Dr. Robert Putnam Visits Synagogue, Calls for More Civic Love

Calls for a “moral revolution” – Love before policy and politics

America’s foremost political scientist and civic historian, Dr. Robert Putnam, took to the pulpit at Chicago’s Temple Sholom yesterday to talk about, basically, civic love!

His address, the annual Bruce Tranen Distinguished Speaker Address, was titled “From Bowling Alone to Bonding Together: Strengthening Community in the Face of Polarization.” It was rich and full of data gathered from decades of looking at American economic, civic, political, and consumer behaviors.

Dr. Putnam is a supreme data nurd and all his work is informed and peppered with graphs that visualize trends in behaviors across the decades. He has been looking at things that draw us together and conditions that push us apart. His break-through book “Bowling Alone,” was published in 2000. He starts at the civic heart – what kind of people are we – what do we find most important – and then shows the civic outcomes that reflect those core beliefs and mindsets.

His graphs – that look at various civic conditions – polarization, social cohesion, economic equality, and cultural solidarity (how “We”centered versus “Me”centered are we) all look depressingly the same…

He concludes that America has reached historic levels of:

· Political polarization

· Economic inequality

· Social isolation (people spending 9-12 hours DAILY looking at screens!)

· Cultural self-centeredness (Love MY people. Screw YOUR people)