It might seem a bit ironic that Barack Obama, who had one of his campaign lowlights when he tried to bowl shortly before the Pennsylvania primary, had his views on community-building shaped by Harvard professor Robert Putnam, author of Bowling Alone.
One of the chapters of the new president’s life that has gone nearly completely unexamined is his participation in the Saguaro Seminar on Civic Engagement in America at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, a working group of three dozen political leaders and clergy Putnam led from 1995 to 2000.
Putnam established the Saguaro Seminar around the time he published a widely read article that eventually turned into the 2000 book. The Seminar aimed to “expand what we know about our levels of trust and community engagement and develop strategies and efforts to increase this engagement.” He included some voices that one could classify as right-leaning: former GOP Congressman Vin Weber and two former advisers to George W. Bush, Steven Goldsmith, and John DiIulio Jr. But most of the participants’ philosophies melded compassionate conservatism, communitarianism, and the small-ball what-can-government-do-for-you vision of Bill Clinton’s 1996 reelection campaign: columnist E. J. Dionne, James Wallis, former Clinton aide George Stephanopoulos, Harvard professor William Julius Wilson.
There has been heretofore no exploration of Obama’s role in the seminar and its conclusions; the only reference to Obama’s participation is one line in a Politico report noting that members called him “governor,” in anticipation of what they foresaw as a promising political career.
The group’s final report, titled “BetterTogether,” contains few shocking ideas or proposals. But what is surprising, looking back, is how the participants perceived a near-apocalyptic sense of social disorder and distrust during a time period historians are likely to describe as a near-golden age. The dot-com boom of the late 1990s fueled record economic growth, welfare reform was establishing itself as the most effective policy change of the decade, and despite ominous al-Qaeda attacks, Americans believed that they were at peace.
And yet to hear the Saguaro participants, American society was a half-step away from Mad Max: “We are fast building two kinds of walled societies: gated communities and prisons”; “our civic infrastructure collapsed.” Television is described as “a death ray for civic life.” At times the report almost veers into self-parody. “Periodically, throughout our history, we have had an unemployment crisis. Now, amid unparalleled prosperity, we have an employment crisis.” We are told, with a straight face, that an illustration of the national breakdown is that “the number of times per year that Americans entertain friends at home has dropped by 45 percent since the mid-1970s.”
For epic problems like the Dinner Party Crisis, the scale of the proposed solutions is vast, as well: “We need nothing less than a sustained, broad-based social movement to restore civic virtue and civic participation in America.” The report’s authors declare that “massive changes in citizens’ attitudes and behavior will be necessary.” What’s more, “Every institution must make building social capital a principal goal or core value.”
Really? One might think that a hospital’s principal goal should be to heal sick people, a school’s principal goal should be educating students, and a police department’s principal goal must be to catch and incarcerate criminals.
The report’s recommended solutions are the unenlightening jumble that is typical of committee work. The 100 acts listed in the section “Changing the Wind—100 Things You Can Do To Build Social Capital” range from the innocuous (“donate blood,” “attend PTA meetings” ) to the unhelpfully vague (“Volunteer your special skills to an organization”) to the new age (“Be real. Be humble. Acknowledge others’ self-worth.”).
Several of the suggestions indicate that “building social capital” means dishing up raps on the knuckles for those who are cynical about government, no matter how justified their skepticism is: “When somebody says ‘government stinks,’ suggest they help fix it”; “Businesses: invite local government officials to speak at your workplace”; “Participate in political campaigns”; “Stand at a major intersection holding a sign for your favorite candidate.”
CONTINUED 1 2 Next >
