ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, January 9, 1997 TAG: 9701100025
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
REMEMBER "Bowling Alone"?
That's the essay, subtitled "America's Declining Social Capital," that made a splash a couple of years ago with its argument that American civic life was in serious trouble. The essay's title refers to one of many statistical examples - the drop in Americans' participation in bowling leagues - used by author Robert Putnam to support his thesis that Americans for several decades have been isolating themselves from the communities around them.
But now, it turns out, Putnam is bullish on America. According to an article recently in The Christian Science Monitor, the Harvard University professor believes the pendulum is about to swing in the other direction, toward greater civic involvement and volunteerism.
The analysis has become commonplace, made popular by Alvin Toffler and others, that the world (including America) is undergoing a socio-economic revolution, from an industrial to an information-based society, akin to the 19th-century shift from an agricultural to an industrial society.
To that analysis, Putnam adds this point. By the end of the 19th century, when the industrial revolution was well in place, so were the major institutions of American civic life - the Boy Scouts, the Urban League, the Red Cross - created to deal with the effects of that revolution, to restore the "social capital" lost or made obsolete by the revolution.
Similarly, at the end of the 20th century, as America partakes of the information revolution, so will arise the new or modified community structures created for the social needs of the new era.
Thus, in Putnam's view, the country will see a revival of volunteerism, of civic involvement, of interest in community affairs.
In rebuttal, the many difficulties tending to constrain civic activity - headed by (1) the pervasive influence of television screens and video entertainment and (2) the decline of the family and, even when families are intact, the pressures on time and energy exerted by the frequent economic necessity that both parents earn income - could be noted.
Even so, Putnam may well be on to something. That's because, although circumstances and external forms might change, connection to community appears to be a fundamental human need, and especially so in times of deep and rapid change.
LENGTH: Short : 46 linesby CNB