Robert D. Putnam '63, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, New York, Simon & Schuster, 2000
Robert
Putnam's new book has eagerly been awaited since 1995, when he first
coined his famous metaphor for civic disengagement. Remember the
black-and-white scenes in the movie Pleasantville, depicting a
bowling league of scared traditionalists? That was a sarcastic
allusion to Putnam's idea that America is more and more "bowling
alone." Putnam asserted that even though bowling remained popular,
bowling in leagues is disappearing, and a similar mutual
disengagement has occurred in almost every aspect of our social and
political life.
But despite the anticipatory buzz, Bowling Alone has received somewhat mixed, if generally respectful, reviews, even though Putnam has definitively documented his claim. The long wait for the book surely has something to do with this, for expectations could not have been higher. But there is more at work here. This is a book that delivers some bad news. Are the mixed reviews a case of healthy skepticism, or are they instead whistling past the graveyard?
Bowling Alone is overflowing with reams of fresh data, laboriously collected, analyzed, and presented. Putnam's handling of these data is assured and remarkably more sprightly than any other work of social science that presents this many new facts and numbers. But there is a ton of stuff here to digest.
In the aggregate, Putnam shows that by percentages and degrees--which are, in social-science terms, quite enormous--Americans have indeed stopped being as civic, philanthropic, religious, trustful, participatory, and sociable as they used to be. He is as good a social scientist as they come, so he checked everything there is to check. And the more he checked, the more he realized he was right.
Having proved his thesis with these data, Putnam then explores why this huge behavioral change has happened.
Many factors are at work. Increased freedom to travel, greater economic opportunity, and new forms of mass entertainment are all statistically associated with the overall change in behavior. Then there are the changes that have swept through the workplace, such as flextime, frequent job or career changes, unpaid white-collar overtime, and two-career families with adolescents in the workforce. There isn't a lot of time and energy left for being civic or even sociable and religious.
Suburbanization also plays a role because it promotes residential seclusion and involves a lot of commuting time. New communications technologies, particularly the spread of television, keep people sedentary and at home for long stretches of time.
Here some of his critics say, in effect, "Gee, you want to give all that up?" Repeatedly, however, Putnam politely notes that he is not yearning for times gone by. The real issue, he points out, is creatively responding to the impact of our changed circumstances, not getting rid of the circumstances themselves.
A subtler point often overlooked by critics is that some changes have had far more of an effect than others. Here Putnam gets to the part that is hardest to take: We're the problem. You and me--and just about everybody you and I know. Causally, the most important independent variable "explaining" behavioral change is generational change. Why we baby boomers and Generation Xers are different Putnam doesn't say. That would be a separate book, but there are many possibilities: prosperity, perhaps, or the completion of nation-building tasks, or the impact on character of consumerism.
The ultimate question is: Does it matter? What real price is there to pay for these changes in our habits? Has there ever been a time when America had it better? We're the richest country on earth; everyone in the world wants to move here; and if they can't move here, they want to watch the television shows and movies we make.
Or so the case against worrying too much about this book's message might go. The philosopher Alan Ryan, reviewing Putnam's book in The New York Review of Books, pointed out that such perceptions may explain why there has been less buzz about Bowling Alone than one might have expected. Ultimately, though, this book is going to have a great impact--and for a simple reason: It's superb social science. It is a towering achievement comparable with Gunnar Myrdal's An American Dilemma.
Such an extraordinary book could only come from an extraordinary person. It says a great deal about Putnam's self-discipline and the clarity of his insight and thought that, despite the extremely high expectations of his work, he did not dither in getting it out. As Paul Starr, the Princeton sociologist, pointed out in The New Republic, this book is itself an act of civic engagement. I like to think that Swarthmore had something to do with that. Learning political science at Swarthmore might have introduced Putnam to the idea of public service through social science. If so, he has finally brought that ethic to exemplary fruition.
--Rick Valelly '75
Professor of Political Science
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