The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again
Progressive movement offers template for American renewal
Originally published in The Journal Gazette, November 1, 2020.
As the nation limps into Tuesday’s general election, toxins perpetuated by political and social polarization define the air we breathe. Poisonous posts dotting social media are perhaps only outdone by TV ads rarely rising above ad hominem attacks.
Swirling amid those toxins, however, are messages to the contrary. Social commentators and even some politicians point out what we are experiencing is nothing new and, when needed, Americans found a way to respond.
Two such commentators are Robert D. Putnam and Shaylyn Romney Garrett. Putnam, a research professor at Harvard University, has challenged the rising level of those toxins with frequency over the course of a distinguished career through titles such as “Bowling Alone” (2000), “Better Together” (2003), “American Grace” (2010) and “Our Kids” (2015).
In his most recent effort to revive America’s spirit of community, Putnam is joined by Garrett. Beyond being commended for their hopeful message, Putnam and Garrett demonstrate wisdom emerging from what they refer to as “an exercise in macrohistory.” As a result, “The Upswing” confirms Americans can “build back better” or “make America great again.”
Defining “The Upswing” is what Putnam and Garrett refer to as “the I-we-I curve.” In essence, they mined the depths of existing data to determine how the sense of community shared by Americans has changed over time. The result is the I-we-I curve, which “traces a fundamental arc of social change in America over the course of the last 125 years, an arc whose influence seeped into the most varied nooks and crannies of American life.”
That arc reaches back to an era in American life plagued by the toxins of political and social polarization as great as our own – the Gilded Age or last quarter of the 1800s. In response to excesses wrought by the spirit of individualism that dominated that age, Putnam and Garrett note American life, as led by groups of progressive reformers, was defined as “a gradual climb into greater interdependence and cooperation.” That climb would last through the mid to late 1960s when the data Putnam and Romney reviewed point to “a steep descent into greater independence and egoism.”
As few would likely argue to the contrary, Putnam and Romney view the behavior presently being exhibited as examples of what that steep descent can yield. As previously noted, however, the result of their work is hopeful. In essence, if Americans could successfully weather the excesses of the Gilded Age, “we can do it again.”
The bulk of that hopeful message is defined by data collected over 125 years “in four key areas: economics, politics, society, and culture.” Historians may quickly note the 1960s was an era in which considerable gains were made, for example, in civil rights. Putnam and Romney agree legislation such as the Civil Rights Acts of 1964, 1965 and 1968 were monumental. Their macro view of history, however, also compels them to contend the conditions making those legislative efforts possible were forged over the course of the previous 50 years.
For example, they contend African Americans made gains in those four key areas at a faster rate prior to the 1960s than since that time. As a result, Putnam and Garrett argue “that as America took a more individualistic and narcissistic turn after 1970, we simultaneously took our ‘foot off the gas’ in pushing toward true racial equality.”
While Putnam and Garrett are enamored with efforts made by Progressive reformers, they are also quick to note that present circumstances defy the mere replication of those efforts. While Americans seeking to “build back better” or “make America great again” can take hope from those efforts, Putnam and Garrett encourage them to chart reforms attuned to the particulars of the present moment.
Regardless of what they chart, Putnam and Garrett contend the success of those reforms, the ability of “we” to be next in the “I-we-I” curve, is predicated upon the ability of those two groups (and many others) to work together.
Todd C. Ream serves on the higher education and honors faculties at Taylor University, as a fellow with the Lumen Research Institute, and as the publisher for Christian Scholar’s Review.