The Decay of American Culture?

A new study out indicates that social isolation is growing in America. What this translates to is the weakening of the non-governmental social safety net and a greater dependency on the government for support.

"That image of people on roofs after Katrina resonates with me, because those people did not know someone with a car," said Lynn Smith-Lovin, a Duke University sociologist who helped conduct the study. "There really is less of a safety net of close friends and confidants."

If close social relationships support people in the same way that beams hold up buildings, more and more Americans appear to be dependent on a single beam.

I picked this up from a DailyKos diary, and a lot of the discussion focused on the idea that Americans are moving around today more than ever. This just isn't true. But if mobility isn't to blame, what is? Could technology be to blame for our lack of interest in anything outside of electronics?

These trends do concern me. What does that make me? A traditionalist? A cultural conservative? I am not a social conservative that fears that gay marriage will destroy American society. But before reading the article on social isolation, I was reading about the growing irrelevancy of marriage in American society. In the light of the above study, does this mean that the primary function of marriage is to provide people with at least one beam of social support?

I believe Robert Putnam presents the most compelling data on the decline of civil society in his "Bowling Alone" project. He compares a number of personal and cultural data trends to explain the rise of social disengagment and the closet correlation ends up being the rise of television and other forms of mass communication. The TV and internet have replaced an increasing number of social processes, just look how blogs have expanded to fill many traditional social organizations, like clubs, civil society groups, and even political machines. Text and chatting are replacing the social skills that used to be exercised by local, in-person activities and as a result, these traditional social institutions are declining.

As a friend of the post-modern, I am not too concerned with this "atomization" of society. Some institutions will remain as long as their underlying activities continue - telecommuting won't replace all office setting, so coworkers will continue to develop out of office friendships and associations, schools won't disappear anytime soon so PTAs and booster clubs will persist as well. As for marriage, it will decline some, but breeding is too strong of a biological urge for post-modern life to suppress.

I really think that even if there is a decline in physical interaction I wouldn't concieve of that as some kind of direct indicator of the "decline of civil society". Other then that just sounding downright apocalyptic I'd have to agree heavily that those institutions are only being replaced by electronic forms. It really just doesn't bother me at all, nor is it something I think we need to do something about.

Lenny Zimmermann

All of us latch onto certain "traditions"--I get kinda annoyed when a person is considered a "conservative" because they are against abortion, but they're happy to allow other aspects of traditional culture die off.