Gifting a Green Bean Casserole: Social Capital Update

Where has the heart of the community gone to?     

     Who among you wants to hear some good news? Who yearns for a bit of gospel? Whose bones, beside mine, are hungry for that sustenance so vital for holistic growth? If you or a friend/family member of yours have tuned in to these questions with eager anticipation, then I have encouraging answers for the lot of you all. To hear them will only require a moment of your time.

     Building off of the attention paid to and theme of my latest post, "Social Capital as a Remedy for Our Modern 'State of Nature,'" I can thankfully report that my effort to build Social Capital -- by baking a 4th of July dish for my neighbor -- succeeded by every measure imaginable. Not only did my neighbor, Dennis, accept my green bean casserole with open and affectionate arms, but he also repaid my act with more consideration than I expected would be forthcoming.

     He genuinely appreciated my gift. However tasty or filling my dish may have been, his reaction -- after the initial surprise -- was a wave of elation that shown through his emotions. He actually invited me into his home for a beer after I gave him the dish. I'm not sure if he responded thusly as a matter of form or genuine appreciation, but I was flattered nonetheless. I politely declined because I planned to meet with a friend soon thereafter, but our exchange was refreshing. We parted with kind words and giddy enthusiasm. Honestly, giving Dennis that gift was an electric feeling because it felt so free of social constraints or obligations. 

     The following day -- the 5th of July -- I was busy hacking away at my pile of golf balls in my backyard with a handful of old, rusty clubs that I had collected over the years. Dennis had watched me from time-to-time with aloof interest as someone watches a deer cross the open road; better if one watches while not disturbing. He was keen to observe but not interact. On only a handful of instances can I remember him offering a friendly tip or word of flattering encouragement. But the day following our 4th of July exchange, out walked Dennis from the side of his house with a shiny golf club in-hand. Strolling up to me with a slick grin across his face, he came close and this is what he said,

"Cory, we don't talk a lot, but I was really happy the other day when you took the time to give me that dish; that was really nice of you and I appreciated that..." 

He paused for a moment to jack the club up into both of his hands and looked down at it like he was weighing the value of it. He lifted his arms from his waist, hands open but cupping the club gently and with such severity as if it were a sword re-forged from the crafty hands of the elvish-kind from Rivendell in the Lord of the Rings. He spoke up and said,

"I've had this club sitting in my basement for awhile, now, and I haven't used it for years because I don't play anymore. I see you practicing all the time and thought you could use another wedge."

     I remember the way he lifted the club and offered it to me; his seriousness surprised me. I noticed how polite he was to not mention how shitty my rusted clubs were when he said,

 "... and thought you could use another wedge." 

Not a good wedge or better wedge, only another wedge. I was struck by his posture, his demeanor, his approach, all of which showed either deference or a sense of formality that -- at the time -- seemed out-of-place but upon reflection were the very types of tailored reactions I had hoped for. Only later that day did I appreciate the degree to which our relationship had evolved from one of a casual nature to one of an interwoven, more complex, and valuable variety. Unwittingly or not, we had crossed a threshold: behind lay the passive, at-arms-length treatment of our interactions which were punctuated by the passing nod, wave, or meaningless greeting that is more often dis-engaging than it is engaging. Beyond lay the full-range of active, contributive relations made possible by a simple exchange of gifts. We had shared an antiquated swap of material things the act of which was notable more for the emotional effect it had upon us than any physical benefit we may have enjoyed. 

     I told Dennis, of course, that I couldn't accept his gift because it's value was worth far more than my simple casserole. How did he respond?

"Are you kidding?!?! You baked a casserole for me. That took time and effort. God knows I can't cook. That was a nice gesture and is worth more than any golf club," 

he said before shaking my hand in confirmation of the deal and his firm insistence that I accept the club. He then told me to have fun before he turned to walk back to his household, Friday chores. 

     I stood there for a moment trying hard to grasp the weight of what had occurred given the theme which my last blog post had specifically dealt with. In that treatment of Social Capital, I had hypothesized that he would respond to my spontaneous -- but no less genuine -- gesture with a similarly kind act of selfless consideration. Only, I had hoped he would respond in kind by helping me work out the construction of a crude back-yard garden. But beggars aren't choosers and my hypothesis was confirmed by experimentation in a technical sense if only lacking in quality. Sure, Dennis did not assist my gardening efforts, but I also hadn't started that project in the first place. His reciprocation, however, was immediate, genuine, and valuable. 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

. 

     I don't mean to build a convenient case for the idea of Social Capital as an answer for the social ills that plague American communities. To use the story from above as a panacea for communal-strife witnessed throughout the U.S. would be to lend too much value to anecdotal evidence or to confuse correlation with causation. In other words, "A blind squirrel finds an acorn every now and then." With that said, this exchange between my neighbor and I has excited a certain node within my thought process where the arteries of theory and experience meet. I've fed the experimental hunger of my academic work but have only begun to calm that voracious appetite. It  calls for more tests and further action.

     Perhaps I should leverage the nascent upsurge of goodwill felt between myself and Dennis by replicating an act of similar or of a more ambitious character. Maybe I should try to affect a similarly positive reaction from a different neighbor of mine. Or, if time and effort should allow, I could do both at the same time. If momentum builds, my focus upon door-to-door relationships could gravitate towards the realm of a goal with more mass and ambition: a neighborhood-wide exchange of old belongings or the organization of a monthly cook-out. This brainstorming taps into the bottomless well of activities that are both capable and efficient means of generating Social Capital.

     Again, I must reiterate a point made from my last post: generating Social Capital requires efforts that might seem counterintuitive because they are done for free and offer no immediate value to those performing the actions which generate that capital. After all, why should I take the time to bake a casserole for my neighbor? There's no guarantee that he will reciprocate, or even return my dish for that matter. That chance of a null effect is eminently plausible. And yet, the opposite effect is eminently plausible, too. And along with reciprocation comes the added benefit of an upgraded, more integrated relationship between individual members of the community. 

     The eventual goal of these efforts to build Social Capital within a community is to achieve a level of involvement and active, contributive participation by individual members of the community which is self-sustaining. Any community that achieves this status will look inwards to solve problems as they arise by employing resources internal to the group instead of relying on assistance from a third party. This community will have low crime because its ethical standards will be locally appropriate, explicit, and accessible to all. Community-wide activities should occur both spontaneously and according to static schedules which are widely communicated. Individual members of the community should find assistance forthcoming from their neighbors should they need it, and such assistance should be offered as an end in-and-of-itself, with no strings attached. Crucially, each member of the model community of which I speak should acknowledge their responsibilities within the community as a list of explicit, productive duties to be performed, not for the sake of the individual's well-being, but for the sake of the health of the community. 

     Keep in mind, duties performed for the community's sake will ultimately benefit the individual, but that effect could be neither immediate nor direct. To neglect one's duties within the community, however, is to trigger the first domino that initiates the "Free-Rider" wave. As this process progresses, individual members violate their social contract with the community with increasing frequency, and as the number of violations mounts the cooperative pressure that pumps the group's life-blood eases until no connections -- or a negligible amount -- exist to sustain the community. It is nearly impossible to arrest this process within a community because irrationality weighs heavy upon the longer, more pragmatic view which most community members are accustomed to seeing. 

     Better to not let this Free-Rider dilemma -- this sharp apathy -- take hold within one's community. To do so, communities need two essential types of members: 

• (1) leaders to exercise a strategic vision of their community's future which is defined by: 
• (a) current trends of finance, demographics, locations, economy, etc., and 
• (b) the ability to manufacture a community-wide adaptability to the full range of unforeseen opportunities and threats that are bound to foist themselves upon the most meticulously-laid plans; and 

• (2) tireless, everyday enthusiasts whose active lifestyles maintain a reliable and visible daily reminder of the community's physical existence (through walking clubs, crossing-guard stations for elementary school bus-stops, maintaining cork post-boards, street trash clean-up, etc.) 

The remainder of community members will naturally follow the lead of these two crucial types of leaders; most people take their social cues from community leaders and it is this tendency that we should rely upon and exploit to ensure community resilience.

"Social capital" refers to features of social organization, such as networks, norms, and trust, that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit."

     - Robert D. Putnam, "The Prosperous Community," The American Prospect vol. 4 no. 13,   March 21, 1993, pp. 2.  

Random Thoughts Upon (Still) Desperate Times

     (cont'd) The American republic - the rule of law more specifically - needs to be reinvigorated. We need a new constitution. Legal integrity needs to be upheld with a degree of vigilance similar to republican Rome: lying in court (perjury) was considered so heinous an act that the guilty person would be thrown to their death from a cliff onto a jagged rock. Marion Jones lied during a Department of Justice inquiry and was given a slap on the wrist. If caught accepting bribes while serving as a public servant, Roman officials would first have their nose cut off before they were stuffed and sewn into a large bag with a wild animal and then finally tossed into a raging river to either drown to death or eaten by the animal. 

     I surely do not recommend we resuscitate these punishments from antiquity to lend more legitimacy to our legal system. However, the modern American legal system is plagued by double-standards, biases, dishonestly, and a faithlessness that is so acute that the entire system is seen by most Americans as a vehicle to be manipulated by actors within society instead of the other way around. 

     We need to end the "Tyranny of the Legislature": implement consecutive term-limits for Senators and Representatives in order to nip the "re-election" effort in the bud. Or we could elect Congressmen for terms to take place in the future instead of soon after ballots are cast. Even better, anonymous elections! Sure, we've have great presidents, but republics are not sustained by the executive branch. Rather, it was the sage legislators such as the Spartan Lycurgus or the Athenians Solon or Draco whose cool-headed, systemic organization of republican institutions gave to posterity an ideal to marvel at and imitate. 

     Today, the solutions to most of the problems that plague our economy, society, and political institutions reveal themselves with little to no effort. In other words, we know how to succeed as a nation - or at the very least how to control the damage - yet Congress is unwilling to act. In effect, Congress can not do its job! And yet we tolerate Congressional incompetence because we either believe no remedy exists or that the status quo works well enough. On both counts we are mistaken. 

     I understand that dramatic changes to, inter alia, our tax code, Electoral College, capital and financial debt markets, etc., should be implemented with care in order to avoid unnecessary shocks to society. But for the love of all that you hold dear: When are we going to control our nation's fucking debt!?!? When, if ever, will Congress reconfigure the nation's social safety nets in order to ensure either their affordability on the one hand, or control the runaway prices of services on the other? It's incredible. Our nation's Constitution is a quaint reminder of what a republican ideal used to be. "Oh, what a nice document! How peculiar!?" or we simultaneously cling to that mythical belief that ours' is the most just and free republic while we see with our own eyes how our institutions have grown hollow and corrupt. The checks, balances, and restrictions placed within and upon our republican form of government are overridden and side-stepped by an elite class of plutocrats to whom corporate bodies owe their allegiance, and vice versa. What our republic once was and what it is today are two wholly different things and, sadly, no effort to revive the former by rebuilding the latter has sprung to life. 

     The Arab spring of recent years and contemporary protests in Turkey and Brazil have shown us how to right these wrongs. What's more, we laud the courageous efforts of the citizens from these states as they demanded honest representation through democratic activism. They bled and often died for the republican ideal. "Good for them! They are taking back their democracy," we say but then turn off the television and think of those lessons no more. Our jobs and the paychecks they deliver dictate how we define our republic. To be certain, work and pay are necessary, but there exists a short list of ideals to which we as a community should strive to realize and maintain; republicanism is at the top of that list. Material things, money, and social status can neither - for the most part - nourish our conscience nor fulfill our desire to find an answer or meaning to life. A smaller paycheck or less affluent lifestyle are paltry trade-offs for the enjoyment of true liberty, active democracy, and healthy republican institutions. When and if we shift our focus to demand these types of priorities, then we will see how far we have strayed from the path of philosophical righteousness. But what will it take for that threshold to be crossed? 

     The body-politic in the U.S. is activated by a fitful and sputtery motor. High voter turnout is no longer driven by the issues of the day, but by the race or gender of the President, or the raging public/private civil wars at the state and local levels. "Politics," to all intents, constructions, and purposes, has leap-frogged the idea of being divisive or a 'touchy' subject; to fish for a political discussion in most social circles is to invite disaster, punish oneself, be ironic, etc. To talk about politics is to talk about a naturally distasteful subject. Could I think of a warning sign, a red-flag more indicative of a dying body-politic? Other than a coup, I think not. 

     Our aspirations and actions look to me like Eisenberg's electron in his elegant "Uncertainty Principle": chaotic in nature, an electron moves around its shell, or the electron cloud, in a purely random fashion. In order for a scientist to observe that electron during its fitful travels, he must observe that electron in a single instant, like a camera snapshot. Viewed in this way, the scientist can observe the electron with remarkable clarity. And yet, because the scientist is viewing the electron frozen in time, he must therefore forfeit his ability to observe the speed at which the electron is moving, or in what direction it is traveling. To observe the electron on the one hand, and to chart its movement on the other, is to confront two mutually exclusive choices. 

     Likewise in America we are incapable of simultaneously articulating goals - or a strategic aim - and acting in accordance with those goals, or at the very least how reality treats our goals. U.S. support for representational government the world over is, in theory, universally accepted. But when one analyzes our recognition (or lack-there-of) of Middle Eastern political parties/movements, one is unable to confirm our republican credentials. It wrinkles our brain to entertain the idea that a strategy can - indeed, should - be pursued in the face of chaos and uncertainty. A state can not articulate a grand strategy and control reality at the same time. Our domestic affairs are no different. "Affordable credit for young, middle-income homebuyers as a goal? Awesome!" "We've found a new way to effectively package a bundle of different mortgages into a single portfolio for optimal cash flow? That's fucking amazing! And it's legal? Sweet Baby Jesus!" BAM! Worst recession since the Great Depression. "What's that? The justice system is popularly thought to be unfair, rigged, and downright broken? Damn, that sucks. We should have the nation's first ever black President promise to make government more transparent, help the middle/lower-income families, hold banks and large corporations responsible for irresponsible actions, punish 'white-collar' crime more vigorously. Yeah, that will breath trust, confidence, and life back into our democratic foundations!" BAM! God damn National Security Agency (NSA) hacked the entire nation and Guantonomo is STILL open!

Random Thoughts Upon Desperate Times (Part 1)

Lycurgus

     

     The Athenian republic did not fall after the Great Peloponnesian War (431 - 404 BC). Far from it. Athenian republicanism survived for another hundred years. I repeat: the Athenian republic did not fall until 322 BC. Philip II of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great, destroyed Athenian republicanism. For an honest, contemporary treatment of that final death-struggle, one need only read Demosthenes' "Phillipics". That group of orations laments - inter alia - local corruption at the highest level of government, citizen apathy, and the perils of hiring a mercenary army to fight one's own battles. 

     "The only thing that stays the same is the antagonistic behavior of states." That claim seeks to sweep over the particulars of international relations like a matador's muleta hides the horns of a Spanish bull. Come now, let us try a bit harder. Are states deliberately antagonistic? No. The complex system of international relations - state to state relations - pushes states this way and that, arrests state progress with no warning, propels state movement when time and momentum are thought to have frozen, and this uncertainty - this CHAOS - is often identified by observers to be the necessary and sufficient cause of a state's health. We are mistaken to think that it is the system that controls states. States are phantoms if their social institutions disappear. 

     The Roman republic was laid low from within, during the upswing of that state's growth. Beginning in earnest with Marius and Sulla, thrown into overdrive by Gaius Julius Caesar, and finished by Octavian (soon to be Augustus Caesar) after his civil struggle with Mac Antony, the legal and constitutional institutions of republican Rome were destroyed by the elite class. Marius reformed the structure of the army and rewarded his troops with massive booty. While this threshold was crossed by Scipio (Africanus) after his defeat of Hannibal (202 BC), profit and treasure were not the envy of legionarres until Marius and Sulla served as Consuls. Julius Caesar and his triumvirate colleague (one of them) Gnaeus Pompey institutionalized this profiteering norm as the Levant and Mediterranean coastline were taken hold of, first, by Pompey, followed shortly thereafter by Caesar's conquest of Gaul. After the latter of these two men achieved his Pyrrhic victory of that civil war, he was soon assassinated by Brutus, Cassius, and Co: the Senatorial republicans who saw tyranny for what it was (Fun fact: before his assasination, Caesar changed his will to bequeath roughly 3/4's of his wealth and estate, along with his name, to his nephew Octavian, but should the latter not accept that dangerous inheritance then guess who was next in line for Caesar's willful favor? BRUTUS!!!). Octavian and Marc Antony - Julius Caesar's 1st Lieutenant - quickly locked horns with one another, burdening the Roman body politic with the second bloody civil war in a single generation. Triumphant, Caesar Augustus dismantled the Roman republic (27 BC) after rewriting the constitution. The SYSTEM within which Rome acted had no effect upon the dramatic shift from republic to empire. 

     There is a period of grandeur which follows the establishment of any repubic in history, and yes, history does repeat itself. Classical Athens and republican Rome burst outwards upon and into the system of international relations because the rule of law and the strength of the citizen body-politic complemented one another. This symbiotic relationship was - and is - the sine qua non of the foundation of republican institutions. With time, however, - and to varying degrees - the general body-politic becomes either apathetic or indifferent towards civic participation. In and of themselves, apathy and indifference are not capable of taking the legs out from below a republic; a more active, pernicious effort is required by the elite class to sully accepted norms. At this point in the life of a republic, the rule of law is still in force and governs the actions and behaviors of a majority of citizens. However, a minority of actors - the elite plutocrats - takes it upon itself to slyly work at the fringe of legal boundaries to seize opportunities. Whether these opportunities manifest themselves as monetary gains, political power, etc., is no matter. It is the sense of unfairness that the everyday Joe and Jane perceive that matters. They see the rich and powerful as capable, willing, and eager gluttons. The rich and powerful elite are seen to 'rollover' their success at little to no cost to themselves on the one hand, while disenfranchising the low to middle class workers on the other. When confidence within, and trust of, republican institutions disappears, then those very institutions vanish like the ephemeral dreams they are. 

     The American republic is teetering upon a precipice because. While the rule of law was used to build the state's democratic institutions, the elite are working to gain more power while acting contrary to what Montesquie termed "The Spirit of the Laws". Campaign finance is a web of re-allocated, mysterious channels; the Electoral College and 'gerrymandering' are relied upon by institutional actors to stratify and strategize legislative/executive power; an objective media presence does not exist; wealth and value have pooled along the corners of the national economy as a result of finance; the nation's top political leaders are incapable - indeed, CANNOT - tell the truth and we know this; the "ability to govern" is a distant consideration of legislators who are above all else intent upon re-election campaigns; the national and state legal codes would befuddle a Byzantine government official; and, most depressing of all, ordinary citizens are told what is legal, how law is to be interpreted, and how the nation's code of ethics should be updated as a result instead of the process of legal interpretation growing organically from the body-politic. 

Solon

     To recap: (1) the Athenian republic did not fall after the Great Peloponnesian War: Philip II ended that dream nearly one-hundred years later. (2) The Roman republic was dismantled from within by the elite class. Period. (3) The system within which states act is chaotic, yes, but states can rise or fall from their own inertia just as easy as sudden, outside shocks. (4) The rule of law is the seed from which republicanism grows, but as that plant grows to maturity it must be cared for and attended to lest some of the "healthy" branches use their pride of place to capture a disproportional amount of sunlight and in so doing gorge themselves while choking the life out of the entire plant's body. (5) History not only repeats itself when we look at the rise and fall of republics, but it is a narrative from which we see the rule of law borne, grow, and then manipulated as a five-dollar-hooker. As she is jaded, so does a republic violate and contradict the very institutions upon which it derives its life.