Robert Putnam: What Does It Mean To Be a Social Capitalist? (and how does it affect our health?)

Yeah, and no, that makes a lot of sense, and I think when you hear that definition, most people recognize this is something I want in my life.

I wanna live in a place where there's a lot of social capital.

Yet, what you have described is that social capital has declined, and y- a lot of your work, I think I and others have, have cited decline in participating in not bowling leagues, but also faith organizations, recreational leagues, service organizations.

Uh, we've seen-

Churches.

Sure, yep, exactly.

The question is, why did this happen? Like, why did we swing from a place where their social capital is relatively high in the United States to where we are now? What drove that?

Well, first of all, what's, what's America like today? Quickly, I'll say America is extremely socially isolated.

That's what we've been talking about.

That's the bowling alone part.

America is extremely unequal.

We haven't talked about that, but it's certainly true the gap between rich and poor has probably never been as high in A- as it is in America right now.

It's actually a st- statistically, it's stunning, the gap between rich and poor in America.

It's-- I don't know of any, uh, you know, contemporary society that's-- in which there's as much i-inequality.

So very socially isolated, v-very unequal, very polarized politically, I can tell you.

And yet, as Bob points out, this is not the first time that we've been in this position as a country.

I can tell you there is a period in American history in which we were as polarized politically as we are now.

That was the five years between eighteen sixty and eighteen sixty-five.

Raise your hand if you know what those five years were.

Right, that was the Civil War.

That's where we-- we're in that territory now, and we're also, and this would take a longer story to spin out, we're also in an unusually self-centered culturally.

We're in a kind of an I mood as a country.

That's us today.

That same thing was true a hundred and twenty-five years ago.

In the book, The Upswing, I prove that with a gazillion figures and statistics and so on.