Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, Robert D. Putnam: Touchstone Books, 2000. 541 pages.
“We can imagine that God was saying to Herself, I want to create a creature that I could talk to, but first, they got to create a creature that talks amongst themselves... and to know how to create a community...” were Ronald Heifetz’ words during a talk on adaptive leadership. Ronald A. Heifetz: Leadership, Adaptability, Thriving Bowling Alone revolves around the essence of what Heifetz imagined God might have said to Herself: connecting to build a community.
Bowling Alone differentiates between human capital and social capital by defining the former as “properties of individuals” and the latter as the “connections among individuals – social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them.” Rebecca Saxe a neuroscientist believes that the difference between animal and human brain cells lies in the network around which brain cells are organized, which determines the capacity of human brain to be creative and productive. In essence Saxe and Putnam say the same: productivity of a society, group of people or entire humanity depends on the network of roles around which every human, as the equivalent of a brain cell, is organized. For this reason, human capacity for creativity and productivity depends on the dynamics of the relationships humans develop with each other. This brings us back to the central argument that Bowling Alone makes about connectedness and the role of civic engagement in life. A society that has “many virtuous but isolated individuals” is paralyzed with regards to its capacity to produce with creativity.
His discussion of distinctions between bridging and bonding is equally engaging. While he identifies the advantages of both “dimensions along which forms of social capital may vary,” he places added emphasizes on bridging networks that have the capacity to broaden “identities and reciprocity,” thus being “inclusive” in nature, as compared to bonding networks which are “exclusive and may bolster our narrower selves.” A reflection of strong bonding networks are seen in attempts of political administrations of different countries in times of crisis, as means of creating “strong out-group antagonism” and stronger narrow exclusive networks. When Rabbani one of the Islamic radical leaders was killed earlier this year in Kabul, President Karzai took a 180 degree turn and accused Pakistan of meddling, a neighboring country suspected of the assassination plot and one that the President is considered to be having close ties with. His anti-Pakistan statement ensured that a strong in-group loyalty was created by virtue of which the pro-Rabbani opposition did not rise against him immediately after Rabbani’s assassination. He returned to his usual policy and addressed Pakistan as “our beloved brother country” in a matter of few weeks, thus successfully mending the temporary break up with Pakistan. Karzai made a well timed use of Putnam’s theory of bonding and bridging.
Bowling Alone is a work of creativity. Putnam has exercised leadership by writing this book. His analysis of space for creativity despite constraining boundaries is an act of leadership in itself. Putnam drives the readers into a search for creative space in just about everywhere. His proposition that emphasizes on the role of church in community development is one such instance. I find this intervention very creative since as a Muslim from Afghanistan, I see nothing in a religious institution such as mosque but a space for male practice of religion. The fact that most mosques in Afghanistan do not accommodate female worshippers renders them incapable of hosting community development initiatives. They serve as community-dividing institutions more than community-building institutions.
Another such instance is his call for creative community development at the work place despite the fact that our time there is not our own, but our employer’s. Putnam attempts at attracting attention towards the possibilities of social capital creation at the work place in addition to performing the job for which we get paid. And this is where the role of each individual as a leader comes in: to think and act creatively towards bringing an adaptive change in the culture of the workplace, in a way that it supports community building and social capital development initiatives. The same could be said about religious institutions, in particular where they segregate sexes and divide society.
The highlight of Bowling Alone is its proposition to travel less and spend more time with neighbors and friends. I connect to this proposition through my personal experience of being exposed to today’s American Community. I could not stay longer than 19 days on my first visit to the US. Yes, I missed my family, but what drove me out of this beautiful city was also my inability to connect to my landowner. She and I had been exchanging emails for almost a year by then, but she greeted me with a cold handshake, which was followed by handing me the keys to a totally unfurnished apartment with directions about nearby restaurants and grocery stores. She was all packed up for out of town travel for the weekend. I spent some of the ugliest nights of my life in that apartment for two weeks. I was beyond my tolerance level and out of my comfort zone. All I needed were added elements of a holding environment such as a warm hug, a cup of green tea and may be a plate of warm food after 48 hours of flight, not as a friend, but as a neighbor. At that moment I was too pre-occupied with my personal pain of being in the middle of nowhere and therefore did not realize the depth of the challenge that this community faces.
In the past two years, I have observed that people here don’t talk to each other. Everyone is busy with something, which they think is more important than talking to another human being whom they meet almost daily on the same bus. What they do instead is not relevant. The fact that they do not want to spend 10 minutes on building a community of bus-travelers is important. On my part, I have made an intentional effort to talk to the people that I get to meet almost daily on the 71 bus from Watertown to Harvard Square. And I have made bus-friends, people that I can rely on connecting with while I wait to reach my destination. No doubt, we all pursue different purposes in life. But on the way to our destination, we have plenty of time to build connections, to reach souls and to win hearts. Someone won my heart once. I was taken aback not by an American but a Brazilian social worker living off part time work at a local store and on a mission to help homeless find a home. We kept talking and once the last stop reached where I’d get off, I asked her if this was also her stop, the answer to which was, “no, my stop is left behind, I was listening to you, I’d just take the bus again.” I apologized to her, who said it was fine. But it moved me to tears to see a Brazilian missing her stop in order to listen to a stranger, while my own American neighbor didn’t want to share a hug and a cup of tea to greet me. What is in Brazilian culture or a religious social worker’s values that Americans must learn?
Bowling Alone is a call for increased participation and involvement in political, economic, social and cultural spheres of life. For this, he requires each individual to share the burden of responsibility, in addition to the role that government and people in positions of authority may play. Putnam wants Americans to address American society’s adaptive challenge through adaptive change, which can happen only if a mechanism based on greater involvement of people and government is adopted and if a clear understanding of the reality of the American community is developed. Putnam wants Americans to be there, more, but in person, not via technology. 10 years ago, his analysis of civic participation through joining mailing lists identified the negative effects of technology on real and “active involvement in face-to-face” connections. He is right. In some respects, civic participation for many is reduced to becoming “members” of different organizations without spending time and energy in being with those communities. I wonder how he feels to see that now an amplified reflection of his concerns can be observed through the highly virtual world of social connections, political movements and worldwide mobilization of youth for change via social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.
The fact that in less than 40 years, the world population will go from 7 billion to 9.2 billion, with a high proportion of youth concentrated in the world’s most impoverished and underdeveloped urban centers is scary. However, what Putnam did not predict was the possibility of real and “active involvement in face-to-face” mobilization for change in technology-driven civic participation. And this is what makes me hopeful: the ability of our times to render a political scientist like Putnam clueless of what future may hold for a world with the historical highest number of youth ever. I cannot resist but compare Putnam’s argument about the relationship between the age of a population and their tendency for civic involvement. He writes that American civic involvement of 1980s must be credited to the baby boom period. For the same reasons, I hope that the 19 out of 29 million population of Afghanistan who are below the age of 25, will bring increased levels of civic involvement for a nation which needs it the most, especially with the fatal threat of a doubled population in less than 40 years, even if it is via Facebook and Twitter.
Towards the end of the book, Putnam does what a real leader should do. He gives the work back to the people by inviting them to think about possible solutions. By beginning with “let us…” Putnam demonstrates commitment to the cause, but does not come up as a messiah. He urges people to come together in order to address the challenge. It is interesting to observe that hidden in his invitation is the solution to this adaptive challenge that the American community faces. By coming together to address the challenge of the collapse of the American community, the American people will actually address the challenge itself. His words call on the American people to join hands and find a solution. It is up to the American people to listen to the music beneath his words which basically calls them to simply come together, connect and build a community.