Political Scientist Robert Putnam on Isolation, Loneliness, The Boy Problem, and Moral Obligations

I see that it's now been 616 days since my last blog post, and there's no telling how long it'll be before I feel compelled to post again.

At 55, the post-pandemic years have now become the busiest of my career. I am gobsmacked by that fact. Ironic that my last post was about slowing down. But yes, to those of you who worry and wonder enough to write me about my absence, I am busier, but also more balanced. In part because I've eschewed social media (save the periodic "Go get 'em!" to friends and family for their promotions, retirements, and meaningful matters in between); perhaps like others in my generation, I find that social media consumption and personal joy are inversely correlated.

And don't get me started on AI. Or do, because with AI at our sides, we can each demonstrate witty banter, passive-aggressive repartee, and fling out one-line zingers without even having to participate: "If you want my opinion, just ask AI."

But beyond the business of busyness, unplugging, relishing joy, and arguing with others' AI chatbots, the fifth and final reason explaining 616 days' absence is actually chief among them all: societal rending and our general coarseness toward one another.  

In an era and arena bereft of decency, integrity, generosity and grace, I find myself literally at a loss for words. Speechless.

Or, in some cases, simply biting my tongue.

The less politics (and fewer politicians) in our public consciousness the better, yet we find ourselves awash in them now; they saturate and drown our everything: dinner convos with family, idle workplace banter, media, holiday meals, Super Bowls, even satellites and soulless cars on the freeways.

In the age of information, expertise is critically endangered and choosing ignorance has become such a surprisingly popular choice! Of course, we've no one to blame but ourselves for perpetuating such a broken two-party system. We (and the spineless who enable them) have allowed egomaniacal psychopaths on warpaths to so dominate our airwaves that the preceding/present mental health crisis resulting from nothing less than a global pandemic (!) will pale in comparison to what looms on the horizon following 4, 8, or 12 years of a splinter in our collective psyche resulting from the forthcoming era of grifting, graft, grievance, and getting even.

God help us all.

To just exist without losing my own everlovin' mind, I'm taking refuge these first six months or so in Noah Kahan's coping mechanism from Homesick when he sings to the rafters: "I stopped caring 'bout a month ago [and] since then it's been smooth sailing!"

Ha!

Sounds divine........................

I so wish that the Calgon of old really could take me away from it all, or that you could simply call me when Dunning-Kruger exits stage right (along with the parade of ceaseless clowns who keep crawling out of our capitol's cars), but I can't allow myself to succumb to such magical thinking for too long.

Hey, we've known for millennia that neither barons nor the political class successfully legislate morality, so what makes anyone believe today's banana republic and slow-moving courts stand a snowball's chance winning anything more than 51% of these culture wars everyone's fighting? They cannot, of course; it's simply more of the same old, same old sturm und drang year after year after year after year.

The books and podcasts that rivet and fascinate me most right now are those that take deeper looks with longer lenses than just four years or so. Namely, anthropological and sociological perspectives rather than political ones, because 'players and people' come and go like the weather, but 'humankind' only changes demonstrably every full to half-century at the fastest. 

I anticipate remaining below the radar (much as I have these past couple years) if for no other reason than I prefer my peace and have yet to see anyone converted in the Comments section of Facebook or the present incarnation of Twitter's toilet, X, but I arise like a meerkat today to share Tim Miller's thought-provoking podcast interview with Robert Putnam (a political scientist who thinks, writes and speaks like a sociologist).

It seems fitting to champion a value important to Putnam like togetherness, it being Valentine's Day and all.

Robert Putnam is Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government. You can check out his personal site if you like, or you can dive right into the deep end with a wonderful interview from November 2024's Harvard Gazette.  

Robert's 84 now, and that alone affords him long looks back, recounting quite vividly how America addressed (between 1905 and 1912) "the boy problem," isolation/loneliness, and the death of community.

He reminds us that four societal realities breaking everyone's hearts today are precisely what America faced and so successfully tackled more than a century ago: polarization, inequality, self-centeredness (ego), and social isolation. 

Circa 1900, families (the most fundamental building block in any thriving society) and young people (those most disaffected/disillusioned today) found themselves off the farms and out of small communities (or outright immigrants) and flung into rapidly growing large cities (cities experiencing 22% to 400% population growth within 6-10 years) including Seattle, Los Angeles, Houston, Denver, San Francisco, Chicago, New York and Philadelphia, where they were "alone in crowds" and less connected / networked / involved / engaged / supported / familial than ever before. 

America's progress in response to such dizzying and disorienting dynamics would be upended 50 years later by the mid-century's flight to the suburbs (and with it, industrialized anonymity, immigration complexities, and suburbanized homogeneity), the consequences of which bring us full-circle to where we find ourselves yet again some 113 years after 1912: divided and alone in red states, blue states, purple states, or, as I view it, plain ol' black-and-blue all over.

If intrigued, like I was, give Robert a listen. His segment with Tim begins at 00:28:50 and runs 45 minutes in duration.

I know their dialogue and Robert's wisdom won't change anyone's minds, cure cancer (like AI better!) or improve our shared political forecasts, but his long view just might allay a few fears by reminding you that—all hyperbole aside—America's had worse, survived worse, and lived to fight another day. Heck, it's character building! You know, that which does not kill us makes us stronger and all that. This cyclical view of history reminds us that more societies than not endure recurring phases of struggle, strength, prosperity, and decline. Rinse and repeat that in your mind, will ya? It's darkest before the dawn.

"Hard times create strong men.
Strong men create good times.
Good times create weak men.
Weak men create hard times."

—G. Michael Hopf

 

My own bias (Eeyore as it may be) is that it's Pollyannaish to hope the arc of the moral universe will bend toward justice in the here and now, but I do believe it will bend amply in the hereafter. (With all due respect, of course, to Bill Maher's bias to the contrary, many of us do believe in that which we cannot see—and faith is a beautiful thing.)

The long game, you'll find, consumes much of Putnam's work. After all, what no community or court in the land can do, God can and surely will.

And that, my friends, brings us to morality, which becomes both the crux of the matter that Robert challenges us with at the very end of Tim's interview, and our cross to bear collectively. 

The question, I suppose, comes down to something as 'high school' as this: Are we man enough to do so?

I say gird your loins, slap on your breastplate, grab your sword and shield, and go get 'em!

 

 

•  •  •

 

Then he said to them all: "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it." (Luke 9:23-24)

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. (Colossians 3:12)

For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. (2 Timothy 4:3-4)

You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them. (Matthew 7:16-20)

Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. (Ephesians 4:29)

From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked. (Luke 12:48)

I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people—for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. (1 Timothy 2:1-2)

Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people he chose for his inheritance. (Psalm 33:12)

Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people. (Proverbs 14:34)

If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God. (Deuteronomy 28:1-2)

If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it. (Jeremiah 18:7-10)

If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. (2 Chronicles 7:14)