by ALAN WOLFE
The New York Times, October 17, 1999
When the political scientist Robert Putnam discovered that Americans no longer joined civic associations the way they once did, he no doubt thought he had produced an interesting finding. Instead, the reaction to his 1995 essay, ''Bowling Alone,'' generally considered the most widely discussed social science journal article of our time, was quasi-religious in nature, as if a nation of egoists, unlike a nation of joiners, was unworthy of God's special dispensation.
Everett Carll Ladd, director of the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, was an early and persistent skeptic. In ''The Ladd Report,'' he assembles all the data he can find to demonstrate exactly how wrong Putnam was.
Some civic and fraternal organizations, like the Lions Clubs or Shriners, have lost members over the past few decades, Ladd writes, but this is only natural; we hardly think it a crisis if the Anti-Saloon League, which once engaged the attention of millions, is no longer able to display long membership lists. But others have expanded rapidly, especially environmental organizations, church groups and, to compensate for any declining interest in bowling, soccer leagues. Nor is it correct to say that the groups that are growing, in contrast to those in decline, are mailing-list organizations that demand little of their members. Actually, Ladd points out, unions, the virtual disappearance of which pushes the panic buttons of those concerned with America's civic health, actively discouraged popular participation, while groups like the Audubon Society have local chapters and encourage local involvement.
Illustrative of Ladd's approach is the question of ''schooling alone.'' The National Congress of Parents and Teachers has reported a sharp drop in P.T.A. memberships, causing great consternation among the civic-minded. But many parents became persuaded that P.T.A.'s represented the interests of teachers, not themselves. All across the country, parents have been dropping out and forming independent parent-teacher organizations, convinced that their dues ought to support local activities, not a top-heavy national organization. Ladd estimates that only one-quarter of American schools are P.T.A.-affiliated these days. Ask teachers and they would probably tell you that parents are, if anything, too involved.
Finally, according to Ladd, the ''third sector'' -- an insider's term for volunteering and charity -- is not in any state of crisis. Surveys reveal that the number of Americans who say they give their time to voluntary activities has gone up, not down. Charitable donations have also increased. Younger people volunteer less and give less than their elders do, but that has always been true and merely represents a stage in the life cycle, not any kind of permanent shift in values.
Robert Putnam believes that America's ''social capital'' -- those intangibles of trust and participation that make society work -- is in serious danger of depletion. His thesis, Ladd writes, served the interests of both liberals and conservatives. Liberals could argue that in the absence of strong social ties, government intervention was necessary; while to conservatives, declining social capital underscored the need to emphasize communal and voluntary alternatives to the state. If, as Ladd claims, the empirical evidence cannot sustain the notion that something is wrong in civic America, then we can stop engaging in ''insipid nostalgia'' and adopt concepts of citizenship obligations in line with historic patterns of American individualism.
Ladd's book is a welcome corrective to any hysteria about the state of civic America left over from the publication of ''Bowling Alone.'' Surely by now we ought to recognize that social capital is not like rain, something we can measure one day to see how it compares to another. The most interesting changes in civic life are qualitative, not quantitative. We want to know how Americans practice the arts of association, not whether they do so in the same way their grandparents did.
Yet while Ladd offers an effective rebuttal to the nostalgia buffs, his insistence that everything is fine is little different from the argument that everything is worse. For if the prophets of social decline can rightly be faulted for spinning the data one way, Ladd all too often spins it the other way. Take trust in government. One of the strongest bits of data confirming Putnam's alarmism is the sharp decline in public trust in government since the 1970's. Can a democracy be considered healthy if ever-increasing numbers of its citizens do not vote and tell pollsters that they have little if any confidence in their leaders? When Ladd considers this question, he seems more concerned with demolishing Putnam's claims than with establishing what is true. Yes, in the 1970's Americans lost confidence in their leaders, he argues, but who wouldn't in the midst of rapid inflation, petroleum shortages and hostage takings? If they dislike government, moreover, Americans have great faith in their society -- and in one another. True, voting turnout for President declined from 62.8 percent in 1960 to 49 percent in 1996, but many absentee voters are never counted and there are a lot more felons who are ineligible to vote. We are simply a people that has always been skeptical of government, Ladd concludes, seeming to forget that Americans also gave their support to the New Deal and to the military establishment.
Had he written a more balanced book, Ladd would have written a more persuasive book. Perhaps his insensitivity to very real declines in public trust of politics led him to underemphasize the importance of trust in social science findings. For if the reader comes to suspect his interpretations where they seem forced, doubt is inevitably cast on his data even when they seem strong. Most, but not all of it, supports Ladd's point of view, which means that he need not have feared that in giving in to any of Putnam's claims he would be giving in to all of them.
Like any good work of social science, Robert Putnam's data
and interpretations will be challenged by others. ''The Ladd Report'' makes it clear that
Putnam's thesis requires substantial modification at the very least. But ''Bowling Alone''
could never have generated the passionate responses it did had it not spoken to something
in the atmosphere. Social science can answer many questions, but it cannot peer into the
nation's soul. Whether America's social capital has declined, increased or merely changed
its form is a debate that ought to continue, and, despite the publication of ''The Ladd
Report,'' one senses that it will.
Alan Wolfe is director of the Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College.