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