America Lost the Art of Association
The article examines the decline of civic associations and community groups in America, arguing that this erosion of social capital has weakened democratic participation and increased political polarisation. It traces the shift from mid-20th-century community engagement to a more individualistic and digitally mediated society.
Background
- The article title and theme reference Alexis de Tocqueville, the 19th-century French political thinker who, in *Democracy in America* (1835), famously argued that Americans' unique talent for forming voluntary associations (civic groups, clubs, religious societies) was the secret to their democracy's vitality.
- "Bowling Alone" (2000) by Robert Putnam is the key modern touchstone here: Putnam used declining league bowling to show that American social capital — the networks of trust, reciprocity, and community participation — had collapsed since the 1960s.
- This piece likely argues that the trend has worsened with the internet/social media, replacing real-world fraternal organisations (Elks, Kiwanis, churches, unions) with online tribes that don't build the same trust, or with atomised isolation.
- "Lost the art of association" means Americans no longer know how to form and sustain the voluntary, face-to-face groups that used to glue communities together — a shift linked to political polarisation, loneliness, and distrust of institutions.