I was not aware that this is a sequel (or perhaps
rewritten expansion of) Putnam’s “Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of
the American Community”, a book that I vaguely remember being discussed (2020)
but apparently never reviewed and read (when I was living in Minneapolis and
still employed by ING-Reliastar, right after Y2K). It was from the same publisher, but longer.
It was two world wars and depression in between that brought
us together, to the point that we could actually fight effectively with a segregated
military at D-Day with “the greatest generation”. That was a paradox that never made much sense
in the 1990s when we were debating gays in the military – and I enjoyed being
in the thick of it. We go back to Gary
Senise’s performance as “Truman” on HBO.’
The “We” Putnam apparently talks about seemed
predicated on hierarchy and legacy tribalism, that could hardly be expected to
last. The best arguments for Civil
Rights (and shortly thereafter “gay rights”) were indeed individualistic.
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