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A review by books_ergo_sum
Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community by Robert D. Putnam
informative
reflective
5.0
We're so effed.
This book was about what Putnam calls social capital (which sounds like some sociology blah blah), but basically it’s:
✨ that list of people you’d call to help you move; the club/team you’re on; your friend who knows someone who knows someone who’s hiring or renting that apartment next month…. you get it.
And Putnam demonstrated two things:
⭐️ next to maybe air, social capital is THE MOST IMPORTANT thing ever
⭐️ social capital has declined in every generation since the Greatest Generation (people born between 1901-24)… RIP Gen Z
This book was so data-heavy and all-encompassing that it was, quite frankly, kinda overwhelming. Here’s just a taste: social capital is important for…
✨ health (joining a club has the same impact on life expectancy as quitting smoking)
✨ social programs (the number one factor in a child’s academic success is their amount of social capital. Not race, income, school district, etc)
✨ politics (social capital beats wealth when it comes to political power, which explains why the last bastion of social capital, the church, was the foundation of the Civil Rights movement and nowadays makes rightwing moral issues disproportionately powerful)
I read this book right after Freedom is a Constant Struggle by Angela Davis and there was weirdly a ton of overlap? This book just had more, you know, graphs and shit.
Basically, decline in social capital is VERY VERY BAD. It lowers your happiness, makes it easier for big business to screw us over, increases intolerance, decreases social trust, and turns democracies into autocracies.
Which, considering this book was published in (august!) 2001 is…. yeahhh
This book was about what Putnam calls social capital (which sounds like some sociology blah blah), but basically it’s:
✨ that list of people you’d call to help you move; the club/team you’re on; your friend who knows someone who knows someone who’s hiring or renting that apartment next month…. you get it.
And Putnam demonstrated two things:
⭐️ next to maybe air, social capital is THE MOST IMPORTANT thing ever
⭐️ social capital has declined in every generation since the Greatest Generation (people born between 1901-24)… RIP Gen Z
This book was so data-heavy and all-encompassing that it was, quite frankly, kinda overwhelming. Here’s just a taste: social capital is important for…
✨ health (joining a club has the same impact on life expectancy as quitting smoking)
✨ social programs (the number one factor in a child’s academic success is their amount of social capital. Not race, income, school district, etc)
✨ politics (social capital beats wealth when it comes to political power, which explains why the last bastion of social capital, the church, was the foundation of the Civil Rights movement and nowadays makes rightwing moral issues disproportionately powerful)
I read this book right after Freedom is a Constant Struggle by Angela Davis and there was weirdly a ton of overlap? This book just had more, you know, graphs and shit.
Basically, decline in social capital is VERY VERY BAD. It lowers your happiness, makes it easier for big business to screw us over, increases intolerance, decreases social trust, and turns democracies into autocracies.
Which, considering this book was published in (august!) 2001 is…. yeahhh