Category Archives: Sociology

The Slow Fix – Carl Honoré

“The time has come to resist the siren call of half-baked solutions and short-term palliatives and start fixing things properly. We need to find a new and better way to tackle every kind of problem. We need to learn the art of the Slow Fix.”

Imagine a prisoner trapped inside a tower, with a rope half the length needed to reach the ground. Undeterred, the prisoner cuts the rope in half, ties the halves together, and escapes. When told to imagine themselves as the prisoner, 48% of people figure out how they did it. When told to imagine the prisoner is someone else, 66% solve the problem. How we frame the problem, and how we think about it, matters (the solution is at the end).

Carl Honoré worries that this captures a larger problem: that we have fallen victim to a culture of quick fixes. Both psychologically and societally, he argues that we turn almost immediately for the obvious solution, and end up curing not the cause, but the symptoms, of a problem. Of course, some problems can and should be cured with a quick fix: but for problems like global warming, financial crises, obesity, and others, we need to spend time understanding the problem before we can solve it.

To help, he offers a series of 12 steps problem-solvers should go through, including collaboration, devolving authority, going over the details, and others. The core of his book, however, lies in his examples. The rehabilitation-oriented prisons of Norway, the exclusively student-run conflict resolution systems of the elementary schools of Finland, locally produced coffee from farms of Costa Rica and the online chore game-ification of ChoreWars all provide grist for his mill as he puts smart solutions to difficult problems under the microscope.

As befits a book focused on slow, however, and as he himself points out, he has no easy solutions to problems or simple lessons. Difficult problems take time and care, and shortcuts are not always an option. A good start, however, is ignoring 24 hour news cycles and voters who prefer instant decisions over correct decisions. The prisoner, by the way, splits the rope lengthwise – Honoré will be disappointed if you have skipped to the end to read the solution instead of slowly digesting the material in the middle.

Feel in need of a slow fix yourself? Keep reading (or in the UK or Canada). Or, join the Subtle Illumination email list to your right!

The Decline in Social Capital: Bowling Alone 1

“The core idea of social capital theory is that social networks have value. Just as a screwdriver (physical capital) or a college education (human capital) can increase productivity (both individual and collective), so too social contacts affect the productivity of individuals and groups.”

Today we’ll start with the evidence for and causes of a decline in social capital in the U.S. – next week (link here) we’ll focus on the value of social capital and potential cures.

On April 30th, 1999, the Charity League of Dallas met for the final time. They had met every Friday for 57 years, but by 1999, the average age of the members had increased to 80 and their last new member had joined two years earlier. As old members had passed, new members had not joined, despite increases in population. The same pattern is repeated across the country. Why? And does it matter? These are the questions Putnam seeks to answer. Bowling Alone is the classic work on social capital, and as such is frequently referred to elsewhere, both in sociology and more broadly.

Putnam believes that in the last forty years, America has undergone a dramatic fall in social capital. Social capital, he explains, is the networks and connections that unite us to others, smoothing our progress through life and adding value to our lives. Today, however, Americans no longer join as many clubs, volunteer as many hours, run as often for office, vote, play sports together, or eat together, and generally involve themselves less in civic affairs or their communities. At best, they are members of mailing list based organizations, watching from the sidelines as their organization lobbies Congress rather than being themselves involved.

Social change generally occurs as a result of a combination of two factors, changes in individual decisions and generational shifts. Putnam notes however that seniors remain as involved in the community as they were when younger. Instead, generational change has occurred; young people today are far less involved in the community than their forebears. Why? He lists four causes, and estimates their percentage of the total impact.

  1. The changing nature of households (10%). The entry of women into the workforce and the increase in full time as opposed to part time work.
  2. Urban sprawl (10%). Sprawl leads to an increase in commuting and the fracturing of communities.
  3. Electronic media, particularly TV (25%). TV takes up time and drains energy, so that people who watch TV do far fewer other activities even after controlling for the time taken.
  4. Generational change (50%). Intense community bonds were formed by generations who experienced the war, in contrast to late generations like baby boomers and others who did not have that formative communal experience.

Next week, we’ll discuss the benefits to social capital as well as Putnam’s suggestions for rebuilding or communal bonds.

In the meantime, if you want to read it for yourself, you can find Bowling Alone here (or in the UK or Canada). Or, just join the Subtle Illumination email list to your right!