First, apologies to Ken. I accessed this through his blog. Still it will be interesting to compare my attempt with his professional review.
Bob Putnamm doesn’t state his argument at the beginning and so I found it confusing to read at the start despite the title. However he does go on and present some good empirical evidence for his argument that American people are becoming disengaged from the civic process because of decreasing membership of organised associations.
He produces numbers to show the declining membership of political associations, religion, the unions, Parent Teachers’ Associations and voluntary organisations. So once the essay has started the reader can see where the essay is heading.
But then Bob Putnamm discusses the increase in the number of Americans going solo bowling, presumably trying to use it as a good social indicator. However he digresss and gets tied into a discussion about percentages using them in a confusing way to back up an argument - (10% of what? and 40% of what?).
He returns to his central argument and suggests that instead of engaging in the more organised civic associations Americans are joining what he labels tertiary organisations. Examples include the Americam Association of Retired Persons which he tells us is now the world’s second largest private organisation with 33 million members. The Catholic church is the largest. He tells us that these membeships mostly entail people paying their fees but rarely meeting and therefore little civic engagement takes place.
Finally Bob concludes that America needs to find a way of increasing civic engagement.
Yes, that’s it. Overall I found the essay weak. There was no real start to get a reader interested in continuing to read it. He presents some good evidence but doesn’t analyse or evaluate it. What does it mean that there is a lack of civic engagement in the USA? What effect is this having on society other than fewer pizzas are being bought at bowling alleys (read the essay)? What long term effect is this going to have on Amerian society? So why should America bother to improve civic engagement?
Bob offers no solutions or recommendations. He merely comments on a trend and he tries to use bowling as a social indicator which might work in a piece of writing with much more depth but in this piece it comes across as weak and shows little thought. I would have liked to see his evidence used in a more productive way with more analysis and evaluation and a bit more extrapolation of the consequences of the trend finished with some considered conclusions and recommendations.
It’s great being a critic!
Interesting question. Would my review be different if I had noticed that this was a ’seminal’ work by someone who may be famous?
I found your talk about the article extremely interesting and read the article as a result of what you said.