Community, policy, et la temporalité critique

Tiens, un nouvel interlocuteur:
on a parlé de lui à la Diversity Lecture du début octobre, à Brooklyn College. Le workshop, caractéristique des efforts appliqués du College pour se faire une identité institutionnelle en s'investissant dans la réflexion sur la mission pédagogique et sociale de l'enseignement supérieur, était présenté par David Schoem, qui l'avait intitulé: "Educating Citizens: Diversity, Democracy, and Community". Belles et bonnes intentions, avec la temporalité ordinaire de l'intention : un après-coup de la pensée (on a pensé la démocratie, par le concept de communauté, ailleurs ; on a pensé un état critique de la démocratie américaine, ailleurs), et un programme qui prédit et préjuge, d'avance. C'est la difficulté du temps de la policy, au coude-à-coude avec le social engineering - brave new world - , forcément. Autre chose que l'utopie.

On parlait donc de la fragilité de la démocratie en Amérique. Et s'appuyait sur une analyse - à méthodologie sociologique si je comprends bien - de Robert D. Putnam, dans Bowling Alone. The Collapse and Revival of American Community (2000).

La question est celle du temps de la critique ; de l'action. Celle des projets positifs. De même, le principe de l'affirmative action. L'idée que l'analyse d'une situation critique débouche sur une rédemption possible, à programmer. Le gentil absurde de ça, quite incommensurate avec les forces culturelles dont on donne justement la mesure. Tout d'un coup on n'a plus compris la nature même des forces qu'on a analysées; on a tout figé à nouveau dans un scénario de dessin animé.

On trouve sur le web la bibliographie de Bowling Alone, les data collectées et analysées, et un entretien de l'auteur sur NPR (Access the bibliography for the book. Access the data used in Bowling Alone, along with additional information not found in the book. Listen to Prof. Putnam's interview on NPR's All Things Considered.)

• Sur Bowling Alone (dans http://www.bowlingalone.com/):
  In a groundbreaking book based on vast new data, Putnam shows how we have become increasingly disconnected from family, friends, neighbors, and our democratic structures-- and how we may reconnect.
  Putnam warns that our stock of social capital - the very fabric of our connections with each other, has plummeted, impoverishing our lives and communities. Putnam draws on evidence including nearly 500,000 interviews over the last quarter century to show that we sign fewer petitions, belong to fewer organizations that meet, know our neighbors less, meet with friends less frequently, and even socialize with our families less often. We're even bowling alone. More Americans are bowling than ever before, but they are not bowling in leagues. Putnam shows how changes in work, family structure, age, suburban life, television, computers, women's roles and other factors have contributed to this decline.
  America has civicly reinvented itself before -- approximately 100 years ago at the turn of the last century. And America can civicly reinvent itself again - find out how and help make it happen at our companion site, BetterTogether.org, an initiative of the Saguaro Seminar on Civic Engagement at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.
  
  
• Sur Putnam (dans la même page web) :
  Robert D. Putnam Director, The Saguaro Seminar The Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy Harvard University Cambridge, MA
  Robert D. Putnam is the Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy. He has served as chairman of Harvard's Department of Government, Director of the Center for International Affairs, and Dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government. He is author or co-author of eight books and more than thirty scholarly articles published in ten languages, including Disaffected Democracies: What's Troubling the Trilateral Countries? (2000); Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (1993); Double-Edged Diplomacy: International Bargaining and Domestic Politics (1993); Hanging Together: The Seven-Power Summits (1984); Bureaucrats and Politicians in Western Democracies (1981); Comparative Study of Political Elites (1976); and Beliefs of Politicians (1973). Professor Putnam was educated at Swarthmore College, Balliol College, Oxford; and Yale University, and has received honorary degrees from Swarthmore and Stockholm University. He has taught at the University of Michigan and served on the staff of the National Security Council. His current research on American democracy will appear in a forthcoming book, Bowling Alone: The collapse and revival of American community.