Hugh,
At 14:37 24/08/98 -0500, you wrote:
>The following is an article in today's Christian Science Monitor. It
>describes how people are not participating in community organizations
>any longer. Robert Putnam of Harvard thinks it is because people prefer
>their television sets and computers to actual human interaction. I
>think it is because people are afraid of interacting with other people.
>The politics, the conformity, cliqueishness, and the fear of rejection
>all combine to influence our profound isolation from each other.
No, I don't see it this way at all. There never has been so many voluntary
organisations, charities, societies, pressure groups, etc in history
before. In the UK, at least, there must be 50-100 times the number than in
the 50s and 60s. They are simply not so obvious because they're specialised
or, quite often, ad hoc and temporary.
It is not our sociability which is in decline -- I think that's a constant
within human nature -- but a matter of choosing with whom to socialise in
the daily time available from the enormous number of specialised activities
that are around us.
In pointing towards the decline of the more generalised community
organisations of previous decades, I think Robert Putnam is choosing a
small and relatively unimportant aspect of a much more serious problem.
This is that because there are so many specialisations today, there is no
time for any individual to acquire a wide grounding in all the different
activities of ancient and modern society and the key findings of science.
At least, the above would be a serious problem if considered only within
the context of society governed by very large heirachical governmental
institutions in which the public still expect those on top to be mentally
equipped to legislate wisely. But, increasingly, they are not -- and thus
the credibility gap between the public and the old-fashioned politicians
and their institutions is becoming wider by the year.
In developed countries I think we are seeing the emergence of a form of
society and governance quite different from anything we've seen since about
5,000BC (the dawn of the agricultural revolution and of the beginning of
quasi-permanent heirarchies of power and wealth). We will become
increasingly "ecological" in that society will increasingly tend towards
the lateral interplay of separate "species" (specialised groups and
functions) which will only interact "at the margins" -- that is, when their
essential functions force them to.
Individuals will socialise -- as always -- between themselves within
specialised groups but will not feel impelled to develop "togetherness"
with society at large. Indeed, as we have seen in the history of the last
several thousand years, that way is dangerous because demagogues and men of
power can so easily manipulate or suborn the undifferentiated masses and
lead them into warfare and misery. Thankfully, that is gradually becoming
less possible in modern society.
Keith
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Keith Hudson,6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England
Tel:01225 312622/444881; Fax:01225 447727; E-mail:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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