The guardian’s point of view on social cohesion: Many of us are still “bowling alone” | Editorial

R.Herte’s years after writing Bowling aloneThe famous article in which he diagnosed a serious crisis of social cohesion in the United States, Robert Putnam has the right to feel warm. in a lecture In the spring of this year, Professor Putnam, 84, warned his fans, amid levels of polarization and confidence higher than any time since the civil war, the United States was “at the risk of going to hell in a handcra”.

Fortunately, Britain is still far from the toxic toxicity of America, which dates back to the Trump era, despite the rise of fateful reform and Najel Farraj. but research It was published this week by the joint polling group that draws a disturbing image of societies in which there is a wide sense of social separation, high levels of lack of confidence between young people and the loss of common spaces and rituals.

It is annoyed by the progress of reform in the “Red Wall” seats that he won in the recent elections, the Labor Party chose primarily to present the problem of social cohesion through the narrow migration lens. But the authors of the report indicate that a broader group of factors in play, starting with the inheritance that works from the epidemic to the effects of social media, which often leave us alone with the phone. Noticeably, given the success of reform in the most deprived parts of England and Wales, they also determine a class dimension of the weakness of collective relationships and decrease in social trust levels. According to more joint director, Luke Tlay, “The malicious graduate gap seems to open, with those who generally have degrees that feel more connected and optimistic than those who do not do it.”

The decline in collective life has been decades in making it. Many of us now go to the church, members of the union or join social clubs. The political parties, which were included in the life of societies, have become more separate and less actor Of their diverse social makeup. Manufacturing, and Cultural transformations From the era of Tasher/Reagan in the 1980s, a more individual era opened. The brutal austerity caused by George Osborne decomposed in 2010 in the public domain, as it closed entertainment centers, libraries, youth clubs and arts centers. Inevitably, the loss of free or cheap social spaces hit less difficult.

According to Professor Putnam, this was the type of context that helped to deliver Donald Trump in the United States, where he lost a group of population confidence in the social contract and became “vulnerable to authoritarian popular stabbing.” There were warning signs in Britain as well. Last summer, riots and turmoil, following the horrific killing of three young girls in Southport, led in some more than others Deprived The regions of the country.

Along with the UK’s citizen academics and UCL academics led by former speech writer Ed Miliband, Mark Steers, more than that is the common denominator is release A joint research project dedicated to finding ways to enhance our tense social ties. The work should pay close attention to his work. To date, the government program for national renewal has focused on an overwhelming majority on the need to stimulate economic growth, within the limits of its financial bases unnecessarily. But strengthening the links that link people together in our cities and cities must be equal. This will take social imagination and some hard thinking about the way we live now.

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