A better choice for the abortive TohuBohu book club would have been Better Together: Restoring the American Community, by Robert D. Putnam and Lewis M. Feldstein, with Don Cohen (the latter, I’m guessing, actually wrote most of the words in the book). Bob Putnam, of course, is the social capital guy, the Bowling Alone guy, the Strange Disappearance of Civic America guy (how did the Meaning of Swarthmore miss him?). The project that produced this book is an attempt to use the social capital concept actively; they research and describe a dozen instances of people and organizations acting in ways to increase social capital, and then using that capital. Each chapter is different, and each has problems of its own.
As a quick primer for those Gentle Readers who aren’t hip to the Putnam thang, social capital is the term for social networks, and for the effects of those networks, particularly the reciprocal norms that people who know each other engage in. The classic illustration is the commons; if everybody knows each other, they can work together to maintain common grazing ground, reciprocally benefiting each other and therefore the community. If people don’t know each other to talk to, it will be a lot harder to arrange a grazing schedule, resolve apparent conflicts, and maintain the commons long-term.
The thing is, since we have a certain nostalgia about things like that, it’s easy to lose track of the point. Yes, social networks are, you know, nice and all, but the point of the argument is that there are certain fairly specific benefits that come from them. One of the problems for which Mr. Putnam isn’t to blame is that people use his research to simply bemoan the State of Things, as if it prima facie matters whether people bowl with their families or in leagues. Your Humble Blogger, as it happens, would prefer to bowl alone, and by alone I mean really alone, just me buying an hour on a lane and keeping score against my previous efforts. So what?
According to Mr. Putnam, so what is that a group of people who are used to going to bowling league once a week are likelier to do non-bowling-related favors for each other, from pet-sitting to paying (through taxes) for each others’ streetlights and schools. It makes sense, and then also he and his ilk have done a lot of research to back that up. And, of course, Ben Azzai says that doing one minor mitvah leads to a habit of doing mitzvahs. Of course, one transgression leads to another as well; social capital is not all good, as witness the effective networks of, say, the KKK not so many years ago, or the militia movement more recently. So when looking at a particular group of people, the point is not only ‘does social capital exist’ but ‘is it being used’ and ‘what is it being used for’. In addition, when looking at a few groups chosen particularly for their efforts to create and use social capital, it might help to look at others that have either tried and failed, or ignored it altogether.
This book appears to be intended as a guide, more or less, to, well, it isn’t clear. To creating social capital? To using it? To adapting your current plans to include social capital? To improving things, anyway. I don’t think it works well for that, in case it wasn’t clear. There are lessons, some of which are old favorites (if you are trying to organize for big change, attempt a little change first and achieve it; it will give you momentum and make organizing much easier) and some of which are new to me at least (ten volunteers at one school are better than two each at five, largely because of the opportunity for social networking). On the whole, though, the lessons learned are not unlike the goofy 150 ways to build social capital the website lists. Yes, we know it would be a better world if we got to know our children’s teachers, called up old friends, and volunteered for Meals-on-Wheels. Yep, we know that. If that’s the level of advice you can give, just call the book “Snap out of it, America!” and be done with it.
Still, there’s a lot in here that bears discussion. Shall I go on?
,
-Vardibidian.
I’ll sign up for this book club. Is the book out in paper?
The broad subject matter sounds like it would relate to the “broken public discourse” topic that the smart kids over at Special Agency have been grappling with, too. Maybe it could be a joint venture? Or is “Better Together” more interested in partisan communities than cross-ideology communication?
I’m interested via left-handed wuffie, as it were: I thought that Richard Flordia’s Rise of the Creative Class was interesting and well-thought-out, and in that book Florida does a pretty deft job of deflating the ain’t-it-awful aspect of Bowling Alone. Differences of interpretation notwithstanding, Florida obviously considers Putnam an important source for community studies.
There is a softcover available for around $15, and Bookfinder seems to show a couple of used copies for around $5. Shall we say the Intro and Chapter One for August 1? That will give you (and anybody else who wants to get in on this) time to get hold of a copy and read that far. Then maybe a chapter a week through August September and October?
Please let me know if you’d rather do this via email or on the site; there are advantages to either.
Thanks,
-V.
Hmmm. I should be able to manage that.
I’d say that on the site is much better.