Bowling Alone
Dear Bob--
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StumbleUponLet me kick off this exchange by congratulating you on having turned a Phrase--"bowling alone"--that has struck a chord with the American public, or at least with those of us among the upper-middle-class cognoscenti that purport to explicate the true meaning of this vast nation to its less-well-off and less-well-educated residents. Indeed, since the publication of your essay "Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital" in the January 1995 issue of the Journal of Democracy, the term has become widespread enough among our class that I feel no real need to define it or the phenomenon it seeks to describe.
This is no small or insignificant feat. Lord knows I've tried to do the same thing since joining the staff of Reason back in 1993 as an assistant editor and have only succeeded in the lamest, most unacknowledged ways. Back in 1998, for instance, in a column for the Webzine suck.com, I dubbed the 1990s "The Decade of the Penis." Despite the phrase's obvious relevance in describing a period that spanned Clarence Thomas' confirmation hearings, the rise of Howard Stern, and the presidency of Bill Clinton, it never really caught on (though a better-known Web site effectively certified my insight by running a remarkably similar piece on the "Decade of the Infamous Phallus" a few months later). Similarly, in a 1997 cover story for Reason, I used the admittedly clunky phrase, "the Buddhafication of American children" to describe baby boomers' absurdly overprotective attitudes toward their kids these days; I was pleased just this morning to read a syndicated columnist who proclaimed "the Buddhafication of children has become the new rock 'n roll for aging hipsters." Whether "bowling alone" will hold up over the long haul like, say, "the cultural contradictions of capitalism," or "the lonely crowd," is anyone's guess. But it's already created an extremely catchy way of talking about the perceived decline of civic and social life in contemporary America. I'm sure the book version of your argument will be warmly received by all the people who matter.
This is all the more impressive since your basic contention--that Americans are more socially isolated and disconnected than ever before--is extremely dubious on its face (we may be closer in agreement on the related issue of whether "social capital" is a prerequisite for a happy and satisfied life). Your book of course marshals all sorts of impressive data on absolute and/or relative membership declines in all sorts of official groups--ranging from political parties to labor unions to the PTA to the Masons to the Women's Christian Temperance Union--to support your argument. But your stats are pretty effectively countered by those offered up in Everett Carll Ladd's The Ladd Report (Free Press, 1999). Ladd, executive director and president of the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research at UConn, argues persuasively that when one looks beyond traditional markers of public activity and peers into newer forms of community life, "the country's civic life isn't declining, but rather ... transforming itself to meet modern conditions without losing positive energy." Maybe it's not so bad, after all, that the Temperance Union is having trouble getting any new blood these days--especially if the slack is being picked up by newer groups, both formal and informal, that bring value and meaning to people's lives. Ladd makes an especially good case that this is precisely what is happening in all sorts of ways. His argument rings truer for me partly because of personal experience: Though I officially belong to very few organizations, I'm at no loss for social connections and interactions, both related to work and home. On paper, I may appear "alone," but if anything I have more social commitments--both deep and shallow--than I can handle.
I'm sure you can muster more data to disprove Ladd's contention (and I'm almost certain you will). But I'm equally confident that you'll agree that these grand-scale debates are rarely settled simply by appeals to numbers and statistics (which isn't to say they aren't important). There's a certain amount of internal logic to these sorts of arguments that's worth examining, if only because such debates are ultimately fought on symbolic grounds.
Although you explicitly eschew "the declensionist tradition," which holds that "community bonds have weakened steadily through our history," your book is clearly in that mold: "The ebbing of community over the last several decades has been silent and deceptive. We notice its effects in the strained interstices of our private lives and in the degradation of our public life," you write in a chapter titled, "Toward an Agenda for Social Capitalists." But earlier on in the book, you note that "a society characterized by a generalized reciprocity is more efficient than a distrustful one. ... Trustworthiness lubricates social life."
You argue that since around 1960, American society has effectively pissed away its store of social capital, its surplus of reciprocity and trust. My question for you, then, is: What do you make of the generalized massive increases in wealth and education over the past several decades? In 1960, according to Census data, 41 percent of all adults over the age of 25 had earned a high-school diploma; in 1998, that figure had jacked up to 83 percent. Even more amazing are the college figures: 7.7 percent of American adults in 1960 had BAs or better; the equivalent figure today is 24 percent (and about two-thirds of graduating high-school seniors are now going on to college). The Census also finds that about 67 percent of Americans own their own homes, the highest figure ever; 90 percent of households own cars. Other generally accepted metrics of well-being--crime, teen-age pregnancy rates, poverty--have been heading down over the past several years. Despite scare stories to the contrary, economic mobility appears to be doing pretty well, with most individuals sliding up the income scale substantially over time (this is reflected in those home- and car-ownership rates, among others things). How could any of this be happening if what you're talking about is true? Doesn't your social capital theory hold that the opposite should be happening--that as our communal ties fray, our economic conditions should too?
Let me ask another, related question. There's a clear trend to the 40 charts in Appendix III of your book, "The Rise and Fall of Civic and Professional Associations": Virtually all of the memberships grow until maybe 1960 and then hit the skids (for good, apparently). Yet who among us would rather be living in 1960--much less 1950--than today? Although these are certainly good times for the vast, overwhelming majority of (though not all) Americans, the current times are by no means perfect. Still, there's no question that, overall, it's easier to be who you are--either as an individual or a member of a group: You're likely to have more options for work, for partners, for living arrangement. If such progress has come at the expense of the measures you use to tally civic involvement, who really wants to complain that the social register is a bit short at the end of night?
Nick
This week, Nick Gillespie grills Robert Putnam on his book Bowling Alone (click here to read the first chapter of the book, and click here to buy it). Gillespie is the editor of Reason and a frequent contributor to the Web site suck.com, where he writes under the name Mr. Mxyzptlk. Robert Putnam is a professor of public policy at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. 
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Reader Response from The Fray--to be read after the final entry:
It seems to me that income inequality is the elephant in the middle of the room that nobody's talking about here. Mr Putnam's findings that social capital multiplied until about 1970 and has dwindled since at least coincides in time with the pattern of income inequality, which dropped steadily until the 1973 oil-crisis and has risen every year since then. Dr Richard Wilkinson, an English epidemiologist, has written a very provocative book called Unhealthy Societies which suggests that the reason public health suffers as income inequality increases is that more unequal societies are less socially cohesive than more equal ones. The fine points of his argument are too involved to go into here, but Dr Wilkinson's basic reasoning is definitely intuitively plausible: He figures that in relatively unequal societies where people live at similar standards of living, it's far easier for them to identify with one another, to trust each other and to come together in civic groups. The more unequal the society, the more difficult it is for people to really identify with one another's daily lives, and the less likely they are to come together socially.
--F.Toro
(To reply, click here.)
The author replies: Excellent question, Francisco! I discuss the links between social capital and income inequality at length in Bowling Alone. There is a strong positive correlation across American states, across countries in the world, and (as you point out) across time in the U.S. between equality and social capital. No one yet knows which way the causal arrow runs, but most researchers now think it runs both ways. It's easier to connect in a society with smaller cleavages, but better connections also encourage policies that narrow cleavages. Interestingly, Richard Wilkinson himself has written very nice things about my work, saying that social capital is a key part of the story about inequality. On the health effects, the best work so far (not including my own work) suggests that the correlation between health and inequality is, in fact, mostly explained by differences in social capital.
As a political matter, the social capital agenda and the social justice agenda are complementary, not competitive. Both injustice and disengagement badly need to be fixed, and fixing one will help fix the other.
--Bob Putnam
(To reply, click here.)
Bob Putnam appears to believe that relationships premised upon proximity are stronger. This is only half-true and ignores that fact that many people in the past lived lives of quiet desperation. You were often stuck in destructive and eviscerating relationships because it was very difficult to travel regularly more than a few miles away from your front door. Modern communications and traveling dramatically increase the odds that we will find relationships more enriching and sustainable. It is not that Putnam's body of work is totally wrong, but I am convinced that the good far outweighs the bad if we barely say hi to our next-door neighbors. Our everyday relationships should be primarily premised upon having something in common with the other person. I will also reiterate what I have said previously: the clock will not be turned back! It would behoove us to instead focus upon enriching our standard relationships while reminding ourselves not to overlook those individuals within our immediate physical environment.
--David Thomson
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(6/20)
Mr Gillespie, after ranting about how much richer Americans are, criticizes Mr Putnam's book as follows:
This is a classic example of burning a straw man. Gillespie attributes an argument to Putnam that Putnam did not make (otherwise Gillespie would have quoted it) and then rebuts the argument. Putnam's view is that Americans suffer from isolation and emotional poverty--not that they suffer from economic poverty. Thus, Gillespie's assertion that we are all materially better off is utterly beside the point. The Bible asks whether it matters if a man gains the whole world if he loses his soul (loosely paraphrased); even 2000 years ago, people were aware that one could be materially wealthy and spiritually poor. Why can't Gillespie see something so obvious?
--Michael Lewyn
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My mother has a card club of couples she's gathered to eat, drink and play with for about 20 years. They've been through two couples' divorces, one remarriage, kids w/drug problems, kids with chronic illnesses, people moving, etc. They are a tight community. I want to find that where I live, but nothing seems to be gelling. Maybe I have to wait until I have kids and then other parents will become our friends, but I don't think it will be easy to find a group like my mom has. Just some thoughts. I agree the informal and formal social networks are dissipating. People have too many cell phones, houses that don't face the street, no front porches and too many commitments.
--AM
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How about email, and this message board itself. People are forming communities and gathering socially in different ways than they did before. It is not necessary for people to meet face to face in order to share ideas, converse or be political. All these things are happening now in non-traditional ways. A study that purports to measure social capital must take into account the new ways in which people are communicating with each other and forming social bonds or its results cannot be considered valid.
--Trev
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To Trev: Thanks for your insights. I agree completely that it would be irresponsible in 2000 to write a book about social connections that ignored the Internet. I didn't. When you have a chance to check out Bowling Alone, you'll see that I devoted the better part of a chapter to reviewing dozens of studies on cmc ("computer-mediated communication"), on-line communities, and the like. Frankly, the empirical evidence is mixed, and I'm ambivalent, so you may not agree with what I write. But I certainly don't ignore the topic. Here in synthesis is my take on the issue:
(1)The Internet had nothing to do with the downturn in social involvement. The evidence clearly shows that the downturn was underway before Mark Andreessen was born.
(2) Some research shows Internet usage associated with more social interaction, some with less. It's much too soon in the process to be sure whether the Internet will turn out to be a nifty telephone (helpful to social connection) or a nifty TV (unhelpful). Predictions at a comparable stage of the evolution of the telephone turned out to be mostly off the mark, so we need to be modest about our own wisdom.
(3) Technology is not a force beyond our control. We have it in our power to develop and use the new tools of electronic communication to strengthen old bonds and make new ones. We need to be about that task with gusto.
--Bob Putnam
(To reply, click here.)
The very freedom that the Internet provides to form communities based on interests, identities, and just about anything else we can dream up, is part of the problem when it comes to the death-of-local-community ties. I am certainly not going to argue that Internet communities are somehow lesser than other types because of the medium they use. I will point out though, that they don't foster involvement with local institutions, and their ability to support their members begins and ends with advice/encouragement. You can't really expect your friend from Yahoo clubs to travel halfway across the country to watch your kids when you are sick.
--Reality Check
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(6/15)