Not Knowing Your Neighbor…Is it Ruining America?

Marc Dunkelman, research fellow at the Taubman Center for Public Policy, gave a talk Wednesday about his upcoming book The Vanishing Neighbor: The Transformation of American Community. Dunkelman set out to answer a question that many people, including his father, have asked: What’s wrong with America? Political polarization seems to be rising, and political compromise is becoming rare. Trust in American institutions, from banks to churches to government, has fallen. These trends have been much discussed, most notably with George Packer’s book The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America. 

Dunkelman’s thesis is best summed up through a metaphor. He imagines our social fabric as Jupiter: you sit at the center, as the planet, with your relationships orbiting around you. The nearest rings are those closest to you, your family and friends. The middle rings include people you have substantive contact with, like neighbors or fellow members of a club, who don’t rise to the level of close friends. The farthest rings are casual acquaintances (think college friends you mostly interact with on Facebook).

Dunkelman sees a recent shift away from those middle ring relationships and toward the near and far rings. For example, you might choose not to spend your time and social capital taking part in recreational sports leagues, while investing more energy in communicating with Facebook friends.

Why has this shift happened? Dunkelman looks at two causes: motivation and opportunity. Technology has advanced to allow easy travel and instant communication, and policies have been enacted (or barriers removed) to allow for more minority representation and voices. This has increased the opportunity to find groups of likeminded people in those farthest rings. At the same time, Americans have become more healthy (elimination of many infectious diseases) and safe (lowering of crime rates) over the last few decades, allowing them to turn their attention to other motivations. Dunkelman argues we are motivated by the desire for affirmation, which further pushes us to find groups of likeminded people.

Dunkelman situates his thesis in a broader view of American civic life. He harkens to Brown professor Gordon Wood, and Wood’s idea that early American communities were organized in a more egalitarian fashion than the hierarchy and dependency that marked European society. He argues that this model, which Alexis de Tocqueville called the “township,” is being replaced by a “network” model of social relationships. Dunkelman sees the fade of the township, and the thinning of that middle ring, as causing a decrease in social trust, which manifests itself as political polarization.

 Evaluating the Thesis

Like all authors who write about the “decline” of America, it’s hard for Dunkelman not to come off as wistfully harkening back to an earlier, idyllic period of American history. To be fair, Dunkelman says that his goal is to highlight this change in society, without arguing that it’s better or worse. He sees America as in an awkward stage between the township and network configuration, which is causing friction. But, he says, we could find the network model a better way to organize society, and those middle ring relationships might still recover.

Dunkelman’s argument, at least in his lecture, is strongest when discussing the changing nature of American society. Technology has certainly made it easier for groups of similar people to find each other. It might be an oversimplification to say that Americans increasingly crave “affirmation,” but anyone who’s watched Fox News or MSNBC can attest (if they’re being truthful) that it’s comfortable and reassuring to hear your opinions parroted back at you.

His thesis begins to crack when trying to situate these changes in a larger narrative about American society. Gordon Wood has been faulted by some scholars for overplaying the egalitarian nature of early America and glossing over racial and class divisions. I think that Dunkelman’s  focus on the township, and the trust inherent in that township, might experience those same blind spots.

As Dunkelman notes, society has opened in the the last few decades to remove barriers to speech and expression, and generally increase the rights of minority groups. I think this point deserves more emphasis (and, to be fair, the book might go into more detail). The trust present in the township was founded on a legally and culturally forced constriction of political discourse. Opening the civic space to more voices is bound to cause more conflict – in fact, being confronted with more differing opinions might cause more entrenching and less dialogue. But this doesn’t mean we should pine for an earlier era of repression and homogeneity.

Taubman Center professor Ross Cheit made the observation that even in small, tightly knit communities in Rhode Island where the township model should ensure a level of social trust, political fights can be nasty. Exeter town council members faced a recall vote last year over their stances on gun control. I think that changes in technology, and increased sorting into idealogical groups, has allowed national debates to trickle down into localities. Dunkelman is probably right that there is less trust in institutions and that the township (even if it was always more on an ideal than a reality) has weakened so that the boundary between local and national issues becomes blurred. I also suspect that as institutions weaken inequality worsens, and as the government seems to be ineffective, Americans are becoming more willing to voice their own opinions and interests while focusing less on notions of public good.

As a student of history (and Gordon Wood), I appreciate Dunkelman’s attempt to craft a coherent narrative explaining the current state of America. He raises a lot of important ideas and brings them together in a satisfying way. Despite some issues with his conclusions, I look forward to the book, and to having its author at Brown and at the Taubman Center.