Bowling Alone

In Putnam's essay he points how that Americans have been increasingly disconnected from our families, neighbors, friends, and our social structures. Based on his examples of people leaving the voting booth, not participating in religious services, and disconnecting from their neighbors, civic engagement for Americans is decreasing, the opposite of what de Tocqueville predicted. I think it is very interesting for him to points out the idea of social capital. He states that ""social capital" refers to features of social organization such as networks, norms, and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit. " It sounds like social capital is the voluntary association we talked about since they both focuses the coordination and cooperation. But I feel that social capital has a larger broader. In the essay, Putnam regards volunteering associations as the prime sources for social trust, social networks, and civic engagement, and I think all of these are the social capitals. Moreover, participating in he associations contributes in social capitals. I agree with him that it is the experiences of communicating and interacting with people that brings people together. Especially in today's situation, we have people from different backgrounds that need to be brought together as an united whole to solve some of the common problems we faced. We learn to trust each other more not from watching TV or other types of advanced technology but through conversation and the process of get to one another. The voluntary association represents one of the main platforms for interaction of this certain type.