Lonely Bowlers
Welcome to this new format! I still haven’t figured out exactly what it’s going to be. The temptation is to make it a true grab bag. I’d like to find a theme or thread. And I plan to write something once a month.
For now, let’s start by ripping off the Band-Aid.
I was pretty unhappy when a certain would-be real estate mogul won the US presidential election last November.
It’s scary out there. If you’re better adjusted than me and didn’t immediately read the great Levitsky and Way piece in Foreign Affairs the minute it was published a few days ago, it’s worth half an hour of your time.
For the inaugural edition of whatever this new newsletter is, however, I don’t want to spill a bunch of ink contributing to our collective doom spiral. Or why it’s tragic that this is what the United States has become.
Rather, I want to make an appeal: get out of your house and have fun.
In the days after the election in November, I was pretty dejected. As I’m wont to say: Once is a mistake. Twice is unforgivable.
Trump’s re-election scared me because everything felt so out of my control. Last time, there were protests. People came out in ways I’d never seen before to stand up to what was so manifestly wrong. This time, I was scared to bring up the topic, even with some of my close friends. This time, the balance of people wasn’t in my corner.
The crypto currency zealots are in the ascendancy. The bullies have taken over the school.
Eventually, though, I escaped my funk. And in an unexpected way that, I thought, shed a lot of light on our current political-sociological moment.
Last year, a friend of mine got me to join the local sailing club. It’s turned out to be a lot of fun. Maybe there’s more to say about that in a future issue.
There’s a real sense of community at the club where I’m now a proud member. When I got the email that they needed volunteers to help pack up the boats for the winter, I showed up at the boathouse on a very cold Saturday in November, a few days after the election.
That turned out to be the antidote to my post-election daze.
There was something incredibly encouraging that a bunch of people from all walks of life volunteered their time to lug kayaks across the dock and disassemble 420 masts. There were students from the Boston University sailing team. There were seasoned sailing experts in their 70s. There were other people like me that had recently taken up the sport.
Here in Massachusetts, odds are all of them were probably as horrified as I was that Donald Trump had just been re-elected. But even if they weren’t, the exercise was a reminder that we’re all essentially reasonable people. That we have a certain shared stake and common humanity. We were there to support sailing, not have a political debate.
It’s convinced me that we need a surge of bottom-up community building to dig ourselves out of this hole we’re in. Scolding and appeals to common sense from people like me or true political élites probably isn’t going to move the needle.
It brought home the thesis that Bob Putnam famously put forward in Bowling Alone and The Upswing.
We haven’t done much to weave our social fabric in the last 50 years. We shouldn’t be surprised it’s fraying.
As I’ve read more about people, especially men, who feel isolated, I’ve begun to understand how they might see the appeal of political parties and movements that, if nothing else, offer them a sense of community and shared identity. When you don’t see or interact with anyone else, it’s easy to see how you might think I’m part of a secret cabal that’s out to get you, rather than a neighbor who might disagree with you about the right rates of income tax.
It’s how I’ve come to really appreciate Bob Putnam’s exhortation that we don’t take this as an appeal to go and join a political campaign. There’s certainly nothing wrong with doing that. It’s even admirable.
But it’s not the answer to our current moment.
It’s a lot easier to change minds when people see you as a fellow member of the sailing club than knocking on their door as a political volunteer. The first-order problem is establishing common ground.
And there’s no better way to do that than having fun in a group.
For all my gentle mockery of run clubs or the proliferation of pickle ball in the last few years, I think those are the movements more likely to save us in the long run than the latest flavor of Bernie Sanders socialism.
I’m still frightened about the fate of our political experiment. Every day, our new leaders chip away that little bit more at the foundations of our democracy.
But aside from showing up and making my voice heard when it counts, I’m convinced the best step we can all take is to help add a few more stitches to our social weave.
Say yes to the friend who wants to get dinner, even if you’re a little tired. Put yourself out there and accept a bit part in your local amateur dramatics production of The Importance of Being Earnest. Join your local rowing club.
Get to know the people around you, and have some fun doing it.