Bowling Alone America's Declining Social Capital Summary

The period between Reconstruction and World War I was a time of tremendous social, economic, and cultural change in the United States. The end of the Civil War, the shrinking of the frontier, the rise of immigration, and the rapid growth of industry that characterized this time period brought many issues of race, class, and status to the forefront of politics. Many different opinions came to light about what it means to be an American and the dynamic between the American individual and American society. The differing answers to these questions created both divisions and unifications between different races, classes, and political parties. Through careful analysis of historical documents from the period, it is evident that society owes all individuals basic civil rights and the ability to make a living through harnessing their skills in the workplace. Conversely, the individual owes society work that benefits society as a whole and participation in government through suffrage.

In the 2001 article “One Nation, Slightly Divisible”, David Brooks argues that the United States is not a divided nation, but rather a “cafeteria nation”, composed of different cliques of people with similar views. Brooks acknowledges the various theories created to explain why America is divided. Although some, more-so liberals, may believe that vast financial differences between the different socioeconomic classes make way for this divide, others, especially conservatives, insinuate that America is divided between two “moral” systems. This second theory argues that Red America adheres to its traditional, religious, and self-disciplined views, while Blue America reflects more modern, secular, and self-expressive views. In more rural areas,

Social issues have lingered in the shadows of American history since the day that our

People have to take a stance against larger issues regardless if they have an “interest” in politics. After Mueller comes a different author, Paul Rogat Loeb and The Active Citizen. Paul’s work represents the opposite ideal of Mueller. He talks about how more people need to be involved, and why there aren’t more already involved. He offers an explanation to this anomaly with Learned Helplessness, a condition in which a person suffers from a sense of powerlessness, arising from a persistent failure to succeed. Loeb argues that this is from American culture persistently putting down ideas and making citizens doubt themselves and their ideas particularly relating to politics and I agree. There are so many great thinkers that are demoralized by the idea that what they have to say is not true and I don’t think society should be that way. People’s economic circumstances also play a role into both author’s philosophies. If someone is born into a poorer community then they are going to have less options to read about news or watch things on TV, or even have enough time to keep up with politics because of working two or three jobs. When Mueller says people aren’t involved in politics because they are not interested he’s not telling the whole truth. The economic divide is also prominent in the portrayal and interests in

In Charles Murray’s journals he examines the changing American landscape and how it evolves from 1960 to 2010. He looks at marriage, honesty, industriousness, religion, and crime. The first journal to examines is titled “Belmont and Fishtown— On diverging classes in the United States”. He begins the journal talking about American exceptionalism and many different qualities that make up Americans. American exceptionalism is the idea that americans are exceptional. More specifically it is the idea that the way of American life is exceptional when compared to others around the world. He describes Americans has a group of hard working people always striving for something better. He talks about American neighborliness. He talks about how generosity

There is a fine line between what American society looked like during World War II and contemporary America. The dilemma is that society has gone from patriotism and a fight for liberty to “everyone walking around with a chip on his or her shoulder” (Carr 2). This two distinct differences on America culture and society is manifested in, Howie Carr’s “Take $2000 and Call Me in the Morning” and Ronald Reagan’s speech, “The Boys of Point du Hoc”.

Verba and his co-authors examine the import of participation, both voting and non-voting, in our American society. According to their argument, the typical citizen activist “tend[s] to be drawn disproportionately from more advantaged groups–to be well-educated and well-heeled and to be White and male” (Verba et al., 1995: 231). Indeed, Verba et al. explore participation along both gender and racial lines and concludes that both women and minorities are comparatively less active than men, especially white men, who stand peerless both in terms of affiliation with a political organization, contributing to a campaign, contacting their Representatives, and more direct forms of participation like voting.

The Gilded Age, also known as American urbanization, led to many employment opportunities, advances in transportation and sanitation, which improved overall standard of living. All advancements that took place in The Gilded Age still effect American life today. The rapid development of the cities in the 19th century served as both a separation and togetherness factor in American political, economic and social life. Cities in the area created a wealthy cross-section of the world’s population, making the cities a diverse, metropolitan area, drawing a lot of attention to the social classes of the people surrounding. At the same time, cities drove people from completely different backgrounds to live and work together, creating unity. The never-ending inundation of immigrants from different countries including, Britain, Germany, and Mexico, created a diverse population united by sharing their determination for financial wealth, social oppression and the American Dream. As the 19th century came to an end, how did the explosion of civilization contradictorily make Americans more similar and more diverse simultaneously?

In “Bowling Alone”, Robert Putnam speaks primarily of America’s declining activity in civil society and social meetings. His arguments are backed with facts in statistics- he often lists membership levels in different organizations, and how they’ve declined in a number of years by (typically) a drastic percentage. One example in the civic society portion that stood out to me was actually quite short and minor. Putnam wrote that "the portion of who reply that they “trust the government in Washington” only “some of the time” or “almost never” has risen steadily from 30 percent in 1966 to 75 percent in 1992.”(Putnam, Robert D. “Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital.” Journal of Democracy, Jan. 1995, pp. 65–78.) This was a distinct moment in the article for me because in our society today, I feel as though this percentage has probably increased in our country, especially amongst the younger generation who has

Robert Putnam's basic thesis is that there is a decline in civic engagement in urban cities. He goes on to explore different probable factors that are causing the decline in civic engagement. First off, he dichotomizes civic engagement into two categories: machers and schmoozers. Machers and schmoozers are people who engage in formal kinds of civic engagement (following politics) and informal kinds of civic engagement (hanging out with friends) respectively.

I scored a 5 on the quiz which placed me right around civil activist. I was very intrigued by the articles, “Bowling Alone” and “Still bowling alone: The Post 9/11 Split” which discussed how the degree engagement in civil activities in the United States has greatly decreased (Putnam, 1995). After reading those articles and reflecting upon my score, I realized how although I engage in civil activities to a degree, I am not as active as I should be. I think that the points Putnam touch upon make a lot of sense and are in my opinion reflective of the changes in society that have occurred over the years such as dependence on technology and the common mindset that we should only worry about ourselves and things that affect us and our lives. I believe

Many scholars believe that falling civic organization membership and the general decline in our Social Capital has negatively impacted voter turnout.” (Kaufmann. 145) To summarize, people in the United States are “less involved” with other groups and other people as a whole, so it is only logical to feel they would be less involved or interest in our political and governmental future.

After the soaring ideals and tremendous sacrifices of the Civil War, the post-War era of the United States was generally one of political disillusionment. Even as the continent expanded and industrialized, political life in the Gilded Age was marked by ineptitude and stalemate as passive, rather than active, presidents merely served as figureheads to be manipulated rather than enduring strongholds. As politicians from both the White House to the courthouse were deeply entangled in corruption and scandal during the Gilded Age, the actual economic and social issues afflicting urbanizing America festered beneath the surface without being seriously addressed.

American civic participation has changed in the 20th century. The first way civic participation has changed is social liberation. Since the 1960s or so, exclusions on the basis of race and gender have been breached. In the past, women and ethnic minorities were not allowed to join organizations as members, so they joined partner organizations. However, some organizations were unable to cope with change after the Civil Rights Movement happened and ideals changed and lost membership. Another change is the decline in American patriotism. Skocpol writes, “Patriotism, brotherhood, and sacrifice were values celebrated by all fraternal groups, and military service was touted as the surest

10) This book is about the inevitable conflict between American Individualism and the fact that humans are by nature social. We hunger for relationship yet we want it only on our terms. Bellah and his team of reseachers take on the enormous task of interviewing people from all over the country and the results of these interviews are presented factually and then analyzed. Whether one agrees with the book's conclusions or not, the interviewees speak for themselves, and they speak for a majority of Americans today who are often torn by conflicting authoritative messages and motives from without and within. This book is a marvelous and sometimes unsettling mirror into contemporary American society.