Join Or Die: Doc Argues Community Engagement Key to Preserving Health and Democracy
By Liz Braun
Rating: B+
Hoping to live a long life? According to author/professor Bob Putnam, your good health and longevity rest in part on how engaged you are with your community. Moreover, that engagement may hold the key to maintaining democracy as we know it.
A new documentary called Join or Die traces the decline of American democracy (and civility) to a matched decline in membership in clubs, community organizations, churches, charitable outlets, fellowship organizations, local sport leagues and the like.
Sibling directors Rebecca Davis and Pete Davis follow Putnam and other academics, politicians, activists and experts in this intriguing film, tracing Putnam’s 50-year quest to understand the relationship between community engagement and good governance.
Join or Die begins, “This is a film about why you should join a club.”
Don’t be surprised if 100 minutes later you find yourself looking around for membership in some group activity. The stats on isolation as a health (and suicide) risk are particularly motivating.
In the course of his work, Putnam made the idea of social capital popular, helping people understand the real value underlying the phrase — benefits that are economic and health-related as well as philosophical. Communities in which people are connected to one another are better communities, for the physical, mental, and economic health of all concerned.
In 2000, Putnam published Bowling Alone to bring attention to these ideas. His work outlined the slow collapse of clubs and civic organizations, the diminishing of American communities thereby and the consequent decline in American democracy.
His title comes from the fact that bowling leagues used to be huge in America, office-centred or neighbourhood leagues that brought people into bowling alleys for organized events — where they spent money on food and drink. More people bowl now than ever before, but not in leagues or even groups. And without those concession revenues, bowling alleys are losing money and closing down.
Putnam is not alone in his interest in social capital. Weighing in on how all this works are such high-profile interviewees as Hillary Clinton, Pete Buttigieg, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, economist Raj Chetty and Art of Gathering author Priya Parker, among others.
Economist Glenn Loury (Brown University) and Princeton’s Eddie S. Glaude Jr. appear in the film to talk about the social isolation built into racial inequality, and how various church groups and local clubs became crucial to the Black community.
As for churches, organized religion used to provide half of all social capital, not so much for spiritual reasons but because general volunteering and other charity work often came through one’s church, as did choir membership, church picnics, holiday gift drives and so much other community engagement.
Not surprisingly, once every household had a television set — around 1970 — a steep decline in community involvement began. Putnam established “The Saguaro Seminar” at Harvard, bringing together an interdisciplinary group that examines theories about why community is in decline, and how to fix that. The earliest gatherings — which included a young Barack Obama among other recognizable faces — considered many factors, but television outweighed them all.
It’s fascinating to watch Join or Die and see how Putnam’s work has affected other areas of research, such as community connections and economic mobility.
The last part of Join or Die concerns Putnam’s newer book, The Upswing, which outlines ways in which people can repair community, despite the internet and a pandemic.
According to Putnam’s research, America was in the same dire condition in the late 19th century in the so-called Gilded Age, when rich and poor were separated by a huge chasm, corruption ruled, and there was a similar sense that America was unravelling. By 1900, people had begun to join clubs and groups as a way out of social isolationism and — as with unions and suffrage groups — to work toward equality of one kind or another. It can happen again.
Join or Die focuses on a few contemporary grassroots groups, such as an Atlanta bicycle collective, and some big ones, like meetup.com, all working toward maintaining human connection. As one participant says, “Just do something small. It all adds up.”
Join or Die. Directed by Rebecca Davis and Pete Davis. With Bob Putnam, Hillary Clinton, Pete Buttigieg, Vivek Murthy, Glenn Loury, and Eddie S. Glaude Jr. Available October 18 on Netflix U.S. There are special screenings at universities, libraries and community centres all over the U.S; the Canadian Human Connection Conference has a screening on November 4 in Vancouver and other Canadian dates will follow.
During the Join Up! Tour 2024, you can organize a screening for your group.