“Americans of all ages, all stages in life, and all types of disposition, are forever forming associations.” Thus wrote Alexis de Tocqueville after he had traveled around the United States almost two hundred years ago, even as his main mission was to study the prisons and penitentiaries on the other side of the Atlantic. “There are not only commercial and industrial associations in which all take part, but others of a thousand different types – religious, moral, serious, futile, very general and very limited, immensely large and very minute.”
160 years after de Tocqueville published Democracy in America, Robert Putnam, Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government, released an essay which he later enlarged into book form – Bowling Alone : The Collapse and Revival of American Community. Many traditional civic, social and fraternal organizations, typified by bowling leagues , he argued, had undergone a massive decline in membership even as the number of people bowling had increased dramatically. It was the leagues that brought together different peoples from different backgrounds and cultures to share in a common purpose. As Beau Breslin wrote recently in an article in The Fulcrum, “There is commonality in beer, frames and ugly shoes.”
In 1967, 2% of Americans admitted to no religious affiliation; now that number is 30%. It was places of worship that grounded Americans in a collective morality. No longer. Union membership is down (10 per cent across the nation in 2024) as is involvement in professional associations like the American Medical Association and the American Bar Association. Increasingly, Americans no longer believe that ‘associations’ merit their time.
Curiously, voter participation has remained steady, actually increasing in presidential elections in this century. But there is a twist : polarized electors are galvanized by hatred. They are energized not so much by the appeal of a candidate so much as by a deep dislike of the other. Anger at your partisan enemy might get you to the ballot box, but it will not get you to the bowling alley, nor to a beekeepers’ meeting.
The first county beekeepers meeting I attended in 2002 was poorly attended, and records show that was the norm. But with all the the public attention consigned to the plight of the honey bee by Colony Collapse Disorder, enrollment in beekeeping classes soared as did attendance at meetings. That trend was, in my observation, already in decline five years ago, made worse by COVID and which has continued since the pandemic. It is one of the ways in which we have not yet recovered from the forced isolation of 2020 and 2021. It distresses me that, for the last two years if not longer, our local beekeeping association has organized some good meetings with prominent speakers, and the attendance has been minimal – perhaps 20 per cent of the total membership. That was not the case ten years ago, when we had to change venues because the turnout regularly exceeded the limit imposed by the fire code.
Talking to PSBA President, Mark Gingrich, he suggested that during COVID many associations held their meetings via Zoom, and many who continued to offer that option after the pandemic are re-thinking the practice precisely because it encourages the isolation that denies the meaning of our collective lives.
It has further implications. As John Miller explains in the July issue of the American Bee Journal, the Bee Informed Project has ceased to operate because its research and the immense data trove that it accumulated was not supported by sufficient paying beekeepers who valued their services.
In You Are The Happiness You Seek, published two years ago, the English philosopher and author, Robert Spira, argues that there are essentially two models for civilization. “The first is one in which the ideas and attitudes of individuals are informed by an understanding of the relationship to the whole, and their activities and relationships are the means by which this understanding is expressed in society.
“The second model is one in which individuals overlook their relationship to the whole and, as a result, believe and feel themselves to be discrete, independently existing entities. This is a paradigm of separation that inevitably leads to unhappiness on the inside, conflict on the outside between individuals, communities and nations, and the exploitation and degradation of the earth.”
As is invariably the case, it is not difficult to determine which of the above is modeled by honey bees.
History is replete with examples of collapsed civilizations in which individuals neglected their relationship with the whole. We too show signs of disintegration without embracing the remedies to rectify it. It is like a sick parent who defies, even sabotages, the attempts of caring children who want to help, or the patient diagnosed with a potentially terminal illness who obstinately refuses to take the medicine.
What is the solution? Do we wait for an external event to force us back together, like CCD in the case of beekeepers, or do we become proactive? It is not difficult and there are two things that each of us can do. First, there are many times when I have been tempted not to support an activity organized by an association I care about, to stay home rather than go out to an evening meeting. And yet every time, almost without exception, I am glad afterwards that I went, often for reasons that I could not anticipate.
Secondly, value those who are willing to give of their time and energy to organize those occasions when community comes together – meetings, picnics, cook outs, presentations, discussion groups – despite the disappointing turn outs. Those numbers too are declining and it is easy for volunteers to get disheartened, even as they are the heart beat of a successful organization.
So, when offered the choice, not only welcome the opportunity to attend those forums which provide the opportunity to understand others and calibrate our collective moral compass, but make a point of recognizing and honoring those who made it possible. Show up and give thanks – that is the solution. We may not be teammates, but we are committed to our league.
Our Green Cathedral 