Robert Putnam received a hail of criticism when he released his book Bowling Alone. Some of it, in my opinion, is justified, but there is a grain of truth in there somewhere. I do not think that there’s been any great decline in America’s social capital. The type of community we have here online is a great example of how social networking can change to adapt to changing technology. It’s perhaps a testament to my generation that I don’t know my next door neighbors nearly as well as I know many of you. But I tend to agree with Putnam that our civil society is in trouble. One major criticism I would make of Generation X and Y, is that we’re probably the most civically disengaged generation in American history.
I don’t think that’s because we’re selfish, spend too much time on the Internet, or play too many video games. New technology has been distracting people for a long time. No doubt thousands of years ago, tribe elders expressed concern that Og was more interesting in spending all his time painting up the cave by this newfangled fire, and wasn’t showing any interest in participating the fish cleaning committee. Putnam was quick to blame technology for the problem, but I don’t think it’s that at all.
When it comes to civic engagement, what has failed our generation is not technology, but government. High taxes have ensured that people have less free time to spend on civic activity. Big government has fostered a culture of “let the professionals take care of it” that strongly discourages citizen involvement and participation. Our public schools, colleges, and universities no longer teach civics and government, and are more interested in turning out people who can fill jobs than they are turning out people who can think, and who can participate in civil society. We care about issues, we have energy, but because of the lack of understanding of how civil society functions, it gets send in random and unproductive directions much of the time.
I don’t think this was an accident. Those in positions of power benefit greatly from a passive citizenry. Politicians like Barack Obama want to force the schools to make us civically engage, and tax us even more. This is only going to make the problem worse, not better. Politicians like Obama recognize the problem, but will never accept their philosophy on government is the problem. The solution is always more government. It’s always more guys like him either telling people what to do, or even more damaging, taking care of people so they don’t have to take care of themselves. You will never hear the Barack Obamas of the world talk about tapping the resources and ingenuity of the American people, getting the federal government the hell off their backs, and let people self-organize and self-govern in order to solve problems. It always has to be experts. It always has to be bureaucrats. To suggest otherwise would be to suggest that we don’t need them, and their egos and ambitions won’t allow for that.
In Part II, I’ll talk about how I think this kind of civic disengagement is affecting the gun rights movement.
