Bowling Alone

 Queston  #2 from my recent take home test

2. Robert Putnam’s hypothesis concerns major changes in democracy in the United States. In his analysis, he uses the basic social interaction of bowling as a practical demonstration of these important changes. Using Putnam’s premise, discuss the state of the republic from a theoretical perspective. Provide a counter theoretical argument to your main thesis.

Putman has written that America has a participatory democracy and the people are no longer participating, this is not healthy for the general state of the country. In analyzing or discussing Putman’s, theory I will use a similar theory, the opposite side of the same coin, that states Americans did not leave it was an engineered push by more liberal social forces in society or maybe its just what happens when liberal forces have an overt influence on our culture.

Putman’s premise is that healthy democracy is fueled by social capital. Social capital can most simply described as the thoughts, feelings, ideas, beliefs, personal and/or political ideology and sense of social responsibility that is gained, corrected, expanded, negated, or instilled by the social interaction between individuals in society engaged in recreational, civic and community based activities.

The second source that I will use is an article by William D Gairdner From Democracy to hyperdemocracy. The general premise of his article is the society is controlled be one of two sources. “You must use either unbound state power or the voluntary authority of civil society…” or as Giardner further writes, “We may be compelled by external forces to obey raw power [Government]; but we compel ourselves by inner impulse or law to obey authority [mediating institutions of society]” Italics added.

Putman’s premise is then not an exiting of people from public involvement but a shift from a society mediated by it’s owe intuitions and peer pressure to a society controlled by government. Over the last three and a half decades American society has became increasingly polarized with “autonomous individuals” on one end and the “state” on the other with nothing in the middle. The “nothing in the middle” does account for Putman’s evidences that the middle of the road Americans have vacated the public arena and left nothing but “very” conservative or “very” liberal Americans. Commenting further on American polarity, Gairdner writes that Liberals or the left have always had an understanding of “…the difference between these two methods for establishing a political order…” the Left has always seeks out the power of the government to promote its will. The conservatives, Gairdner writes, “have generally abhorred overweening government while welcoming social and moral authority in all its customary and traditional forms”

Putman describing three different political-cultures writes that Moralist states—in which ‘good government,’ issue-based campaigning, and social innovation are prized–tend to have comparatively high levels of social capital”. This social capital in part comes from an understanding of Gairdner’s idea. Gaindners relays that when we start to believe that the “democratic rights” are an “individual right” and not something that is inherent in society or communities “we assume each one of us to have and implicit license to attack any form of authority that we believe is impending our ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy.’ Whatever the reason the structure of the American civic comment is not harmonious with what is needed for the type of government that this country has.

The structure of Americans government and society works best when large amounts of social capital are within society as Putman relays John Stuart Mills comment

“without shared participation in public life...a citizen never thinks of any collective interest, of any objects to pursue jointly with others but only in competition with them, and in some measure at their expense…A neighbor, not being an ally or an associate, since he is never engaged in any common undertaking for joint benefit, is therefore only a rival.”

This can be analyzed further and said to be a result in the decline in the belief of our civic myth. ‘Emile Durkheim writes “The destiny of the state was closely bound up with the fate of the gods worshipped at its altars…Public religion and morals were fused: they were but different aspects of the same reality” to further demonstrate J.F Bierlein writes in his book parallel myths that

The wholesale devaluation of life in our culture through violence, crime, and addictions, as well as the decline in public and private ethics, is an indication of the weakening of our respect for myth. The establishment and maintenance of a widely held moral code are the most important functions of myth

[To clarify: the author writes that “…myth, in the sense that we use it in this book, often stands for truth”]

This is not a new idea Governor Morris who penned the constitution and was the last to sign it. Wrote two works on the constitution in 1790/1791 in these works he wrote, “Religion is the only solid basis of good morals, Therefore education should teach the precepts of religion and the duty of man towards god”

The nature of Christianity instills a sense of responsibly for your neighbor. Weather you are a Great command Christian that is to love your neighbor as God or the great commission Christian that is to actively pursue people approach and then attempt to convert them to Christianity or a combination of both you are responsible for reaching out to people with concern and engage in civic interaction.

The analysis of Putman’s premise has compared side-by-side with a similar social theory written by William D. Gairdner and the both of these modern theories we check with concepts from classical theorist ‘Emile Durkhiem.

However, there maybe another explanation, a counter if you will, to all of my theoretical musings. Maybe, in this era of excessive recreational opportunities people, camping outside of retail stores for video game systems, television based family time, internet dating, the shift from a modern manufacturing society to post-modern information based society. Maybe this is the post modern person, may this this is the next logical step and our government needs to catch up and get current the culture that is now gapped hold of our wide eyed innocence hopeful youth.

Bierlein, J.F. (1994). Parallel myths. Ballintine Wellspring Random House. New York

http://www.williamgairdner.com/from-democracy-to-hyperdemocra/

Why not to have premarital sex

Sex- it’s wonderful. In the right time and place, it enhances a committed relationship. Sex- it is the icing on the cake bringing the relationship to a soft warm level of closeness and intimacy. But in this day and age all to many people throw the frosting right on the plate and think they’re getting a gourmet dessert, when all there doing is cheating themselves. “Here's how you know you have a commitment: When you're married, you have one, and when you're not married, you don't” (www.bounless.org).

The consummation of a relationship appears to be great way to gain intimacies with someone that you have been growing close too. It feels as if you have moved to another level. I know the feeling, to lay with a person for the first time, someone that you been talking with, laughing with, sharing and caring with. You wonder if your falling in love your heart flutters when they’re near. Then you kiss and wonder if they’re going pass the test. But what really happens is that you are setting a standard, the ghost in your past has set a standard, Hot breath, hot bodies tangled – in a passionate embrace. But will they pass the test?

Premarital sex can cause problems on a personal, family and social level; as wonderful a thing as sex can be it also can be as equally as destructive, when not enjoyed in the right context.

I am sure you’re reading this very skeptically, possibly, thinking, “sex?” “Destructive?” That does not sound possible. To start with the ghost of past sexual experience has given my, and many others, future mates a standard that they will have to live up to. ”Premarital sex may be bad for the emotional health of your future marriage. It lays the groundwork for comparisons, suspicions, and mistrust. “Am I as attractive (or as sexually stimulating) as his last partner?” “If she didn’t wait for me before we were married, why do I think she will settle for only me now?” “If someone better comes along, will I be left in the dust?” This is an unfair standard and interferes with true intimacies.

In The harmful effects early sexual activity and multiple sexual partners among women: a Book of charts put out by The Heritage Foundation reports that:

Women who had more non-marital sex partners were less
likely to have stable marriages. over 80 percent of the women
who had never had non-marital partner were in stable marriages.
By contrast, only 30 percent of the women with five non-marital
sex partners were in stables marriages (18).

You might argue that sex is not bad. So it causes a few people to get divorced, so what. Not every marriage can work out.That’s because there is whole bunch about male/female relationship that you were never told in high school or college for that matter. You see you have duped, that sex education class that you received in high school was the tip of the ice berg just the mechanics of sex. Let me ask a question did you ever hear anything in school about how to be a successful person, wife, husband, or does your high school year’s sound like mine. “you’ll have to know this when you get a job someday” “If you go to college…” All about being a successful employee or college student. There is a dynamic that happens when a man and women begin a relationship as Jim Talley writes in his book Reconcilable Differences “typically, the man likes to move quickly to the physical level. At this point he normally is not yet emotionally involved. The woman, however, gets involved emotionally muchmore quickly and usually considers the advance to kissing and caressing an indication of commitment on the man’s part “ The chart to the left illustrates.

Progression of a relationship
Men		Women
Sexual	Addicted	Sexual	Addicted
	Regular		Regular
	Passion		Passion
	Petting		Petting
Emotional	Committed	Physical	Attached
	Defensive		Caress
	Cry over		Kiss
	Long for		Touch
Physical	Attached	Emotional	Committed
	Caress		Defensive
	Kiss		Cry over
	Touch		Long for
Friendship	Intimate	Friendship	Intimate
	Close		Close
	Casual		Casual
	Acquaintance		Acquaintance
Fig. 3.1 Interpersonal Relationship Development (Pg 34 Reconcilable differences)

Guys if your better aware of your god given nature you will able to act more responsible and take care of your self along with the woman in your life. Hay girls you know guys “won’t buy the cow if they’re getting the milk for free”. What I mean is this; in the 2002 “The state of our unions” put out by The national marriage project listed “ They can get sex without marriage more easily than anytime in the past.” As the number one reason: why men will not commit.

A third aspect of the damages premarital sex can cause on a personal level is a lack of sexual satisfaction once you do get married. If you do not have sex before you get married, then the best sex you ever have will be while you are married. Imagine that! In his February 13, 1994 Washington Post article, The Hottest Valentines: the Starling Secret of what makes you a high-voltage lover. William R. Mattox Jr. quotes David Larson “Couples not involved before marriage and who are faithful during marriage are more satisfied with their current sex life and also with their marriages compared to those who were involved sexually before marriage.” Mattox noted the Family research Counsel survey ‘found that strictly monogamous women experienced orgasm during sex more than twice as often as promiscuous women’ Mattox also noted that the Family Research Counsel survey ‘also found a correlation between sexual satisfaction and religious commitment, but our findings indicate that sexual satisfaction is influenced more by one’s sexual ethics than by one’s religious practice’, Mattox also comment/writes ‘Larson and his colleagues find that responsiveness and satisfaction are significantly affected by the relational context in which lovemaking takes place.” These are just a few of the ways that premarital sex can affect you on a personal level,So premarital sex causes a… I know, so what! Well then you need some more information.

Lets return to the harmful effects early sexual activity and multiple sexual partners among women: a book of charts put out by The Heritage Foundation. Depression is another problem with premarital sex then says reports that:



          The greater the number of non-marital sex partners,
          the higher the probability of  depression. Only 2.8
          percent of women who have had sex with men 
          they  married reported they currently feel 
          ‘not very happy’ or ‘very unhappy.’ By contrast, 8.3 
          percent of women with 16-20 non-marital sex
          partners report they currently feel ‘not very happy’
          or ‘very unhappy’ (21)

With all this instability in marriages you can imagine how many would end in divorce that is not good for the children, the next generation. Tina B Tessina writes in her book “Ideally, a family has a function – that is, a job to do. A healthy family should create and sustain an environment that promotes emotional and physical health and psychological well-being for members”

You might be saying “divorce may cause problems for many of the children who are affected by it, but by and large these problems are not long lasting and the children recover relatively quickly” (The top ten myths of divorce).

The truth is that divorce has a lot of negative effects on children such as “almost 50 percent of households that with children undergoing divorce move into poverty following the divorce. Some 40 percent of families on Aid to families with dependent children (AFDC) are divorced or separated single-parent households.”

Of course the family income is cut in half, Duh! People can recover from that!

There also is other factors of how children are effected as the Heritage foundation reports: “A Major national survey of 20,000 adolescents found that the adolescents children of divorced parents did worse than their peers from intact families on such measures of satisfaction with life as happiness, sense of personal control, trust, and friendship” (www.heritage.org/)

And still another study reported by the Heritage Foundation indicates that ‘The general social surveys of 1996 and 1998 show that the incidence of adults not being ‘too happy’ varies signifantly, depending on the type of family in which they grow up: those whose parents divorced have reported being not ‘too happy’ at twice the rate of those who grew up with both their parents. Those who had a parent die during childhood fall halfway between these happiness rates (www. Heritage .org/).

The Heritage Foundation goes on to say that A British Longitudinal Study that tracked a sample of children born in 1958 shows that the children have a 39 percent increase in the threat of psychopathology. It further comments:

          These long lasting effects are found in country after country.
          The British National study cited above found a strong link
          between parental divorce during the middle and late 
          childhood years and (ages seven through 16) and significantly
          lower mental health status in young adulthood, with a 39
          percent increase in the risk of psychopathology. A large
          Finnish study found that at age 22, children of
          divorced parents experienced more frequent loss of jobs,
          more conflict with bosses, and more separation and divorce;
          they also had more abortions. Large Swedish sample
          (over 14,000) confirms again the negative mental health
          effects of parents’ divorce on children, no matter the 
          socioeconomic status of the family may be. German research
          yields similar findings, and a recent Australian
          reliminary report reach similar conclusions” 
         
the study goes on to comment on higher suicides rates, “weakened parent-child relationships”, “diminished social competence”, “increased trouble in courtship”, “higher probability of divorce”, and  lessened religious practice.

I hope that you can see that this would have a major effect on the family unit, once again: “Ideally the family has a function – that is a job to do. A healthy family should create and sustain an environment that promotes emotional and physical health and psychological well being for its members”(Tina B Tessina)

Finally, Alice Fryling writes in her article “why wait for sex?” that 

         sexual promiscuity is even bad for the health of our civilization.
         One study of more than eighty societies ranging from in
         development from ancient to primitive to more modern 
         revealed ‘an unvarying Correlation between the degree of
         sexual restraints and the rate of social progress. Cultures
         that were more sexually permissive displayed less cultural
         energy, creativity, intellectual development and individualism,
         and a slower general cultural ascent…”

It can also be noted:

Jim Nelson Black sees ominous parallels to our own country. He says, ‘as I have looked back across the ruins and landmarks of antiquity, the parallels have stunned me between those societies and our own…this is the legitimate background of our own place in history, it is vital that we reconsider the nature of life in those earlier times. For within those eras and movement are the seeds of the troubles we face today. There are many reasons for the decline and fall of a nation, but an important (and often overlooked) reasons is the abandonment of religion…When the traditional beliefs of a notion erode, the nation dies. Religion provides the set of standards that govern a nation. Historian Will Durant said, ‘There are no significant examples in history, before our time, of a society successfully maintaining moral life without the aid of religion,”

the bible says in 1 Corinthians 6:9 “Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders”

So you can see that not engaging in premarital sex is not only a matter of personal responsibility it’s also a matter of social responsibility