While the social isolation that led Catfish’s Angela Pierce to construct multiple identities on Facebook in a bid to break out of that isolation does not fit neatly into the standard Marxist analysis, it is broadly speaking symptomatic of a society that has become increasingly atomized. While most people understand that a deficiency in food, shelter and health care is immediately traceable to the economic circumstances capitalism foists on a defenseless population, there are broader needs that the system cannot deliver.
In 1995 Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam wrote an article titled Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital in the Journal of Democracy published by the National Endowment for Democracy, a government body best known for its meddling in places like Nicaragua, Cuba, Iran, etc. The article was expanded into a best-selling book of the same title in 2000. full: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2010/10/19/social-networking-in-an-atomized-society/ _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
