Figure 88: Social Connectedness (at Least in Moderation) Fosters Happiness
This analysis is, of course, phrased intentionally in round numbers, for the underlying calculations are rough and ready. Moreover the direction of causation remains ambiguous. Perhaps happy people are more likely than unhappy people to get married, win raises at work, continue in school, attend church, join clubs, host parties, and so on. My present purpose is merely to illustrate that social connections have profound links with psychological well-being. The Beatles got it right: we all “get by with a little help from our friends.”
In the decades since the Fab Four topped the charts, life satisfaction among adult Americans has declined steadily. Roughly half the decline in contentment is associated with financial worries, and half is associated with declines in social capital: lower marriage rates and decreasing connectedness to friends and community. Not all segments of the population are equally gloomy. Survey data show that the slump has been greatest among young and middle-aged adults (twenty to fifty-five). People over fifty-five—our familiar friends from the long civic generation—are actually happier than were people their age a generation ago.24
Some of the generational discrepancy is due to money worries: despite rising prosperity, young and middle-aged people feel less secure financially. But some of the disparity is also due to social connectedness. Young and middle-aged adults today are simply less likely to have friends over, attend church, or go to club meetings than were earlier generations. Psychologist Martin Seligman argues that more of us are feeling down because modern society encourages a belief in personal control and autonomy more than a commitment to duty and common enterprise. This transformation heightens our expectations about what we can achieve through choice and grit and leaves us unprepared to deal with life’s inevitable failures. Where once we could fall back on social capital—families, churches, friends—these no longer are strong enough to cushion our fall.25 In our personal lives as well as in our collective life, the evidence of this chapter suggests, we are paying a significant price for a quarter century’s disengagement from one another.
CHAPTER 21
Democracy
THE PLAYWRIGHT OSCAR WILDE is said to have mused, “The trouble with socialism is that it would take too many evenings.”1 Fair enough, but how many evenings does liberal democracy take? That democratic self-government requires an actively engaged citizenry has been a truism for centuries. (Not until the middle of the twentieth century did some political theorists begin to assert that good citizenship requires simply choosing among competing teams of politicians at the ballot box, as one might choose among competing brands of toothpaste.)2 In this chapter I consider both the conventional claim that the health of American democracy requires citizens to perform ourpublic duties and the more expansive and controversial claim that the health of ourpublic institutions depends, at least in part, on widespread participation inprivate voluntary groups—those networks of civic engagement that embody social capital.
The ideal of participatory democracy has deep roots in American political philosophy. With our experiment in democracy still in its infancy, Thomas Jefferson proposed amending the Constitution to facilitate grassroots democracy. In an 1816 letter he suggested that “counties be divided into wards of such size that every citizen can attend, when called on, and act in person.” The ward governments would have been charged with everything from running schools to caring for the poor to operating police and military forces to maintaining public roads. Jefferson believed that “making every citizen an acting member of the government, and in the offices nearest and most interesting to him, will attach him by his strongest feelings to the independence of his country, and its republican constitution.”3
Visiting American shores a decade later, Alexis de Tocqueville struck a similar note, suggesting that even in the absence of Jeffersonian ward governments, Americans’ local civic activity served as the handmaiden of their national democratic community: “It is difficult to draw a man out of his own circle to interest him in the destiny of the state,” Tocqueville observed, “because he does not clearly understand what influence the destiny of the state can have upon his own lot. But if it is proposed to make a road cross the end of his estate, he will see at a glance that there is a connection between the small public affair and his greatest private affairs; and he will discover, without its being shown to him, the close tie that unites private to general interest.”4
British political philosopher John Stuart Mill lauded the effects of participatory democracy on character. Without shared participation in public life, Mill wrote, a citizen “never thinks of any collective interest, of any objects to be pursued jointly with others but only in competition with them, and in some measure at their expense. …A neighbour, not being an ally or an associate, since he is never engaged in any common undertaking for joint benefit, is therefore only a rival.” The engaged citizen, by contrast, “is called upon …to weigh interests not his own; to be guided, in case of conflicting claims, by another rule than his private partialities…. He is made to feel himself one of the public, and whatever is for their benefit to be for his benefit.”5
The eminent Progressive philosopher John Dewey grappled with a conundrum that remains timely today—how to reconcile modern, large-scale, technologically advanced society with the exigencies of democracy. “Fraternity, liberty and equality isolated from communal life are hopeless abstractions…. Democracy must begin at home, and its home is the neighborly community.” “Only in local, face-to-face associations,” adds Dewey’s biographer Robert Westbrook, “could members of a public participate in dialogues with their fellows, and such dialogues were crucial to the formation and organization of the public.”6
Many of America’s Founding Fathers, however, didn’t think much of voluntary associations. They were famously opposed to political parties and local political committees, as well as to any other group whose members might combine to threaten political stability. James Madison called groups organized around particular interests or passions “mischiefs of faction,” whose presence must be tolerated in the name of liberty, but whose effects must be controlled.7 Madison’s fear, which reverberates among today’s critics of Washington lobby-ists and special interest groups, was that elected representatives, swayed by these “factions,” would sacrifice the good of the whole for the pet projects of the few. In his comprehensive history of civic life in America Michael Schudson concludes that the Founders “were far from sharing a pluralist vision, still attached as they were to the notions of consensus, property, virtue, and deference that came naturally to them.”8 As we shall shortly see, the Founders’ concerns about “the mischiefs of faction” reappear in the contemporary debate about social capital and democracy.
Echoing Tocqueville’s observations, many contemporary students of democracy have come to celebrate “mediating” or “intermediary” associations, be they self-consciously or only indirectly political, as fundamental to maintaining a vibrant democracy.9 Voluntary associations and the social networks of civil society that we have been calling “social capital” contribute to democracy in two different ways: they have “external” effects on the larger polity, and they have “internal” effects on participants themselves.
Externally, voluntary associations, from churches and professional societies to Elks clubs and reading groups, allow individuals to express their interests and demands on government and to protect themselves from abuses of power by their political leaders. Political information flows through social networks, and in these networks public life is discussed. As so often, Tocqueville saw this point clearly: “When some view is represented by an association, it must take clearer and more precise shape. It counts its supporters and involves them in its cause; these supporters get to know one another, and numbers increase zeal. An association unites the energies of divergent minds and vigorously directs them toward a clearly indicated goal.”10
When people associate in neighbo
rhood groups, PTAs, political parties, or even national advocacy groups, their individual and otherwise quiet voices multiply and are amplified. “Without access to an association that is willing and able to speak up for our views and values,” writes political philosopher Amy Gutmann, “we have a very limited ability to be heard by many other people or to influence the political process, unless we happen to be rich or famous.”11 Citizen connectedness does not require formal institutions to be effective. A study of the democracy movement in East Germany before the collapse of the Berlin Wall, for example, found that recruitment took place through friendship networks and that these informal bonds were more important than ideological commitment, fear of repression, or formal organizing efforts in determining who joined the cause.12
Internally, associations and less formal networks of civic engagement instill in their members habits of cooperation and public-spiritedness, as well as the practical skills necessary to partake in public life. Tocqueville observed that “feelings and ideas are renewed, the heart enlarged, and the understanding developed only by the reciprocal action of men one upon another.”13 Prophylactically, community bonds keep individuals from falling prey to extremist groups that target isolated and untethered individuals. Studies of political psychology over the last forty years have suggested that “people divorced from community, occupation, and association are first and foremost among the supporters of extremism.”14
More positively, voluntary associations are places where social and civic skills are learned—”schools for democracy.” Members learn how to run meetings, speak in public, write letters, organize projects, and debate public issues with civility.15 William Muraskin’s description of the effects of Prince Hall Masonry on the civic skills of African Americans applies much more broadly:
Masonry as an institution has been concerned with … inspiring and training its membership in leadership roles. Through the fraternity, members have learned to perform many bourgeois social roles with which they have limited or no prior experience. By teaching these roles, and by promoting an arena for their enactment, Masonry has worked to bring leadership potential within its membership to practical fruition.16
The most systematic study of civic skills in contemporary America suggests that for working-class Americans voluntary associations and churches offer the best opportunities for civic skill building, and even for professionals such groups are second only to the workplace as sites for civic learning. Two-thirds or more of the members of religious, literary, youth, and fraternal/service organizations exercised such civic skills as giving a presentation or running a meeting.17 Churches, in particular, are one of the few vital institutions left in which low-income, minority, and disadvantaged citizens of all races can learn politically relevant skills and be recruited into political action.18 The implication is vitally important to anyone who values egalitarian democracy: without such institutions, the class bias in American politics would be much greater.19
Just as associations inculcate democratic habits, they also serve as forums for thoughtful deliberation over vital public issues. Political theorists have lately renewed their attention to the promise and pitfalls of “deliberative democracy.”20 Some argue that voluntary associations best enhance deliberation when they are microcosms of the nation, economically, ethnically, and religiously.21 Others argue that even homogeneous organizations can enhance deliberative democracy by making our public interactions more inclusive. When minority groups, for example, push for nondiscrimination regulations and mandatory inclusion of ethnic interests in school curricula and on government boards, they are in effect widening the circle of participants.22
Voluntary associations may serve not only as forums for deliberation, but also as occasions for learning civic virtues, such as active participation in public life.23 A follow-up study of high school seniors found that regardless of the students’ social class, academic background, and self-esteem, those who took part in voluntary associations in school were far more likely than nonparticipants to vote, take part in political campaigns, and discuss public issues two years after graduating.24 Another civic virtue is trustworthiness. Much research suggests that when people have repeated interactions, they are far less likely to shirk or cheat.25 A third civic virtue acquired through social connectedness is reciprocity. As we saw repeatedly in chapter 7, the more people are involved in networks of civic engagement (from club meetings to church picnics to informal get-togethers with friends), the more likely they are to display concern for the generalized other—to volunteer, give blood, contribute to charity, and so on. To political theorists, reciprocity has another meaning as well—the willingness of opposing sides in a democratic debate to agree on the ground rules for seeking mutual accommodation after sufficient discussion, even (or especially) when they don’t agree on what is to be done.26 Regular connections with my fellow citizens don’t ensure that I will be able to put myself in their shoes, but social isolation virtually guarantees that I will not.
On the other hand, numerous sensible critics have raised doubts about whether voluntary associations are necessarily good for democracy.27 Most obviously, some groups are overtly antidemocratic—the KKK is everyone’s favorite example. No sensible theorist has ever claimed that every group works to foster democratic values. But even if we restrict our attention to groups that act within the norms of democracy, one common concern is that associations—or interest groups—distort governmental decision making. From Theodore Lowi’s End of Liberalism in the 1960s to Jonathan Rauch’s Demosclerosis in the 1990s, critics of American pluralism have argued that the constant and conflicting pleas of ever more specialized lobbies have paralyzed even well-intentioned public officials and stifled efforts to cut or improve ineffective government programs.28 This complaint is reminiscent of Madison’s worry that mischievous “factions” would profit at the expense of the commonweal. Contrary to the pluralists’ ideal, wherein bargaining among diverse groups leads to the greatest good for the greatest number, we end up instead with the greatest goodies for the best-organized few.
A second concern is that associational ties benefit those who are best equipped by nature or circumstance to organize and make their voices heard. People with education, money, status, and close ties with fellow members of their community of interest will be far more likely to benefit politically under pluralism than will the uneducated, the poor, and the unconnected.29 In our words, social capital is self-reinforcing and benefits most those who already have a stock on which to trade. As long as associationalism is class biased, as virtually every study suggests it is,30 then pluralist democracy will be less than egalitarian. In the famous words of the political scientist E. E. Schattschneider: “The flaw in the pluralist heaven is that the heavenly chorus sings with a strong upper-class accent.”31
Finally, critics of pluralism have suggested that it can trigger political polarization and cynicism. Political scientists concerned about the decline in mass political parties as forces for organizing politics argue that citizen group politics is almost by nature extremist politics, since people with strongly held views tend to be the leaders and activists. Evidence from the Roper Social and Political Trends archives indeed suggests that ideological extremism and civic participation are correlated, although as we shall shortly see, that fact turns out to have unexpected implications for our current predicament.
If participation and extremism are linked, there are a number of important repercussions. First, voluntary organizations that are ideologically homogeneous may reinforce members’ views and isolate them from potentially enlightening alternative viewpoints.32 In some cases such parochialism may nurture paranoia and obstruction. In a polarized voluntary group universe, reasonable deliberation and bargaining toward a mutually acceptable compromise is well nigh impossible, as each side refuses “on principle” to give ground. Moreover, political polarization may increase cynicism about government’s ability to solve problems and decrease confidence that civic engagement makes any diff
erence.33
These are all serious concerns. Voluntary associations are not everywhere and always good. They can reinforce antiliberal tendencies; and they can be abused by antidemocratic forces. Further, not everyone who participates will walk away a better person: some people who join self-help groups, for example, will learn compassion and cooperation, while others will become more narcissistic. In the words of political theorist Nancy Rosenblum: “The moral uses of associational life by members are indeterminate.”34
Voluntary groups are not a panacea for what ails our democracy. And the absence of social capital—norms, trust, networks of association—does not eliminate politics. But without social capital we are more likely to have politics of a certain type. American democracy evolved historically in an environment unusually rich in social capital, and many of our institutions and practices— such as the unusual degree of decentralization in our governmental processes, compared with that of other industrialized countries—represent adaptations to such a setting. Like a plant overtaken by climatic change, our political practices would have to change if social capital were permanently diminished. How might the American polity function in a setting of much lower social capital and civic engagement?
A politics without face-to-face socializing and organizing might take the form of a Perot-style electronic town hall, a kind of plebiscitary democracy. Many opinions would be heard, but only as a muddle of disembodied voices, neither engaging with one another nor offering much guidance to decision makers. TV-based politics is to political action as watching ER is to saving someone in distress. Just as one cannot restart a heart with one’s remote control, one cannot jump-start republican citizenship without direct, face-to-face participation. Citizenship is not a spectator sport.
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