SOCIAL CAPITAL/CIVIC ENGAGEMENT allows for:
- The resolution of collective problems easier
- Allows for communal advancements through the sharing of ideas
- Widens awareness of community issues and concerns at the individual level through the collective level of all stakeholders
- Better education and children's welfare (village mentality)
- Better communication between caregivers and resources
- Disengagement from isolating behaviors
- Better safety and productivity in neighborhoods
- Employs youth towards positive contributions
- Decreases deviant behavior in youth
- Increases prosperity through networking
- Cooperative models of economic success
- Reduced rates of suicide (individuals feel part of something larger than self)
- Increased positive feelings of self and others
- Fostering happiness through connections with others
- Increased sense of democracy
- Inclusion
- Increased feelings of selflessness
- Increased sense of responsibility and accountability towards others
In chapter 22, Putnam examines the "dark side" of social capital in how it draws like-minded people together, at the exclusion of diversity. It is only human to want to be around people who think, act, and look like ourselves. The danger lies in creating false narratives and stereotype of other groups not represented in our social circles. "Solidarity inevitably comes at the cost of freedom." Putnam argues the danger of going along with the masses, or groupthink, as we attempt to fit in. Tolerance and social capital should be compatible, and as new generations become more tolerant, the conflicts that plagued our generation and those of our parents, parents' parents should fade away. Or will it? Often conflict arises from limited resources, as jobseekers fight for economic survival, and this is when intolerance rears its ugly head. Putnam is stressing how we are to be on our guard from those who would divide (much like our current political system), as this division only profits the mongers of separation and not the collective.
Throughout Putnam's work, education seems to be the ballast that provides stability to the rising and lowering of the tide of civic engagement. Time and time again, education is seen as the key to moving society beyond emotion and into positive action. What does Putnam suggest in the last two chapters of his work to rebuild, augment, and renew national involvement in increasing social capital? Does education play a part, and if so, how much? Personally I can asset to the fact that our program has moved me from the bleachers onto the playing field of civic engagement.
I question whether people who choose to gather socially and are like-minded constitute the "dark side" at the expense of diversity. Clearly you've read more, and likely absorbed the larger theme of this book better than I can from the Reader's Digest version. However, the author appears to suspect people's motives, perhaps without evidence. If I choose to join a crochet circle, does that mean I don't care to know quilters? Do people who join exclusive clubs become less open-minded because they're in the club, or would they hold their narrowness even in solitude?
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