Putain, Putin, Putnam, Poutine

What’s the deal with Robert Putnam’s “Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital”?

Putnam’s main thesis is that there is striking evidence that the vibrancy of American civil society has notably declined over the past several decades (66) and that “there is reason to suspect that the democratic disarray may be linked to a broad and continuing erosion of civic engagement that began a quarter-century ago” (77).