Bowling Alone: The Collapse And Revival Of American Community, by Robert D. Putnam

This book is one that has been viewed as a classic work of sociology, but it ends up being a mixed bag, even (especially) with recent additions to bring the author’s conclusions and observations up to date with the Coronavirus disaster. Where this book succeeds is in providing a statistically sound examination of how it is that America’s society has largely fallen apart in terms of most of its cooperation. The author is clearly skilled (and accurate) in discussing what has gone wrong with American society. A lot has gone wrong over the course of the last 60 years with regards to the unity of the United States and its culture, and the author has lots of graphs that demonstrate how this has taken place and also what reasons are most to blame for what has gone wrong, at least as of the 1990s (hint: the author blames television as being most likely the biggest factor to blame). While this sort of downbeat reading is not the most optimistic or happy sort of reading, it is definitely the stronger aspect of the book. Where the book is at its weakest is at suggesting solutions for the divided state of the United States, and here it is the author’s politics that, perhaps predictably, serves as the real problem.

It is the politics of this book that perhaps deserve a great deal more discussion than they receive in the book. The author finds, perhaps unsurprisingly, that the most cohesive groups within society are joined by shared frequent in-person religious identities, and yet it is these people that are the only people whose unity is insulted or viewed negatively by the author in his discussion about the desirability of both tolerance of corruption, decadence, and evil and high social cohesion together, something which does not appear to be on offer. Likewise, the author comments from time to time snipping about misinformation and conspiracy theories, but unfortunately for the author, the theories the author chooses to pillory happen to be both true and also highly slanted against those whose political beliefs are right-of-center. Indeed, it appears that the combination of passive forms of entertainment and the breakdown of the uniparty with genuine opposition on the right (and later, on the left), the social cohesion of the United States has declined to the point where people cannot often bear to be around each other because of our deep disagreements. That the author, himself a left-of-center thinker, cannot think of how the broken pieces of America’s republic are to be put together peacefully, is not surprising at all considering he does not view national repentance and coming to God as an option.

In terms of its contents, this book is almost 500 pages with vie parts, 24 chapters, and three appendices. The book begins with a preface. After this the whole first part of the book, consisting of one chapter, serves as an introduction to the work as a whole and the author’s thinking about social change in the United States (I, 1). The second part of the book discusses trends in civic engagement and social capital (II), with chapters on political participation (2), civic participation (3), religious participation (4), connections in the workplace (5), informal social connections (6), altruism, volunteering, and philanthropy (7), reciprocity, honesty, and trust (8), and the rise of small groups and internet-driven social movements (9). The third part of the book then examines the question as to why social cohesion declined so dramatically over the course of the last 50 to 70 years, with chapters on an introduction to the problem (10), pressures of time and money (11), mobility and sprawl (12), technology and mass media (13), which the author blames in large part, the changes from generation to generation (14), which the author also blames, and a chapter that sums up the author’s thoughts (15) on the reasons why social cohesion has collapsed. The next section of the book then tackles why it matters (IV), with chapters on introducing the matter (16), education and children’s welfare (17), safe and productive neighborhoods (18), economic prosperity (19), health and happiness (20), democracy (21), and some thoughts about the supposed “dark side” of social capital in its hostility to those who do not follow societal standards (22). The main part of the book ends with a short section on what is to be done (V), with chapters on the lessons of history during the previous period when cohesion declined during the gilded age and rose during the so-called Progressive era (23), and also included a rather weak suggestion for an agenda for social capitalism (24). After this there is a discussion of how the internet has (not) reversed the decline of social capital, and three appendices that discuss how social change is to be measured (i), sources for figures and tables (ii), and the rise and fall of civic and professional associations (iii). the book ends with notes, the story behind this book, and an index.