some small number of kids got kidnapped, and like the Limbergh baby and Adam Walsh, strewn all over media for months or years. Cancel all activity for millions of people across a region because of one sniper. So, despite rumors of Gen X's rebellious nature, we don't. In my opinion, the harm to society has been greater than the benefit.

I don't often speak of my parents or grandparents as illuminating any point, yet in this case it's true. When we go somewhere together, the difference between how they treat strangers in common situations, and how I do, is vast. My grandparents will talk in elevators, even to people they don't know. I'm not suggesting a discourse on Kant and the critique of pure reason, but at least a couple sentences on the weather or the news of the day. People of their generation will talk back. My parents, particularly my dad, will exchange greetings. People my age are silent. It's almost shrinking.

But we retreat. Houses lose their porches and balconies, but expand the amount of enclosed space. Twentysomethings create places like Friendster to try to eliminate the stranger, and rush headlong into assumed friendships. Streets empty, with regulations against standing and wearing certain clothes and driving around. Even inside cities like Chicago, big walled communities surge into being. When come the watchtowers?

Putnam, Robert D. Bowling Alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000. ISBN 0684832836. It's well worth reading.

Written August 2003.