Global Speaker Series: Putnam Extols the Power of Connection 

Renowned social scientist and Harvard professor Robert Putnam used the first part of his Global Speaker Series talk to outline the dire situation the United States currently finds itself in. 

He used the second half of his talk to offer possible solutions in addressing what he called a crisis in democracy. 

But throughout his Oct. 30 address before a large and receptive Hale Theater audience well populated with both parents and Upper School students, he was adamant on one point: America’s youth are not to blame for the enormous challenges they’ll be tasked with solving. 

“I’m not blaming you for this,” Putnam told students at one point during the 90-minute event which ended with a Q&A with audience members. “You’ve inherited that plight from people of my generation.” 

Putnam’s talk — entitled “Long Run Changes in America: Society, Politics, Economics, and Culture” — employed charts, graphs, and narratives to describe the “plight” he was referring to: a nation facing historic levels of political polarization, economic inequality, social isolation, and cultural self-centeredness. Using Civil War hostilities, “Gilded Age” income disparities, and the tribal politics of the 1890s as reference points, Putnam contended that the United States has come a long way from the relatively bipartisan, egalitarian decades of the 40s, 50s, and 60s. 

“I’m going to use a technical term now: America is in a pickle,” said Putnam, who used humor to leaven the serious nature of remarks targeted especially to the young people in the audience. 

Americans, he said, are feeling increasingly isolated from one another — the term he used was decreasing social cohesion (or social capital) — for a number of reasons, and it’s having disastrous consequences. 

“We don’t know our neighbors, and we have fewer friends,” he said. 

In terms of economic equality, said Putnam, the United States, a nation that once rivaled socialist Sweden as the most equal of countries during the Eisenhower presidency, is now the least equal country in the world. 

“The gap between rich and poor has been growing even more rapidly,” he told the Hale Theater crowd. 

The Malkin Research Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University and author of Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, Putnam was quick to emphasize that, while liberals and conservatives might debate the causes of or the solutions to such issues, no one disputes that these issues exist. 

“Maybe [this income data] is a good thing, maybe it’s a bad thing, but it’s a fact,” he said. 

When it came time to discuss possible answers to these thorny problems, Putnam pointed not to the middle of the 20th century, which his data showed was a high point of the nation’s “We’re all in this together” attitude, but the period between 1890 and 1910 when people faced similar issues and, bit by bit, found their way to a more cohesive place. 

“Those people must have done something right,” he said, “because they won. Moments later he added: “Most of us want to get out of this, and we now know where to look for lessons.” 

While offering the caveat that that era’s resilience, which he termed “the last upswing,” wasn’t nearly inclusive enough in terms of race, gender, religion, and other factors, Putnam said he derived key lessons from that earlier success story: It was driven by youth; it was a grassroots movement led by ordinary people; and it included a moral/cultural shift where people recognized their obligations to their fellow citizens. As one example, he pointed to the creation of the first public high schools sometime around 1910, which proved to be one of the greatest drivers of economic growth the United States has ever seen. For another example, he cited Frances Perkins, a wealthy and connected young woman who personally witnessed the horrific 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in New York City (a sweatshop tragedy which claimed the lives of 146 garment workers) and then dedicated her life to workers’ rights, becoming the first woman cabinet member as the secretary of Labor under Franklin Delano Roosevelt. 

“She realized she had a moral obligation to them (those garment workers),” Putnam said of Perkins. Later, he exhorted students to follow a similar example: “America will be fixed if you go out today and do what Frances Perkins did 125 years ago.” 

During the Q&A portion of the evening, Putnam hammered home his theme that simply connecting more with one another — Putnam’s work is the subject of the 2023 documentary film Join or Die — is one of the best ways to battle against feelings of isolation while also strengthening democracy. 

“Go on a picnic with somebody,” he said. “You think I’m kidding, but I’m not.” He then noted that, statistically, one’s chance of dying in a 12-month period is cut in half simply by joining one group. 

“Help other people,” Putnam advised. “Connect with other people.” 

Head of School Chris Fortunato P ’26, ’28 welcomed both Putnam and that evening’s guests to campus; he also sat down for a brief discussion with Putnam before facilitating the night’s Q&A session. 

“It’s hard to imagine a more relevant topic than how we engage and connect and join,” Fortunato said in his welcoming remarks, “as a community and as a society.” 

The Global Speaker Series brings thought leaders, innovators, and difference-makers to the Thayer campus to engage the community in issues that matter to the world. Photos from the event can be viewed here.