Bowling
Alone:
The
Collapse
and Revival
of
American Community
by
Robert D. Putnam
(Simon & Schuster
2000; 414 pps.)
 |
In the summer of 1964, that last golden moment between the President’s assassination and the Vietnam War, Americans were going bowling. The time-consuming exercise of setting bowling pins by hand had been revolutionized by the introduction of automatic pin-spotting machines, and people all over America were thronging to the lanes, enrolling in bowling leagues and competitions.
Today, more Americans are bowling than ever before, but at the same time, attendance in bowling leagues has declined precipitously. For one reason or another, rather than investing time and energy in organized activity, people are going to the lanes and bowling by themselves.
In his new book, Bowling Alone, Harvard University’s Robert Putnam reports that over the last three decades, Americans have been withdrawing from each other, dropping out of bowling leagues and the PTA, the Elks, the League of Women Voters, Red Cross, Boy Scouts, even church organizations. As Putnam remarks, "Every year over the last decade or two, millions more have withdrawn from the affairs of their communities." When I think of America today I think of bowling alleys populated by individuals who are going their lonely ways, seeking pleasure and diversion in isolation.
There is a persistent tendency among humans to hark back to the past, to imagine that things were better "back when" then they are now. In our own case, that feeling isn’t as misleading as one might think. Over the last three decades, we Americans have lost much of the social glue that binds us together. Putnam’s book is a guide to understanding this monumental change, a broad and carefully crafted look at a society in crisis.
"Bowling Alone" is only slightly more slender than a phone book, and it requires the reader to deal with the kind of graphs usually found in sociology journals. But Putnam is an unusual scholar–he writes readable, even fascinating prose. For those willing to undertake the journey, there’s a fascinating picture here of a sort of cultural desertification, a withering-away of the ties that bind.
Consider card-playing, for example. For the generation that survived the Depression and fought World War II, regular get-togethers to play cards were a staple of evening entertainment. Card playing is an example of what Putnam calls informal social connections–occasions for building friendships, sharing of news and experience, and strengthening the connections of family, friendship, and community. But the frequency of card-playing gatherings has declined by 50% since 1975.
It’s not just card-playing, either. Participation in league bowling, to take our first example, is down more than 70%. Union membership has declined by more than 50% since 1960. So has membership in the PTA, and there are similar declines in a large proportion of other formal organizations and informal activities. And the decline in connections isn’t concentrated by class or race or sex or any other meaningful variation–it cuts across all boundaries, all age groups, all nationalities. American civil culture is curling up and turning brown at the edges, practically unnoticed by critics, activists, or government.
Why is this happening? The greatest strength of "Bowling Alone" is its careful interpretation of the facts, drawing conclusions from rigorous comparisons rather than guesswork and intuition. For example, Putnam shows that the movement of women from the home into the workplace, often blamed for a large proportion of social ills, has actually had a quite modest effect. Television, on the other hand, has been herbicide on the lawn of society, while its critics are dismissed as counterculture wierdos. And there are plenty of other surprises in "Bowling Alone", unexpected correlations that make the degenerative changes in society both comprehensible and scary.
Putnam’s book traces the root causes of social change surprisingly far, and so it’s rather disappointing that "Bowling Alone" doesn’t achieve a truly deep understanding. The discussion stops with elements that can be demonstrated with statistics; it never goes deeper, into psychology and values. Putnam’s recommendations for reform therefore seem weak, treatments for symptoms of the disease, rather than cultural antibiotics that might lead to a cure.
Nevertheless, for those who wish to understand our American society, "Bowling Alone" will be essential. Putnam’s breadth of vision, his scholarship, and his ability to make complex issues comprehensible have led to an important book, one that will be influential for years to come.
Bruce Anderson is a writer and columnist. He is a frequent contributor to HopeDance. E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
