Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone

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Recommended: Putnam's Bowling alone

Prior to reading Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam, I never would've expected it to be as interesting as it was. From assessing the decline of American club attendance to the decrease of family dinners and social invitations, Putnam emphasized the impact of American inclinations during the 1960s and 1970s and the crucial causes that led to them through the popular American pastime: bowling. Robert Putnam, known for his multiple contemporary democracy books has once again given us a glimpse of the issues that bothered him about the society we once lived in and the one we live in now. In his book, Putnam addressed the issue of the continuing decline of community life within the contemporary American culture through the idea of bowling. …show more content…

Social capital is the connections between people strengthened by their virtue and reciprocal obligation to one another. Although Putnam also touched upon physical and human capitals, social capital was the main attraction of the book. However, he didn't throw away the other concepts by crediting the fact that physical and human capitals such as “tools and training” also resulted to productivity. This showed that they were also crucial to American community life. In addition, Putnam emphasized that mutual trust within one another which solidified a strong social capital was essential to the survival of a society. He even quoted Yogi Berra of baseball, “If you don't go to somebody’s funeral, they won't come to yours.” I thought this was a clever yet powerful touch because not only did it show reciprocal obligation and mutual trust but in a way, it also added humor to the already serious topic because how can one attend someone's funeral if he/she is already dead? Moving on, Putnam also showcased some of the negative aspects of social capital. He stated that social capital could be unfair, destructive, ethnocentric, and even corrupt. Due to this, he wanted to decrease if not erase such negative consequences and strengthen cooperation, trust, and support within the community

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