Essay About Social Life And Human Capital

Bowling Alone – the Book Report
Essay Preview: Bowling Alone – the Book Report
Report this essay
THE BOOK REPORT
Author: Robert D. Putnam.
Title: Bowling Alone
Bowling Alone, is a super and very interesting book with full of inspiration in it. Robert with full of
thoughts, and imagination, has tried the best of his knowledge to deliver the message to American citizen
which to me I can say it has come at the right time.
Mr. Putnam, for the message to be reached, he reveals that, What happened to civic and social life in
American communities is the subject of the whole book. [Page 18]. First, I would like to put out three issues
which are major factors led the decrease in the American civic life. These are Human capital, Physical
capital and Social capital.
Social capital is a sociological idea which used in business, economics, organizational behavior, political
science, public health, and the social sciences in general and it refers to the connections within and between
social networks. Unlike much than economic concepts and physical capital human capital, the social
networks of social capital there is a some values in it. Social capita, is also a connection between
Individuals and individuals. Mr. Robert, in his book demonstrate the drop of this values which caused the
diminish in social capital.
By giving all this explanation about social capital, the author discusses the many issues which shows that
how the social capital declined in American society , this include the slowness or decrease in membership
in an organization, attending the church services, attending the club meetings, and interaction with others
face to face in communities. It used to be in those days in the twentieth century, people used to mingle
around together , having fun doing things in a group as a neighbors, but this days you can not see this
happening any more. In America, for a person to go to a neighbor house is not possible. Unless you are
related as a family member. Individualism has become as a traditional life style, in which, it has broken the
bridge between individual and fellow citizen. Comparing to other part of the world, especially in Africa,
since back then, people used to do activities together. Weather yours or somebodys, if something needs to
be done in Corporation, it was done together. A person to go to someones house is not something to worry
about. You visit anytime you want to. This kind of trend has become a traditional style of life. The benefit
of this kind of life style is to build trust. There is a trust sort on it. It is very hard for a person to harm your
fellow citizen you are living together, sharing every duties as a neighborhood together. Versus in America,
individualism has changed peoples mind and every body has no trust on each other. So it is very difficult
to visit some bodys house because there is no trust in it.
Like Robert has said, because people have reduced attending club meetings, church services, organization
meetings, this has caused the care for another especially your neighbor to be hard. Because, as a human, to
meet and mingle together it helps some body to express his new ideas for the development of the society,
or it helps some body to reveal out his problems, so people in the community can find a way to help the way
of solving it, also it helps for getting by in oppressive situations.
It is believed that people who attend the church meetings, they are more easier to control the disagreement,
also they are very good in leadership. Faith communities is very major issue to bring people together, it is
the source of social capital in the United states. Almost half of the volunteers in the United States come
from the churches.
Another problem, among the major issues which led the decline in Social capital in American
society is the issue of political participation in the country. Robert says in chapter two, People in America
they are not all of them getting involve in their government. A national with over three hundred million
people, you may find that less than half of the population are involved in political issues, where is the rest