I recently purchased a book by American author [i]RD Putnam[/i], "[u]Bowling Alone[/u]". It's about the [i]decline of civic engagement[/i] in America, and I think this decline can also be observed in industrialized countries in Europe.
This is from a summary of the book: [sep] "When [i]Alexis de Tocqueville[/i] visited the United States in the 1830s, it was the Americans' propensity for civic association that most impressed him as the key to their unprecedented ability to make democracy work. 'Americans of all ages, all stations in life, and all types of disposition," he observed, "are forever forming associations.'
"By almost every measure, Americans' direct engagement in politics and government has fallen steadily and sharply over the last generation, despite the fact that average levels of education --the best individual-level predictor of political participation-- have risen sharply throughout this period. Consider the well-known decline in turnout in national elections over the last three decades. From a relative high point in the early 1960s, voter turnout had by 2000 declined by nearly a quarter; tens of millions of Americans had forsaken their parents' habitual readiness to engage in the simplest act of citizenship.
"Membership in traditional women's groups has declined more or less steadily since the 1960s. For example, membership in the national Federation of Women's Clubs is down by more than half (59 percent) since 1964, while membership in the League of Women Voters (LWV) is off 42 percent since 1969. Similar reductions are apparent in the numbers of volunteers for mainline civic organizations, such as the Boy Scouts (off by 26 percent since 1970) and the Red Cross (off by 61 percent since 1970). At all educational (and hence social) levels of American society, and counting all sorts of group memberships, the average number of associational memberships has fallen by about a fourth over the last quarter century.
"In 1975 the average American entertained friends at home 15 times per year; the equivalent figure (2000) is now barely half that. Virtually all leisure activities that involve doing something with someone else, from playing volleyball to playing chamber music, are declining.
From the material marshaled by Robert Putnam we can see that the simple act of joining and being regularly involved in organized groups has a very significant impact on society. Interaction enables people to build communities, to commit themselves to each other, and to knit the social fabric. [sep]
Apparently the [i]Loyal Order of Water Buffaloes Lodge No. 26[/i] is close to extinction.
Are you a member of organized groups, or are you bowling alone?
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@Quizzical I prefer to bowl alone as well - symbollically speaking. I am not involved in organized groups. Before I started reading the book, I never thought it might have an impact on society.
@helenS I guess part of it is the fact that there are far more pursuits and interests that you CAN do on your own these days.
People always decry things like the internet and phones, and technology in general for the social aspect of society 'breaking down', but it's not like we HAVE to choose one or the other... It seems that people generally just like to do their own thing (and probably always have done) and technology merely gives us that option... And it IS an option. We can either bowl alone, or bowl with others, we have that choice. We just CHOOSE to mainly bowl alone.
@Quizzical I think people choose to "bowl alone" simply because they can now. In older times we relied on one another -- the community -- for support, but now we don't need to, so we don't. And in the process I think we have lost that sense of community, both of relying on other and helping others when needed. And then we're shocked and suprised when kids video (and laugh at) another kid dying of a drug overdose that the older kids fed him, as happened near me recently.
