Summary
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.
Civic engagement, overall, is on the decline according to Putnam (informal activities in particular, however, are ones that Americans, on average engage in more often). This decline applies to cities because of certain urban characteristics. The city, because of our division of labour, increases our tendency to drop out of community affairs because of busyness. Also, the city's neighbourhoods do not promote togetherness or a distinct "we" feeling because of a city's sheer population to the point that we actually come to view it as a city of strangers (too many to bother making friends with), unlike in the country where your next neighbour will likely be someone you will feel closer to because of time spent together and having no alternative option to socialize with many other people. Also, electronic entertainment (especially TV watching) gives us less incentive to socialize with our neighbours. In sum, these are just some ways his arguments apply to a city.
What this all boils down to is a decline in social capital. Social capital is the investment put into having a social bond with other people (formally or informally), much like money.
Nevertheless, Goldberger states, “It is the fact that even when the phone does not ring at all, and is being used quietly and discreetly, it renders a public place less public” (558). With this, the youth of American society, when placed in a party with strangers, may express sentiments of shyness or awkwardness. Likewise, instead of socializing, several individuals may use their phone as a way to escape. It is this escape route that makes these “socially awkward” events or places less public; the younger generations are in their own world when they use their cell phone instead of socializing or becoming familiar with the scenery. Thus, progress has mainly caused the youth of American society to become less sociable and tend towards awkwardness; multitudes of individuals today have trouble associating with strangers at a party or how to properly communicate with an employer for a job. Although technology may seem beneficial and heading towards an era full of advancements, looks can be deceiving, and several individuals have been fooled by its false
The most noticeable is Putnam’s use of personal stories and statistical data. He organizes the chapters by introducing the idea of the chapter, then delving into two different stories, one upper class and one lower class, to bring real, relatable people in to support his claims. After getting his reader’s attention with interesting stories, he then delves into the statistical data, including percentages, bar graphs, scissor graphs, and scatter plots, all of them reinforcing issues brought to attention through the personal stories. This organization and differing types of support tap into the reader’s emotions and logical awareness, likely effectively persuading many readers in his favor. Another strength is in chapter six, where Putnam give suggested solutions to the problems he has presented. He gives many diverse suggestions, individually giving answers to how to fix the problems presented in each other the chapters. His list give courses of action for improving family life, parenting, schooling, and communities for lower class people. Putnam is thorough and detailed, satisfying his reader’s concern for how to mend the opportunity gap caused by class
Dalton begins by asking what a good citizen is. He doesn’t give an outright answer of what he thinks a good citizen is, but allows the reader to decide for themselves. Those in political and academic worlds contend that too few in the younger generation are voting and are the primary source of decline. They volunteer, but are disengaged from politics. Dalton disputes this by saying they may not be turning out to vote in high numbers, but are participating in other ways such as volunteering, demonstrating, and protesting, and calls these the new norms of citizenship.
Geographic location is also an aspect of community according to Roger Guy. It facilitated community and provided security for those unfamiliar with the city, but as with the
Putnam, Robert D. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000
Putnam, Robert (2000) Bowling Alone. The Collapse and Revival of American Social Capital, Simon and Schuster, New York.
Readers are persuaded to get to know their neighbors because of how Lovenheim describes the joy of forming a bond with neighbors. He points out that people have become fragmented by ethnicity and status quo as a society. They have isolated themselves from each other by dividing themselves with an invisible line. Neighbors living a few doors down from each other don’t know their neighbor’s names. Lovenhem cited a study from Robert Putman’s book “Bowling Alone,” that the decline began 20 years earlier, and that neighborhoods are less than half as strong as they were in
In the past 20 plus years the world has encountered many changes. One of the biggest changes has to be the world of media. Magazines, T.V.s, cameras, radios, computers, cell phones, and many more kinds of technology, that are used as media outlets, have transformed and been created. Perhaps two of the biggest transformations have been the creation of magazines and eventually social media websites. Magazines have gone from being paperback to digital then social media networks came into play. With these new transformations in media people have changed with them. Perhaps trying to fit in with what they see being portrayed or trying not to get left behind in society. Whatever the case may be people have begun to change for, what seems like, good and bad. Today there are hundreds of social media websites including: blogs, dating sites, social networks, media sharing, and social news. There are also thousands of magazines circulating including: music, beauty, health, and many other kinds. In modern time these instruments have been utilized in ways that can be detrimental and instrumental in many ways to many people.
Atrophy, the gradual decline in effectiveness due to lack of use, is the word that sociologist D. Stanley Eitzen uses to describe the fate of social life in the world today. By saying this, Eitzen argues that social life is slowly disintegrating due to many different factors that lead to a lack of social interaction. Using many different statistics and examples, Eitzen makes a convincing case proving that this conclusion is correct and the atrophy of social life is a legitimate problem that the world is currently facing.
Very few people would want to live in a place where they don’t have security. Whether it be in cities or subdivisions, Jacobs, if alive, would ascertain that there needs to be a sense of connectedness to maintain communal safety. Public living “bring[s] together people who do not know each other in an intimate, private social fashion and in most cases do not care to know each other in that fashion” (Jacobs 55). Now that families typically center themselves around suburban lifestyles, residents should understand that the same connections that Jacobs says were to be made in cities need to now be made in subdivisions. Jacobs was scared that with houses being spread out in the suburbs, little interaction between neighbors would take place. In order to avoid this, neighborhoods need to promote a sidewalk lifestyle that they currently do not (Jacobs 70). With Kotkin stressing how urban areas are no longer preferable places to raise a family, saying only seven percent of their populations are children, he lacks compassion for the transients that now inhabit cities. Undoubtedly, those who now inhabit the city should also feel safe in their environments. Nowadays, members of a city isolate themselves from interactions with other citizens making it difficult to establish a social
Many people walk and don’t even look up anymore. Riding the bus today has become a very silent ride. You have people listening to music, checking emails, statuses, and other social network sites. You can’t even get a simple hello or how are you doing like the old days. Even in classrooms students can’t put away their phones .
Putnam concluded that the communities with "higher diversity" also experienced "lower social capital" (Jonas,18). Putnam explains that the more diverse a community is the less trusting and involved are its members. This distrust in people is rooted in the concentration on the idea that has been repeated since childhood that focused on what makes people different. Jonas makes the point that in Putnam’s study the seemed to be no connection between distrust
you can hardly be socialable anymore, and how are you supposed to meet people if you
Generally speaking, life in the city is more hectic and clamorous. While a vast majority of Americans pack themselves into our major cities, there are still millions who live outside of the cities. Certainly, there are a lot more activities in the city: shopping malls and restaurants galore, thrift stores, libraries, and concert...
..., Robert D. Putnam’s theory that civic culture is enough to sustain democracy is not accurate because situations like the backsliding of Weimar Germany away from democracy can happen even with the presence of a high civic culture. Instead of focusing on improving the numbers of people that a part of associational memberships, read newspapers and other media outlets, the number of people that turnout for national elections and the amount of informed voters there needs to be a focus on improving the quality of Civic Participation. There needs to focus on eliminating polarized cleavages within society and eliminating media bias in favor of bipartisan coverage in order to achieve the ‘right’ civic participation. There also needs to be a stable economy where people are not worried about not