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Bowling Alone was very well received when it came out, but there has been another thread of articles that have been more controversial. I believe a relevant tit

Bowling Alone was very well received when it came out, but there has been another thread of articles that have been more controversial. I believe a relevant title is: E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first Century The punchline has been that, if you are not careful, increasing diversity can lead to decreased trust in society, and with it, decreased social capital. The idea is that nobody feels really safe (in a social sense), and so you see a pattern of withdrawal. I think this is a challenge that he wants liberal societies to successfully address. It's a warning when he says it, not a call for homogeneity.

dangus 4y ago
The key to avoiding distrust is by systemically avoiding segregation. There's nothing wrong with diversity itself.
- FooBarBizBazz 4y ago
  I believe this is in line with "contact theory", the naive version of which Putnam's statistics seem to refute. Unsegregated areas usually have lower trust, at least in the short term. But. Categorizations change over time, and many lines that used to be important no longer are. So he holds out hope that the same blurring can occur to the lines that matter today. He suggests that the formation of higher identity -- perhaps a civic nationalism like we see in Ukraine -- is the way forward. The main positive example he can point to that spans current lines, and not obsolete ones, is the Army, which arguably does just that. To a lesser extent, he also mentions the Catholic Church, which -- like Islam, I will add -- provides a higher identity that spans ethnicities. I've heard some other authors make similar calls, e.g. Francis Fukuyama.
  - dangus 4y ago
    As a generality, I'm wary of leaning too heavily on a single author's philosophy, especially in social sciences. In that regard, I don't agree with everything Putnam puts forward.

dangus 4y ago

The key to avoiding distrust is by systemically avoiding segregation. There's nothing wrong with diversity itself.

FooBarBizBazz 4y ago
I believe this is in line with "contact theory", the naive version of which Putnam's statistics seem to refute. Unsegregated areas usually have lower trust, at least in the short term. But. Categorizations change over time, and many lines that used to be important no longer are. So he holds out hope that the same blurring can occur to the lines that matter today. He suggests that the formation of higher identity -- perhaps a civic nationalism like we see in Ukraine -- is the way forward. The main positive example he can point to that spans current lines, and not obsolete ones, is the Army, which arguably does just that. To a lesser extent, he also mentions the Catholic Church, which -- like Islam, I will add -- provides a higher identity that spans ethnicities. I've heard some other authors make similar calls, e.g. Francis Fukuyama.
- dangus 4y ago
  As a generality, I'm wary of leaning too heavily on a single author's philosophy, especially in social sciences. In that regard, I don't agree with everything Putnam puts forward.