We are pleased today to have dr. Robert Putman one of the Deans of American Political Science with us. Dr. Putman is a professor of government and political science at Harvard University. He is the former dean of Harvard's Kennedy School of government and was a former associate dean of Harvard's faculty of Arts and Science. In the last year, dr. Pootmans work on the importance of Civic community in our society has made quite a splash in the sphere of public affairs. President Clinton among many other political and Community leaders has been deeply affected by dr. Buttman Zess a bowling alone. America's declining Social Capital which was published in January in the Journal of democracy. Dr. Pootmans new book making democracy work has been ranked alongside de tocqueville and Weber by the magazine The Economist the nation magazine not exactly the economist's ideological twin has called that book Seminole and path-breaking. It is very unusual. As I think most of us in this audience would agree for an academic to apply his work to our everyday lives and to have such a profound impact on people's thinking that Professor Putman has done just that it is a very great honor to have him with us here today following his presentation questions will be addressed from the audience Gloria Molina mcclenahan and Ken darling of Minnesota meeting will move among you to take your questions. You may use the slips of paper that are on the table to jot down your ideas. So now it is my very great pleasure to present to you. Dr. Robert Putman. Thank you very much Dairy, and thank you all for coming. I'm looking forward to a conversation. It's good to be here in the Twin Cities. I want to talk to you today about a problem that I think is one of the most serious facing our country the problem of Civic engagement and social connectedness. But I'd like if I can with your Indulgence to begin by talking about a topic that will seem very distant and and even arcane. I want to talk about a study that I did a couple of years ago on the peculiar topic of local government in Italy. And I want to promise you you can hold me to this promise that after talking a little bit about this research that we've done in Italy. I'll come back to concerns here at home that all of us share if you're a botanist and you want to study you wanted to study plant growth. You might take genetically identical seeds and plant them in different pots of soil water them differently to see how their growth would be affected by their physical environment. If you're a political scientist is I am and you wanted to study how political institutions evolve you might like to take the same paper organization and put it down in different social and economic and political and cultural contexts to see how the development of applet the functioning of a political institution was influenced by its environment. Now normally political science is not an experimental science. So normally it's not possible to do that kind of research, but about 25 years ago, the Italians in effect created the basis for this kind of an experimental study by creating a new set of regional governments all across Italy. They all had the same structure. They all look the same on paper they were in so to speak genetically identical but the context into which these new government's were introduced. We're very different some of them were quite wealthy. Some of them were quite backward economically. Some of them were deeply Catholic others have been controlled by Communists for many many generations many decades so that the soils into which these seeds were planted were very different and we my colleagues Followed these new Regional governments are quite powerful. They spend about 10% of the Italian gross national product. That's about the same as American state government. So think of these as like American state governments all having the same form, but the context the community context into which they word if they were introduced were quite different and my colleagues and I studied these Regional governments for 20 years We examined their functioning. We talked to their citizens to see what the citizens thought about the performance of their governments and some of these governments really work very, well. I have great admiration for the government of this government's in this part of the world. I don't know. I've never had the pleasure of living under them. I do live under the government of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. I can tell you that some of these regions in Italy are much better governed than the cover than the the those of us who live in Massachusetts, but others of these Regional governments turned out to be utter failures disasters inefficient corrupt didn't answer the mail and their citizens knew it. So some of these new plants flourished. And others faltered and the question was why what was the secret ingredient in the soil that made some of these governments work and others of them fail my colleagues and I had lots of different theories about what it might be. We thought it might be wealth. We thought maybe wealthier regions could afford better governments. We thought it might be education. That's a conceit of Educators to think that education makes all the difference. We had lots of ideas. We thought maybe the political parties made a difference but we didn't guess we didn't guess what would what turned out to be the secret ingredient the thing that would allow you to predict which of these governments would be successful in which would be failures the the correct answer. Turned out to be choral societies and football clubs singing groups and football clubs and other sorts of Civic organizations and engage and and Civic activities by that. I mean I'm using of course, I'm using choral societies here as a metaphor for civic engagement people in the regions that had lots of Choral societies and football clubs and rotary clubs and reading groups and so on they voted more but it wasn't just in politics that they took part more actively. They took part in all sorts of civic affairs. There was a dense social Civic Fabric in which their citizens were involved and other other regions instead lacked that horizontal structure of Civic connectedness social connectedness. Where there was a tradition of dense intense Civic engagement people trusted one another there was a sense of reciprocity. I'll do this for you. Now without expecting that you'll do anything immediately for me but down the road, you know, someone else will do something for me too. And they'll and you'll do something for them. There was a this Society was linked together by this dense fabric of mutual reciprocity and trust and everything worked better their government work better and those regions also tended to be richer and for a long time. We thought it was because Economic Development wealth produced choral societies by that. I mean regions that had high levels of economic activity high levels of affluence people there could afford to spend time in Civic engagement people in poor areas. We thought couldn't so we thought the story we had in our mind was will produce choral societies and then choral society's produced good government, but we turned out when we examine the historical evidence. We had the story exactly backwards. It wasn't that wealth produced choral societies. It was a choral societies produced wealth. By that, I mean that regions to Regions who which a century ago had to set we're at the same level economically. They were relatively backward economically, but one of them happen to have a tradition of Civic engagement lots of Choral societies that region did not begin wealthier, but it got wealthier over time and it got wealthier because for the same reason government work better. There was a relatively high level of social trust all sorts of dealings including business dealings were lubricated by a sense of reciprocity and and mutual Mutual confidence. Now, I want to introduce one bit of social science. Jargon at this point and then I will come back to talking about the United States the social bit of jargon that I want you to introduce is the term social capital. You all know what physical capital is physical capital is some physical object that makes you more productive than you would be if you didn't have that physical object a screwdriver. So you save up your nickels and dimes and you invest in buying a screwdriver you invest in physical capital and you can repair more bicycles more efficiently more quickly than you would be than you could if you didn't have that screwdriver that's physical capital about a generation ago economists began talking about human capital to say that there's an analogy between a screwdriver and a degree from the University of Minnesota. That is that if you save you can save up your nickels and dimes and rather than getting a screwdriver you could get a college education or training in auto mechanics or something and you the same you can be more productive more efficient than you would be if you had not invested in that education that training now I and some other people now are talking about are talking about social capital to refer to the fact There are certain features of our community environment our social environment that are like that in the sense that you the same you could be more productive if you're working in and living in and and environment us a community that has a high level of Civic engagement. You don't have to worry constantly about whether someone's going to stab you in the back you can you can be more efficient trust in a sense lubricates all sorts of of Civic life and economic life. So just as you can you can invest in physical capital or human capital if you happen to be the beneficiary of a lot of social capital in your environment, if you're living in a community with networks and Norms of Civic engagement, you can be more productive. That's the term that I want to will want to use social capital and I now want to come back and talk about the United States. I want to talk about the problems facing our country. These are problems that we're all familiar with. Over the course of the last generation we have become less and less confident in the performance of our public institutions all of our public institutions. There are many indicators of this decline in confidence in our institutions one particularly convenient one comes from a question that Americans have been being asked for the last 40 or 50 years. How often do you trust the government to do what's right. Do you trust the government to do what's right most of the time? Now a generation ago when I was in high school and college if you ask Americans that question 75% of us said we trust the government to do what's right most of the time 75% that's an answer. That seems almost quaint and teak now last month same question 19% of us said we trusted the government to do what's right most of the time and this that change from 75 percent in nineteen percent is merely one indicator of a steady 30 year long decline in confidence in our public institutions and not just in the federal government not just in government indeed, but most of the major institutions in our society. We are less confident than our parents were a generation ago in the performance of those institutions. Well, I came back from from this study in Italy and I have been worried for a long time about this problem just as a citizen just the way all of you have been worried about this problem and I said to myself gee I wonder if there's any connection between the problem that I'm worried about as a citizen the way our institutions are working or not working and this That I've discovered as a scholar namely the importance of Civic engagement the importance of social capital. So the last over the last couple of years. I've been exploring what have been the trends in the last generation in Civic engagement in the United States. And that's what I want to share with you the results of what I've discovered and what I've discovered fundamentally is that there has been a dramatic decline in Civic engagement in the United States over the last generation to begin with we vote less than we did a generation ago. I begin with that not because it's will turn out to be the most important or even the most dramatic change but because it's the most familiar we know from news broadcasts and so on that over the last generation, there's been about a 25% decline. In the numbers of us who go to vote regularly and but it's not only in terms of voting not only in terms of going to the voting booth that were less engaged in public affairs the Roper organization every month for the last 20 25 years has been asking Americans have you in the last year been to any meeting at which there's been some discussion of town or School Affairs? Have you been to that just a meeting any kind of meeting and which has been discussion of Community Affairs? And the fraction of us who say that we have been in such a meeting of the last year has declined by 40 percent. Over these last 20 years. So it's not just that we're not voting as much as we used to wear that we're just engaged in conversations about public affairs less than we than less than we used to be and by many different measures there has been a decline in political engagement engagement in our in our public affairs in the United States over this over these last 30 or 40 years all I'm going to be throwing I'm afraid a number of Statistics at you representing changes over the last 30 years. I want to acknowledge right away that I'm going to be talking about some dramatic things that have some some disasters that hit the United States basically over my adult lifetime. All these bad things happened about beginning about when I became a citizen old enough to vote. I mean and I want to acknowledge that a front so you don't think I mean maybe I'm the cause of all these problems but I do see that one or two other people the rumor of roughly the same generation, so you'll have to share the share the blame with me. Well, it's not just politics in which we've disengage and that's the that's the main point. I want to The size it's the whole range of Civic life that we have generally dis engaged. Let's begin in the area for example of membership in various organizations, and we have to begin with membership and religious organizations because as a rough rule of thumb half of all Civic activity in America is religious half of all personal philanthropy is religious half of all volunteering is in a religious context half of all group memberships are religious. So it matters a lot what how our religious Behavior has been has been changing and the short answer is there has been a significant decline in engagement in religious organizations over the last generation. I don't mean that we say we believe in God any less but we're less active in religious organizations and we were a generation ago. It depends a little bit on exactly what measure you take but roughly speaking. There's been a decline of about 15 or 20 percent. For example in the number of us who say we went to church last Sunday. I have to pause here to say that some sociologist recently have been taken to a kind of unkind experiment. They've asked people to go to church last week and then they've gone to see were you actually in the pew. And I have to report to unpleasant findings from this research. First of all lots of us FIB when were asked that question. The number of people who say they were in church last week as compared to them people actually words about double. So a lot of us are claiming that we were are misremembering whether we actually got up in time on Sunday morning to get to church and secondly, there's some evidence that we're finding more than our parents did. So these data public opinion polling data on whether you went to church last week or not tend to understate the real decline in the number of people who actually were in the pews and it's not just in going to church. It's not just in going to religious formal religious Services. It's that other whole array of religious organization Sunday school and bible school and hover wrote and and young people's organizations as religious organizations and so on across that whole array of activities, there's been a roughly speaking about a fifteen twenty twenty-five percent decline in engagement by Americans over the last generation a generation ago the most common kind of organizational involvement for many working-class Americans was labor unions. And again, we're probably familiar with the fact that over this generation. There has been a 50% decline in the number of American workers who belong to labor unions, but it's not just in church in and the union hall that where that were AWOL another important kind of organizational involvement for many Americans. I'll say more in a minute about why It's so important is membership in parent-teacher organizations and membership in parent-teacher. Organizations has declined over the last 30 years by 50% 500 percent. I'm when I say that and went to all these figures that I'm quoting I'm taking I'm taking into account the in this case the number of parents that there are I mean, it's not just their fewer kids and therefore fewer parents the proportion of parents who belong to the PTA has declined by about 50 percent over this period and it's true for a whole array of other Civic organizations. It's true for Men's Clubs. For example of what I have come to cold animal clubs. I call the atom will clubs not as a not as a matter of casting aspersions on what happens in these organizations. I've discovered once I began doing this research that all American Men's Clubs are named for Animals the Lions Club in the Moose Club of the Elks club in the Eagles Club and and so on and those organizations as well as the Masons and the Shriners and so on. Have seen a significant decline in their membership in recent years. Actually, if you look at the whole of this Century what you see is that for most of this Century a growing proportion of American men belong to those organizations. There were more American Elks in that is American men who belong to the Elks club in 1970. Then there had been in 1960 and More in 1960 than in 1950 and so on back to the whole of this generation the only decade in which there had been a decline in membership relatively speaking was the period of the Great Depression, but then there was an immediate bounce back after World War Two and a steady growth until suddenly silently inexplicably in the middle of the 1970s all of those organizations began to see a leveling off and then a decline and an accelerating decline in their in their membership and it's now down by about 20% roughly speaking varies a lot Shriners. It's down by about 50% and the same kind of trend hit women's organizations the League of Women Voters. In the club's of various sorts and it hit women's organizations about a decade earlier and it's had a decade longer time to to have its effects come through and that and its fall in membership and women's organizations has fallen even more because it's had had a decade longer twofold now it and the same thing is true, by the way in in other sorts of Civic activities, of course, every individual group thought it was something it did wrong. It was aware that its membership and begun to fall and so, you know, they assume that maybe there was some problem with the program chair that year or and and organizations are all a little uneasy about these data. I'm about to share some information with you that I got on the on the Assumption on the commitment that I wouldn't publish this data, but this looks like a trustworthy audience and I'm sure that that's also true for all the people who are listening on radio. Volunteering for the Red Cross has fallen by 50% five old percent over this period And there's been a similar decline in volunteering adult volunteering for the Boy Scouts and so on. But here's the here's the case that I hope we'll just knock your socks off. membership in Bowling leagues has fallen I can see it didn't work. That's because you don't realize how important bowling is an American life and I'm surprised that you up in this part of the world because it's very important bowling is big in America more Americans bold last year than voted last year and bowling is bowling is growing in America. The number of Americans Americans who Bowl has grown by about 10 percent over the last over the last 10-15 years, but the number of Americans who Bolin leagues Bolin teams has fallen by 40% over this same period now, you may wonder how does a nice Harvard Professor happen to know a strange fact like that. The answer is that the owner of one of the largest chains of Bowling Lanes in America came to me he heard I was working on this problem bowling lane owners care whether you bowl alone or bowling leagues because people who Bolton leagues drink four times as much beer and and eat four times as many pretzels as if they're they do a bowling alone. And the money in bowling is in the beer and pretzels. It's not in Balls and shoes and and therefore they bowling lane owners care about whether we're bowling alone or bowling together because the bottom line I care about whether we're bowling alone or bowling and leagues. Well in order to explain that I have to ask how many people in the room first of all how many people in the room have ever bowled. Great. Good how many people in the room belong to a bowling league, right? I rest my case you and you and I are going to have to explain to the rest of them why it matters whether people Bowl alone or bowling league. If you Bol alone, you know, you sort of throw the ball down the lane like that, right? That's the if you bowl in a league, there are two teams five players on a team right this way it's here too. So there are 10 people at any given point two of those people are up at the lane throwing the ball down the lane and the other eight are sitting in a kind of a semi circle at the back of the lanes. Those of you who are never Bolden leagues probably wondered why there was that large semicircle of chairs at the back of the the lane. It's for us League Bowlers and most of the time they're sort of sitting there, you know, leaning on the back of the of the bench and drinking their beer and eating their pretzels and they're talking and they're talking about whether OJ did it and what do you think about Lorena Bobbitt and so on lots of but occasionally they're talking about the bond issue or how the schools are going or what should happen with this new proposal in the city council or whatever what I'm getting at is this Bolt the absence or the decline in Bowling teams represents one more occasion one more missing occasion in which we can have a conversation. With people that we know well and see regularly about our shared affairs. It's not that we don't talk to one another anymore indeed because of the explosion of mass communication and and the mass media. We actually are able to have conversations with total strangers. Now in a way that we couldn't a generation ago. I did an experiment on the plane this morning, which I've done other times. I said to the person sitting next to me on the plane. What do you think is in the envelope and you think he'll ever open it and it turns out you can see if you don't know what I'm talking about is because you unlike the rest of us in America are not following the OJ Simpson trial as well as you should you can say two total strangers in America. What do you think is in the envelope? There's I'll explain to you. There isn't a trial an envelope which has been sort of hanging out there in suspense for the last six months and we don't know quite what's in the envelope. You can say to total strangers in America. What do you think's in the envelope and more often than not they'll know what you mean? So we're able to have these taught utterly Anonymous Converse conversations with an utterly Anonymous strangers, but that's not like a You have with the bowling league partner. It isn't because it's not as responsible. You don't know how to read them. If you and I are in the same bowling league. I know that you always say crazy things. I don't mean you do but I mean, I know you know how to read you and I know when you express a view about the bond issuer or the envelope you're taking that you're taking responsibility for that position that my seat partner didn't have. I have no idea what never saw that person on the sidewalk beside me the airplane before never will again, they could have said the craziest things and I wouldn't have they weren't taking responsibility for their views and talk radio talk television has this same kind of flavor to it. It's not responsible conversation in the sense. That although people call in and say hi. This is Ted from Toledo. I mean, it's designed to make me think that I actually do know Ted, but I don't know Ted. I don't even know whether Ted is it Ted and Ted's not taking responsibility for his views what I'm and I'm the reason I'm emphasizing bowling leagues bowling teams is not that I think the fate of the Republic Cans hangs on whether we start bowling again together, but rather than any illustrates that our Civic disengagement has made it less easy for us to have responsible conversations with people that we know and we're we're both taking responsibility for those views about the whole range of Civic of civic affairs. It isn't true. By the way that every single congregation in America has lost membership. Of course, some congregations have some denominations have grown explosively during this period and others have declined. So when I talk about church membership or any of these other organizations I'm talking about net net change. It's not certainly not true that every organization in America has lost membership over this period indeed one organization America has seen explosive growth over exactly this period it happens to be an organization. I belong to it's grown from roughly 300,000 to 33 million members. Over this period it's called the American Association of retired persons and I belong to the AARP because as one or two of you in the room will know when you turn 50 in America the AARP sends you a card in the mail and I thought well what the heck maybe I'll get a discounted a motel or something. So I signed up. I'm an active member of the AARP in good standing. I'm fully engaged in the activities and I've my total membership activity each year consists in the 36 seconds. I've timed this the 36 seconds that it takes me to write a check and then I get modern maturity magazine or something and what's characteristic of groups and group membership in America. Is that membership in groups where membership means moving a pen? Is rising and membership in organizations where membership means being there being someplace knowing other members is declining. What's characteristic of my association with the AARP is I don't know any other member of the AARP. I mean actuarially since there are 33 million of us. I'm certain that I do know some other members but I don't know that I know them and I wouldn't know if there was another member of the AARP in the room today, although actually, there may be one or two members in the room. But if there were another member of my bowling team in the room, I would know it. So what I'm trying to say is these sorts of organizations these check writing or mailing list organizations, which have grown explosively are not the same thing as a bowling league or a church or any of these other organizations whether direct contacts between between members. It's not by the way only informal organizations that we're less engaged with one another we know our neighbors less well than we did a generation ago. A pollsters asked Americans have been asking Americans every year for the last 20 25 years. How often do you spend a social evening with a neighbor? And the number of us who say we never spend a social evening with a neighbor has more than doubled over this period so we're voting less we're less engaged in religious organizations were less engaged in all sorts of Civic activities were less engaged in formal and informal ways with one another and as a consequence, we trust one another Less in a certain sense. This is the most fundamental problem. If you ask Americans a generation ago, do you trust other people two-thirds of us said, yes. If you ask Americans today, do you trust other people 2/3 of a say? No. And that has in many many ways eroded the character of our connections with one another so there has been to use that little bit of jargon. There has been an erosion in Social Capital in the United States over the last generation. I want to say Now quickly. I want to address three questions. So what does it matter why how come we're less connected civically than we than we used to be and what can we do about it? Does it matter it matters a lot and not just in the absence of warm cuddly feelings indeed in many practical concrete ways. We're paying a heavy price for the fact that we're not as engaged with one another as our parents were let me give some examples take schools. For example, if you cared about the quality of the schools in your community, you might have one of two strategies for improving the quality of those schools. You might spend 10% more on those schools paying teachers better salaries buying more books and so on or you might increase by 10% The number of parents who belong to the PTA and other when were otherwise engaged in their kids education. There's no question. This ladder is the more effective way of improving the quality of your school's the oldest research says Parental engagement is crucial to the success of schools. I'm not saying please don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that we ought not to be spending money on schools. My wife is a public school teacher. So I have an economic interest in paying our teachers. Well, I am saying that the fact that there's been a 50% decline in PTA membership is part of the reason why our schools don't work as well as they used to because there's been this disengagement of parents from school activities. Take crime suppose again, same kind of mental experiment. You were worried about crime in your neighborhood. You might have one of two strategies you might increase by 10% the number of cops on the beat or you might increase by 10% the number of neighbors who know one another's first name. Again, no question. The second is a more effective crime fighting strategy. I'm not saying we shouldn't be spending money on Cops. I'm not saying we shouldn't have cops on the streets. Of course. We should I am saying that the fact that we don't know our neighbors as well. As our parents did is part of the reason why there has been this this growth over the last generation in in crime. There are a lot of different examples. I could go on a long time, but it for the of the examples of ways in which Social Capital makes a real practical measurable difference to our lives together as some economic effects take for example a study that was done in in Boston over the same kinds of research. I think would apply elsewhere take two identical kids from the Central City. They are the same age the same race the same gender the same number of years of education their parents have the same number of years of education. They have the same number of parents. That is they're either both from two-parent family are from single-parent family. They go both go to church or they both don't go to church where these are identical kids in every measurable individual respect the only difference between With these two kids is that one of them lives on a block where other people go to church and the other lives on a block or other people don't go to church. The kid who lives in the block or other people go to church is statistically speaking less likely to be on drugs less likely to have a criminal record more likely to have a job. This kid didn't do anything wrong Ortiz didn't do anything wrong exists. It could didn't do it's just that this kid the kid who lives in a block or other people don't go to church lives in an area with less social capital and that has real effects measurable effects for his life chances. It's if you ask how could it be that church-going has this positive effect not just for you but for your neighbors, I mean, it's possible that the answer is God's grace but the sociological mechanism through which God is working is partly the normative effect of of a more religious community and partly networks partly just the the city social Civic networks. The fundamental fact is most people in America all of us got our jobs through whom we knew that as we made we learned about a job by some kind of personal contact. If you live in a neighborhood where people don't talk to one another where they're not connected with one another you're less likely to someone is less likely to say, you know, I heard Joe down the bay Banks or or AT&T is Looking for looking for help. So you're less your less connected with the rest of your body or less likely to be engaged in less likely to have a job. Now notice that what this says is that if you go to church I can benefit from it that is there what economists call externalities from from church-going guy by the way, I'm talking about churches here not because I'm on a religious kick, but because I'm using it as an example of various kinds of Civic engagement, but when you decide to get up whether to get up in the morning on Sunday to go to church or not, you're taking into account lots of things you're trying to figure out, you know, they've got a hangover and I don't mean you personally of course, but but you're probably not taking into account my job prospects what I'm trying to say. This is a standard thing right from economics 101 when there are externalities. People are less likely to produce we produce less of those goods and we should because your decision makers making decisions about whether to be civically engaged are not taking into account the benefits that other people are getting from that Civic engagement. And that's one of the reasons why we are as a country less civically engaged as we should again lots of other examples, I'll just mention one more way in which Civic engagement makes a real difference Civic engagement is good for your health really some interesting studies done by physicians controlling for your age and gender and blood chemistry and whether you jog or not controlling for all those things your chances of dying. Well your chances of dying or are high but your chances of your chances of dying over the next year are cut in half by joining one group and cut in a quarter by joining two groups. So it's Joy is good for you to join again. You might want to you might want to know what's the mechanism how does joining groups help your health a part of it? But only a small part is that healthier people are more likely to join but it isn't that's kind of fake. But but isn't only that it's partly that being connected with other people has real physiological effects on our state of well-being and partly it's that if we get feedback from other people about our health, you know, if you if you're you know, you see someone you say, you know, you're not looking so good. Actually you're looking just fine. But I mean you say so you're not looking you get feedback from other people and if you go to church regularly then one day you slip in the bathtub and fall someone will notice but if you don't go to church, no one will notice so Civic engagement has lots of consequences for Measurable ways in which we are better off for the face of different way. The fact that there has been this dramatic erosion of social capital in America over the last generation has lots to do with the fact that our institutions are not performing as well as they used to why is it happened? I'm not entirely sure why it's happened. There are a couple of ideas that I have a part of it my daughter who's a whom I'm inordinately proud and who's in graduate school at the University of Michigan tells me I have to be careful how I phrase this next point but part of what's happened is the movement of women into the paid labor force over the last generation has had a powerful effect on Civic engagement in America. I'm Not For a Moment saying that my daughter autograph drop out of graduate school. I am saying well one way of looking at it is this over the last generation we've taken a third of all adults in America off one set of tasks producing social capital. That's just my jargon for taking the kids to literally and we put them on a different set of tasks in the law office or the checkout counter at Walmart or whatever and no one's doing those things that our mothers did. And they weren't part of the GNP and they did and I'm others didn't get credit for it, but it was really important. This has been a massive change in the division of labor in America. It's like, I mean, it's like the Industrial Revolution the Industrial Revolution consisted in moving a third of American adults from farms to factories and that had huge consequences for the our Collective life and we have just been through a transformation. That's about that big. No one's who was worried about the consequences of the Industrial Revolution said we ought to shut down the factories and go back to the farms and I'm not saying that we ought to that my daughter ought to drop out of graduate school and women ought to go back into the homes. I am saying that this has been a big change and we haven't yet worked through because partly cuz we haven't noticed essentially there are the things that our mothers were doing in terms of Civic engagement are no longer getting done. So part of it a part of what's going on. I think is that part of it is maybe Mobility as we move around a lot. We it's like repotting a plant every time you repot a plant you'd break off the roots and it takes time for the plant to put new Roots down. And as we move around a lot we're we're are considered acidic roots are less or less deep part of it. Is that technology is privatizing our Leisure Time. One good example of this is television. We spending the average American spends four hours a day in front of a box in a room and that's four hours at came from someplace and among the places that it came from is specific engagement, but it's not just it's not just television technology in a very direct direct sense very subtle, but pervasive sense is make is making us entertain ourselves more and more alone one example of this is listening to music the our number of hours spent by the average American listening to music per week is rising. The number of hours spent listening to music in the company of another person is falling. right CDs and and Walkman and this and it's not because we don't want to be with other people. I mean I happen to like classical music and but I confess to you and that I don't happen to like twenty Century classical music. If I go to the Boston Symphony, I've got to sit through the hindemith until we get to the the good stuff. If I if I said home alone and listen to my CD I can I can overdose on Beethoven all day long, but I don't see my friends at the symphony anymore. So in a very direct way technology is privatizing our Leisure Time and this is part of a much broader trend from Village dancing to Vaudeville to movies to TV to VCRs to these virtual reality machines in which will entertain ourselves behind a behind a visor and be I'm sure be very happy utterly utterly alone. There may be other factors that have caused this change but those are some of them I actually know what to do about this play. That has hit American society in the last generation, but I've talked too long. So I want to thank you very much. Thank you very much. Dr. Putnam for our radio audience who listening to Robert Putnam a professor of government and political science at Harvard is written a important book called making democracy work or have questions now, our first one is from Chuck Denney, the former chairman of ATC telecommunications who act after retiring took over the Minneapolis Community Development agency and tried to make it a bit more community-focused. He was partially successful. I think we'd all agree. Here you go, Chuck. Thank you. That was just intriguing. Dr. Porterman. Of course. The question has to be we'd be just delighted to stay for a while. Can't you give us some ideas as to how we work our way out of this problem? Yes. Thank you very much for that question. Well, of course the honest answer is I'm not entirely sure. Let me say a couple of things in response to it, but I wide really think was we need to have a national conversation about this question. How do we get more increase reweave the social fabric knit the country together better I think part of it has to do with schools. I think that there has been a decline in Civics in in Civics education in our schools. And I don't mean just I don't mean it in fact at all. You know, what you remember from from high school or grade school how many senators are there and how does a bill become a law and that kind of stuff? I mean education that encourages people to be engaged with their Community Affairs and one thing that's happened has been there's been a dramatic and most people are not aware of this a dramatic decline in extracurricular activities. In American schools over the last generation in chorus and in debate and in football and so on and those are important in my view that's that's not a frill because that's the way we learn to engage with other people and it's hard to be in a court. I mean, I think Coral slide is really important to first Civics and and it's hard to do that. If you haven't had a chance to learn the joys of Harmony. So schools are part of the answer to the problem government is I think also part of the solution, although it can also be part of the problem. It's the first thing that government ought to do is to be sure it doesn't inadvertently destroy social capital and sometimes that's what government is done. I mean the the the urban Redevelopment programs of the 1960s, I think consisted of renewing physical capital and destroying Social Capital that is brand-new buildings better than the slums that people lived in before but in the process we disrupted those Community networks that were there and that was unfortunately a net loss to Social connectedness in America. I think sometimes there are things that governments can do in Partnership. But communities to encourage Civic engagement and social connectedness. I think there are things that companies can do I think for example part of the problem is that we just are actually busier now than we were a generation ago and we are less able to we have less free time less flexible time to devote to civic affairs. And I know that some companies have been leaders in encouraging among their employees Civic engagement and I think that's actually a quite important responsibility for companies. But in the end it comes back to us individually. We have got to re-engage. I mean, I don't think there's some big National program. I don't think I ought to be a you know, Federal Department of Social Capital and I'm not campaigning to be the first the first cabinet Secretary of social capital. I do think that You know the slogan for the Salvation Army is saving the world one Soul at a time. And I think really this means saving our national Social Capital One community at a time. One of the reasons why I'm here in the Twin Cities is because I know there's some important initiatives going on locally here and I'm here to learn about that. I think there are important examples around the country Newsweek this story this week had a story about ways in which some there are some examples of people around the country beginning to be re engaged in their community. And I think it's very important that we discover those secrets that we that we highlight them and give Strokes to the people who are making that kind of investment in Civic engagement and that we learn from their experience. That's not an exhaustive answer but it's a beginning. Thank you. Dr. Putnam. Our next question is from John Pratt, who is the executive director of the Minnesota Council of nonprofits? The country has changed a great deal and we can't go back to the fifties. The PTA used to hold many of its meetings during the day when women were available Minnesota now has the highest rate of female participation in the workforce. We also have very high rate of participation in organizations very rich nonprofit and voluntary culture. My question is what have you learned about either choral societies and Italy in do they have new ways to get members or what recommendations do you have for people trying to increase participation? Well, I've responded that in part in the in the previous question. I do think that all of our organizations are nonprofits in our Civic organizations of various sorts have got to readjust their their schedules and their programming and so on to fit the character of our hurried lives, but it's and that's true. Not only for what you might call formal Civic Nations in a do-gooding sense. I mean one reason why I use bowling leagues is because it's it trying to indicate that it's lots of other social connectedness. That's that's been damaged. And I think part of the answer to the question is being more flexible and creative about the timing and the scheduling of these sorts of activities, but I guess I have to say that I think the most important thing is that we need to recognize how important those activities are for our life together even carving a spending an evening with neighbors. You can have really important consequences for our community. And so I think partly we do need to have a if you hear in my voice a certain kind of revivalism is because I really do think we need to have a change our the valuation that we put on this part of our of Our Lives. Thank you. Dr. Putnam. You're listening to a professor Robert Putnam of Harvard University speaking to the Minnesota meeting at the Hilton Hotel in Downtown Minneapolis. I'm sorry the Marriott Hotel in Downtown. No, no, he'll be all right. I Right the first time this is Nick garvice of the Dayton Hudson Corporation doctor, um your comments about technology or pretty interesting and how they are isolating us, but rather than just succumb to the isolation that CDs and 500 cable channels and all that will produce. How can we leverage that technology to bring us together? Because the technology is not going away. Yeah, you're right. The technology isn't going away and I think there are ways in which television for example or for that matter the internet can connect people but we can't think and connect people in new ways. I mean connect people over much broader distances, but we shouldn't think that that those more distant connections are the same thing as social capital of a bowling league sort. There's really good evidence that face-to-face necess. Is important and so we for example I think that there are some experiments that local Media newspapers as well as television around the country are engaged in called Civic journalism in which they try to trigger more Community conversations about about civic affairs. And I think some of those have had have had some success. I'm not a technophobe in the sense that I think that you know, either we should or could or you know, abolish the internet, for example, I think but I don't sometimes people think that that's just another Network and it's another kind of connection and I think it isn't let me say one more thing about the kind of problem that I think that we're facing in this country. I've been talking about social capital as if it was a single thing lots of it a little of it but they're different kinds of Social connectedness and there's one particular kind of connectedness that I think is extremely important and that deserves a special attention and that is what I would call bridging Social Capital that is social capital that cuts across the other divisions in our society. I think the single Most serious problem facing America is how little Social Capital how little social connectedness ever face-to-face friend friendly or acquaintances sort. There is across racial lines. We have had major changes for the better in American formal race relations, but it remains true that most white people do not have close friends among black people and there is there has been actually not much visible evidence of Greater connectedness across racial lines. That's a serious problem. And so it's not just enough to get more white folks going to church more black folks folks going to church. We've got to think of wait special ways to begin to build more bridging social capital. Thank you very much.