Author: Marc J. Dunkelman
Title: “The Vanishing Neighbor: The Transformation of
American Community”
Publication: W. W. Norton, ISBN 978-0-393-06396-7, 291
pages, hardcover, 3 Parts, 15 chapters, with Introduction (20 roman pages), and
Conclusion.
Amazon link is here.
The author is a Research Fellow at Brown University and a
senior fellow at the Clinton Foundation.
Numerous authors, ranging from libertarian (Charles Murray)
to socially conservative (Rick Santorum) have described the gradual erosion of
“social capital” in American society, and a disinclination of self-defining
individuals (perhaps with some concentration of women and “creative” (whether
gay or not) men to accept goals that follow common structures in the larger
community. Call this a decline in
“eusociality” if you like.
Dunkelman believes that most people remain socialized closely
with immediate family or life partners, and in novel ways as “global citizens”
with others now through social media. What has declined is the “middle rings”
of relationships with neighbors or accessible townspeople, which straddle real
friendship with acquaintanceship. It
occurs to me right now that I touched on this in a freshman English theme that
lost fall semester at William and Mary in the fall of 1961, where we had to
“define” something, which I chose to be “friendship”. I got an A- on that theme, to the
consternation of my roommate.
Dunkelman does review the role of the township in American
life, as it drew the attention of Alexis de Tocqueville (“Democracy in America”)
The author gives several interesting narratives of how some
sociological processes work. He says
that “inefficient” physical social structures sometimes lead to a town or an
area’s economic growth, as he compares Allentown, PA (which is diverse) to
Youngstown OH (which is more conventional and therefore stagnated). He explains why New York City and especially
Manhattan grew faster than nearby New Jersey.
That reminds me of what Paul Rosenfels often referred to as the “bumping
frequency” of loose friends who live in neighborhood (like the East Village, in
his case) in a large city. That is different
from “neighbors” in a suburb, who are tending to view neighborliness as lack of
offense. (Oh yes, the whole “neighbor’s
tree” problem). My parents saw the
suburbs as virtue-producing, as they demanded a family-centric personality that
could forego the endless interpersonal opportunities of the large city. But for so many years, the burbs were about “taking
care of your own first.”
He also suggests that the weakness of “middle ring” ties
relates to political gerrymandering and helps explain the hyper-partisanship of
politics that has become very dangerous, as with the debt ceiling debate, at
least twice.
He goes into some detail over the growing crisis over
eldercare (the “giant sucking sound”), where savings can not forever stop the “pension
tsunami” or keep Social Security and Medicare afloat, and where looser extended
family and neighborly ties leads to institutionalization of the severely
disabled (as with Alzheimers) while family members who try to take care of
their parents wind up as the “sandwich generation”. He never gets around to filial responsibility
laws, which, though rarely enforced, could make new norms of family responsibility,
especially for the childless, mandatory.
The builds a case that rebuilding “middle rings” will
require more “grit” from individual citizens, which has to start with how we
educate kids and teens (which he introduces with the “marshmallow test” for
deferred gratification).
One can ponder what Jesus means by "neighbor" in the Gospels.
Second picture is Kipton, Ohio (Camden Township), 5 miles west of Oberlin, where I spent summers as a boy (picture in 2010).
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