"Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital"
Bonus:
As the summary above notes, the basic idea of the book is that, after peaking somewhere around the mid twentieth century (depending on what exact activity you're measuring) Americans are less engaged in doing things together. Something that I think Putnam kind of buries the lede on is that active "doing."
His focus is mostly on groups that have an expectation of active participation. Volunteering, playing a sport, etc. Just mailing in a check and maybe flipping through the magazine (ala a lot of charity clubs) is "more like the bond between any two Red Sox fans (or perhaps any two devoted Honda owners)."
I think the Honda analogy is probably more accurate. The Red Sox fans are more likely to go hang out at the same sports bar or go to the game together and stuff.
You have to actually go play softball together or volunteer at the same soup kitchen or whatever.
He makes a similar distinction about self help groups like AA, which I feel less strongly about. Everyone I know who does AA is very involved, and helps run meetings, organizes DDs, runs mocktail mixers, etc. I suspect this might just be "loudness" bias, that the very AA people are the ones you know are in AA. I might know ten times as many "quiet" AA guys who just show up to a meeting once a month, eats a donut, and bounces.
People doing less stuff together reduces social capital, which leads to two main issues:
1. People don't meet other people who are "similarish." To use Putnam's bowling example, say a Republican and a Democrat are both on the same bowling team. In a vacuum, the Republican thinks that the Democrat goes around ritually aborting babies to help communist immigrants come in, while the Democrat thinks the Republican ritually enslaves women to generate capital and enslave third-worlders.
Then they bowl together, find out they're both decent people who mostly agree on a lot of stuff, and don't want to kill each other anymore. (Hey, that's almost in 1984!)
2. People don't work together in ways that benefit their community. In a town with a thriving bowling league, Lions club, and CCD, if the basketball nets at the park needs replaced, there's a good chance they can fundraise it and get it done. In a town without one, the town council can maybe raise taxes and probably not actually do anything. "WHY ARE THEY RAISING MY TAXES? WHO USES THOSE STUPID NETS?" (Answer, Luis and Luke's kids, who you should've met at the bowling team Christmas party that no longer exists!)
Moving from a less-connected neighborhood to a more-connected one, it's great to see the whole community come out to support stuff like library fundraisers or the town Halloween parade. The Masons and the high school music boosters and the local contracting company all get floats, and even the people who aren't in the parade still go sit with their neighbors and wave at the kids.
Putnam puts forward a number of theories for the decline, including: longer commutes, more working, and more "nonsocial" activities like TV. I advance that there's also some amount of self-reinforcement and a needed "critical mass" for organizations to succeed. When I officially joined my rotary a couple months ago, the woman I joined with an I both mentioned family members in clubs (her mom in Rotary, my grandfather in Kiwanis). Most of my friends in clubs are in the same ones as their dads, aunts, etc. Even if you're aware of their existence, I think people only actively want to join if a close friend or family member is in one.
At the same time, no one wants to be on the bowling team that never has enough people for a match, so as organizations get smaller they not only lose the ability to recruit, but also start losing members faster.
This is getting kind of long (my wife says I write "essays" for fun), but I want to share a quick series of linked anecdotes that I think show the difference in point of view between citizens most club members and civilians people who aren't.
A citizen accepts personal responsibility for the safety of the body politic, defending it with his life. A civilian does not.
Masonry is the "default" model of a club for most people who aren't in one. When I talk to someone about Rotary, they usually wind up asking me awkwardly about the secret handshake or if I'm allowed to tell them stuff. Rotary, Kiwanis, Lions, etc. don't do any of that, but that's the baked in assumption.
Likewise (obviously it varies across organizations) I think people overstate the networking focus of most clubs vs the volunteer and community focus. Yes, the realtor in my club gives me a magnet every year with a calendar and her business phone number. Yes, the guy who does my taxes helps sponsor our club and I go to him because someone from the club recommends him. But (most people) aren't in clubs just to hopefully round up a couple more clients, they're there to make friends and help make sure the park is in good shape. I sometimes see people talking about getting strong armed into it by their boss at work "to make connections" or talking about how it'd be easier to just write a check to repaint that bench instead of going and doing it. In a good club, the networking is 10%, the bench is 50%, and meeting new people is 40%. As some guy on reddit (sort of, I'm paraphrasing since I saw the post years ago) put it once, "One night a week, instead of playing Skyrim, I go meet in an old building, say a funny prayer, and help people." That doesn't mean that your Lions club is going to save as many lives as malaria nets, but it does mean that your town will still have a parade every year and a little league team. That's worth something.
