Daniel Hackett
Sociology 205
Timothy Woods
Sociology Paper 1
Robert D. Putnam’s “Bowling Alone” describes how America’s social capital, our groups and organizations that help us to better “facilitates coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit” (Putnam pg.67), has been steadily declining. He sites things such as voter turnout and organizations as well membership in religious, governmental, and labor unions declining steadily to rapidly in the last few decades. He then presents a few counters to this idea in order to keep credibility, such as AARP growing into the second largest private organization in the world, and groups like non-profit organizations and support groups becoming increasingly more popular. In doing this, though, he points…show more content… Putnam’s and Thomas H. Sander’s “Still Bowling Alone?” is basically a post 9/11 follow-up on the original “Bowling Alone” by Robert D. Putnam. It starts out by talking about how people who were in their youth during the attacks have had increasing interest and activity in politics. It mentions Obama and how he used this “wave”(Putnam, Sander pg.12) of political activism along with new technology to gain presidency, and also talks about the risks of him failing his stated goals. Then it talks about the lower class to middle/upper class gap in trends. It appears that while the middle and upper class kids are getting more involved, the lower class kids aren’t getting involved at all. The authors state that, “If the United States is to avoid becoming two nations, it must find ways to expand the post-9/11 resurgence of civic and social engagement beyond the ranks of affluent young white people.”(Putnam, Sander pg.14) Studies show that the lower class is much less trusting and much less happy in their academic and social lives. “If these gaps remain unaddressed, the United States could become less a land of opportunity than a caste society replete with the tightly limited social mobility and simmering resentments that such societies invariably feature.”(Putnam, Sander…show more content… Before college, I was very active in my local church, Austin Baptist. I attended every Sunday, went to bible groups Sunday and Wednesday, played base guitar in my youth group’s band, and participated in many service projects organized by the church. I played basketball in high school, was a member of NJHS and NHS, and I was in scouts for 11 years and recently received my Eagle Scout award. I can’t even count the number of service hours of logged through scouts and my church. Now that I am in college, I am loosely involved in a few organizations and I plan to vote in