Podcast | Ready To Be Strong Ep.20

Transcript

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Tania Israel: Welcome to Ready to Be Strong. I’m Tania Israel.

Elizabeth Sharp: And I’m Elizabeth Scharf.

Tania Israel: Together we’re broadening our minds, opening our hearts

Elizabeth Sharp: and strengthening connections to face the challenges of living in a divided world.

Tania Israel: In this episode, we’re bowling together. Well, we’re talking about Robert Putnam’s groundbreaking work from the 1990s, Bowling Alone, and the 2023 film Join or Die, which brings this topic into current context.

So, Elizabeth, you have watched this film. What are your takeaways?

Elizabeth Sharp: Well, my takeaways, Tania, are that, let’s say, 50 years ago, even 100 years ago, people were joining organizations, civic organizations. Let’s say the Elks Club, Rotary Club, the PTO, things like that. Maybe our parents did. And the membership of that was very high. And nowadays, it’s very low. So what are the consequences of that? Well, joining civic organizations brought people together who shared something in common. Maybe the PTO, they care about children. But other than that, they could be very different people and end up in the same room, have conversations with each other, and connect in different ways, even though their political views might be very different. So when we lose that, that joining, we’re losing other things, that web of connectivity.

Tania Israel: Yeah. Yeah, I love that. I got so much out of watching this film. I have to admit, I had not read the book Bowling Alone, but people bring it up to me all the time as I’m talking about engaging in community and the importance of that for addressing political polarization.

And one of the things that really stood out to me was this idea of social capital, this idea that having these networks of people not only benefits our communities, but it also helps all of us. I mean, literally on a health level, it is beneficial for us. But it’s also beneficial for us in terms of things like social mobility and just cohesion of a community and ability to respond to things that are going on in society, I think. It really stood out to me how important these organizations have been, particularly in the United States, that this has really been part of the foundation of our country. And it includes things like churches and like you’re talking about volunteer organizations like the PTA. So things where we feel like we’re giving something, but even things where we feel like we are benefiting from just by showing up and being part of it, I think there’s a benefit.

Elizabeth Sharp: Now, do you think people get the same benefit by joining things online? Because a lot of people join online these days. And I remember it was joining online, the first LGBTQ organization online was very, very important for people in, say, rural areas where they couldn’t come together with other people who were LGBT. So is there something different about being in person versus being online, which has been a savior to a lot of people?

Tania Israel: Well, I think there’s a lot of levels of that. Like one is being online and online kinds of groups sometimes are particularly beneficial to people who are marginalized and especially in invisible ways where they might not be able to find other people like them. So LGBTQ people in particular might have some benefit from that. But there’s also all these negative things that can come from all the time online. You know, there can be online negativity that people experience. And these days we’re spending so much time online that we’re not necessarily engaging with other three-dimensional human beings. And I think that does have a negative impact for us.

But, so let me ask you just in terms of our own experience, tell me about your experience in clubs and joining and all of that.

Elizabeth Sharp: So I’m middle-aged. And when I think back to being a kid or gosh, even a teenager, I was a big clubber. That sounds like just in one way, the clubbing out in New York City was later in life. But anyway, I was a big joiner. I joined the, I think I was like a youth member of the Rotary Club. I was a Girl Scout. I was on all these sports teams. I was part of the church group and the play group. And I really joined a ton of things. And I did. I met a lot of different people,had conversations with people that I probably would not interact with nowadays because I interact with people that probably agree with me more than disagree with me. I miss my family. 

How about you? 

Tania Israel: Well, before we get to me, I have more questions for you. So was this modeled for you and your family? Like what about your parents?

Elizabeth Sharp: That’s a great question. I think it was modeled to me, especially by my mother. I remember distinctly that she was part of the League of Women Voters. Even today, she’s 85 years old and she’s part of a bocce group and it’s very competitive. They’re in second place right now. And she talks about all the different people and where they’re from and she gets every little nugget from them. And I don’t think she normally would interact with them. And then she’s part of a garden club. So yes, I think that’s a resounding yes that she was part of many clubs. And I’ll have to ask her why. I’m not sure it was to be connected to people she’s totally unlike. I think she’s a social being and I think she enjoys community.

Tania Israel: Yeah. No, I don’t think people necessarily join clubs in order to find people who aren’t like them. I think that’s not the motivation. That’s just something that comes out of it. My grandmother was very involved in the League of Women Voters. And so when you said that, I was like, oh yes, which, you know, that was such an important organization after women got the right to vote in 1920, then this group formed. And a lot of women joined it and it became something for educating oneself and other people about voting issues. The League of Women Voters still exists. So thank you for bringing up the League of Women Voters. I think that’s great.

My parents were not so much joiners. So they belonged to professional organizations like the Association for Asian Studies. You know, that was like their community. When I think about it, because I also belong to professional organizations and I’ve had leadership in those organizations. What’s different about something like the Society of Counseling Psychology is that people are spread all over the place. And so that was the same thing for my parents, for academics who were involved in their professional organizations or anyone who’s involved in a professional organization that’s like not local. I think that that’s different. I think it’s different to have people all over the place, but not necessarily in your own community.

Elizabeth Sharp: Yes, I can see how that would be different. And I’m just wondering now though, is the reason for this lack of participation locally, is it because it’s being replaced by something else, but actually in person? Like when Robert Putnam did the studies, was he just looking at the League of Women Voters type organizations? And are there organizations in real life that he doesn’t know about?

Tania Israel: I thought actually the film went into a lot of that about all the different ways he looked at not just actual organizations, but other ways that people were engaging with people. Like how many times do you go on a picnic with people? You know, like all of these things. So I actually think, I mean, he’s clearly a very dedicated researcher because he kept asking that question, what are we missing? You know, and so they talked about it as like, let’s kick the tires to make sure that what we’re saying really is accurate. So I thought it was pretty comprehensive in answering that question.

Because when I think about my own, so, my parents were involved in the ACLU, for example, and they would throw a fundraiser once a year in our backyard. There would be like, you know, all the ACLU people in town in our backyard. But it wasn’t a group that met on a regular basis. So it’s like, here’s a group that we belong to and there can be an event once a year. And I feel like there’s a lot of those kinds of things. And so I’m involved in those, but it’s not the same thing as a group that meets on a regular basis and has a structure to it. And I don’t know, you get together and you have meetings.

I remember when I was in my early 20s, I worked at the Red Cross in Philadelphia and I was doing HIV education in the Philadelphia suburbs. And so one of the things I had to do is figure out like, how do you reach people in the suburbs? And one of the things that I would do is I would reach out to local rotary clubs because they would have a meeting every month and they would need a speaker. So I would go to these club meetings and I would speak over lunch. I remember this quite vividly because I have a letter opener from the rotary club in Philadelphia. And so I use that. I use it all the time. And so those kinds of organizations, I mean, used to be so much the foundation of our communities. They all still exist. I know in Santa Barbara, I know somebody who’s in the Optimist Club.

Elizabeth Sharp: Oh, are you? 

Tania Israel: Okay, now how did you find your way to these organizations? 

Elizabeth Sharp: You know what? I had a teacher that recommended I join it. I gotta look her up. But yeah, so yeah, I almost wonder if it’s a generational thing and what caused people of an older generation to join. I don’t know. I’m still stuck a little bit in the why and what’s going on. 

Tania Israel: I’m still interested in the what..

So I want to talk about the landscape because I recognize that not everybody listening has read the book, has watched the documentary. So I will say, first of all, the documentary, Join or Die, it’s available on Netflix. I think it’s a really well done film because it not only summarizes this work that was done in the 1990s and looked at where our society was then, but really brings it up to date to say, where are we now and what’s going on and how has this decline in civic participation affected what’s going on now in terms of our divisions in society and made it harder to repair those divisions.

So tell me, what are your memories of what those organizations were like and what you got out of them?

Elizabeth Sharp: I remember going to probably a hospital-like lit room with a big table and maybe a bowl of snacks there and someone with an agenda printed out and going around the room and introducing ourselves to each other. What I strongly remember was the intergenerationalness of it. And I think that was really important to me. It didn’t seem odd at the time, I think because people used to hang out more intergenerationally, let’s say 30 plus years ago. And I remember there being a sharing of ideas, I think sometimes disagreement, but the baseline was like a calm, good spirit about things. And I wonder if you take the same people that were in that room 30 years ago and put them back in that room, wouldn’t that be interesting? What that would look like, what a meeting would look like now. Maybe people connected because they were from the same community. That doesn’t mean they had the same political views or had the same life experiences, but there was something neighborly about it too.

How about for you?

Tania Israel: Well, I was not in those kinds of organizations. I joined things within my school. So I was in the drama club and I was involved in student government and I have not changed at all over time. But I love the idea of joining these civic organizations. It wasn’t something that people in my family did, I felt like. My sister was in Girl Scouts for a while. I think that involves too much outdoorsy stuff that just doesn’t quite suit me. And so I wasn’t involved in that. I feel like I might have enjoyed something like that though, some of these other sorts of organizations. I mean, it kind of inspired me. I was like, maybe I should join one of these now because I never have.

And honestly, what I tend to do is I tend to start organizations or I tend to lead organizations or I’ll start something for a specific purpose, like, oh, let’s plan this event or this activity. But it’s not something that’s got an ongoing infrastructure. Sometimes I’ve tried to start organizations and created some of the infrastructure, hoping that somebody else would kind of pick it up and carry it on. And people don’t necessarily do that. So what this really brought to my attention was, Tania, you don’t have to start things. These things already exist. Like other people have created things and are holding that space just waiting for you to step into it. And I was actually really excited about that idea. What if I could just join something and just be a member of it and not actually take on leadership? That was sort of an exciting idea to me.

Elizabeth Sharp: Absolutely. And you brought something up that I think is very important. These organizations hold space and provide an opportunity for anyone to join. There might be like a $25 due per year or something like that. But it really offers everyone walking down the street an opportunity to come in and participate. And that’s really brilliant. I think that’s really brilliant design in it.

And something else that sparked my thought that you said was the shared experience that people have by meeting regularly. Or even with the Girl Scouts, you meet regularly, but also you go on this little trip type camping, right? Outdoorsy thing. And anyone you go camping with, as long as it’s not, even if it’s a nightmare, you have this connection with the other person. You’re like, oh, we did this together. And so I think it holds space very democratically. And I think it also provides a shared experience that people can bond with each other. 

Tania Israel: Yeah. And it’s sort of based on some shared values and not such specific interests, you know, sort of broader values of giving back to the community or various things, but not such specific things as some of the things that I do in terms of, oh, I’m going to be on the board of a local foundation or I’m going to work on this event. Those are very kinds of specific things. I think that these civic organizations have a broad enough mission that a lot of different kinds of people can see themselves within that.

I have to say that there was something that I did join in college, is that I joined a sorority. And part of the reason for that is that in my freshman year, I made friends with all these people who were several years older than I was, and then they all graduated. And I was like, wait, wait, now I need friends in college. And sororities were not huge at my university when I was there. So it wasn’t like a big Greek system. So it didn’t feel all competitive and everything in terms of rush. It felt very welcoming and pretty easy. And so that was actually a recognized sororities are probably not seen and not legitimately something that everybody has access to. You know, you’ve got to be in college and they do have dues and everything. So it’s not something that everybody’s going to join. But we had a pretty diverse group of people in the sorority. And so I really got to know a lot of people who I wouldn’t have gotten to know otherwise. Plus I like to dress up and go to formals. And then I sort of was in touch with a lot of these people for a long time. I don’t know, maybe about 15 years ago, I started to reconnect with them. And then I ended up going to my college reunion and we hung out together the whole weekend and it was really fun. And then we got together and we met in New York for this Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit because she was a Kappa Delta. We’ve got a whole Facebook group. And I really do feel that sense of connection and community. And we are now spread out all over the place. But we started out very much like we are together. There’s a weekly meeting. There’s a secret knock. There’s all these things about it that sort of bond you.

Elizabeth Sharp: Tania Israel, sorority sister. Mind blown. 

Tania Israel: I was the only women’s studies major who was also a sorority sister. 

Elizabeth Sharp: I love it. 

Tania Israel: I used to try to frame it as a feminist separatist community, but I’m not really sure anybody bought it. But there were actually a lot of feminists in my sorority. 

Elizabeth Sharp: I could see that. Yeah, very matriarchal society. Yeah, I get it.

So how about now, Tania? I know that you have mentioned a few different things that you’ve been involved in in Santa Barbara. What does that trajectory look like? What are you thinking about now? 

Tania Israel: Yeah. So like I said, I’ve done more sort of leadership things, like been on the board of the Fund for Santa Barbara. And one of the things that really got me involved in a community of people was when I started doing local political work, when I started showing up for campaign, which the knocking on doors part itself is like you’re talking to a lot of people in the community. But the waking up at 5 a.m. to go drop literature on people’s doors, like not everybody’s going to do that. There’s annual meetings of the local Democratic Party. I then was on the Democratic Central Committee. So that’s more of leadership stuff. But what I found there was these are people who will show up to stuff because not everybody will. But these are people who are willing to commit to community. And it’s diverse in a lot of ways. It’s not very ideologically diverse, although somewhat, you know. But so there’s that.

There’s also, I mean, I’m very much part of the local LGBTQ community. But that, for the most part, is not an organization. There’s a nonprofit organization that provides services for the community. But it’s not like a civic organization. It sort of makes me think, yeah, maybe we need something more like that. I’ve tried to start a chapter of the Stonewall Democrats, which is LGBTQ Democrats. And that’s one of the ones where I was like, okay, let me like, here’s bylaws and here’s let’s start. Let’s try to have these meetings. And then I didn’t have the bandwidth to keep it going. And the one thing that I have started, a friend Heather and I co-founded Biologue, which is a discussion group for bisexual people in Santa Barbara. That has been going for eight or nine years now. And we meet on a monthly basis. And we used to meet in person. And then when the pandemic started, we went on Zoom and we’ve still been on Zoom. But we are all local for the most part. And so that is something, but it’s a discussion group. So we get together, we talk. We don’t sort of have things we work on together. And I actually think that’s one of the things about these civic organizations is that there’s this shared bond of working together toward a common goal. 

Elizabeth Sharp: My experience of joining in Santa Barbara has been, actually before we moved here eight or nine years ago from New York City, joining was front and center on my mind because I was coming here, I knew I was going to work remotely. And so I wanted to join a co-working space. That was my initial, now that’s not civically, but I knew I would be in community with other entrepreneurs with hopefully social impact as a lens because I joined the impact zone.

And so for me, it was really important to be around people that shared that common bond of working towards social justice. And we were working in parallel. So this is how I ended up working with our friend, Lisa, and having more talks around the water cooler, the coffee machine, et cetera. And that was super helpful to connect with other people that were different from me in a lot of ways.

And then other than that, I think it’s been about joining things that are more affinity groups. So I joined, it’s called Mama Toto, and it’s basically like a hippie mom’s group. Definitely different walks of life. There’s a sense of organic and all natural and that kind of hippie slant to it, but very different people, I would say.

And then also joining a couple of affinity groups. One is queer moms. It’s a new affinity group. I would say it started about a year ago. And some queer moms that were part of not the hippie mom group, but another group figured out that they were all queer moms and they splintered out and they started this queer mom group. And so they meet, I would say pretty much monthly. 

Now there’s no goal except to raise good humans and also just not just, but really come together and have each other’s back if something were to go awry in the community. And that means connecting them with different people who can be helpful in a tricky situation, things like that.

But I have been sort of shifting my mind back to my civic self. I mean, I used to volunteer for a ton of political campaigns when I was growing up. Like I said, I was a big joiner, different civic organizations. And now I’m starting to think about myself as an individual and the community and how I want to give back. So that’s really what’s on my mind right now. And thinking about that and how do I think about that?

Tania Israel: So with these affinity groups, I feel like we’ve created connections among people who have something in common, particularly something that might feel a little bit more marginalized in our society. 

So whether it’s because you are LGBTQ or whether you are like, specifically queer moms or maybe people of color. And that’s been something really helpful because people have been like, OK, I don’t necessarily feel like there’s a place for me, these other broader groups, or I feel like I don’t want to have to explain my disability to every single person or I don’t want to, you know, whatever that is. Like I want other people who just get me and I don’t have to sort of put myself out there in these more challenging situations over and over and over again, because that’s just what I’m experiencing in my life generally, too.

I can absolutely see why those affinity groups are helpful. And, you know, I’ve started one and we’ve got this bisexual discussion group and people have said that they’ve gotten so many great things out of it. I mean, I’ve met people who I didn’t at first. I thought, oh, this is just going to be all the people I know. And no, it hasn’t at all been. And just in fact, the existence of the group has made a difference for people. Like some people are like, yes, I saw that this group was meeting and I was like, I have never seen anything in this town for bisexual people before. And just knowing that the group is there feels affirming and validating and all these things.

And then there are people who’ve come to the group who are like, OK, like because I’ve been coming to this group and feel like I can be my whole self here, that’s changed how I am out there in the world in other ways, just in terms of being my whole self at work, not necessarily in terms of sexual orientation. But it has these beneficial effects. And it’s not this thing that we’re talking about with civic engagement, with very kind of broad goals where people can kind of see and interact with people who are unlike themselves.

And it also doesn’t necessarily have something that you are doing to benefit others and benefit the community, which I really think is something so important about these kinds of civic organizations that Robert Putnam was originally studying. 

Elizabeth Sharp: So Robert Putnam is a professor at the Kennedy School of Government, andI think it’s no coincidence that he refers to in his film that famous quote by President Kennedy, don’t ask what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. And civic organizations, I think, were rooted in this sentiment. And so you’re spot on by saying this, what can we do to give back? And that’s where the shift in my mind is going from affinity group to how can I give back in my community and work on things together?

So the process I’m going through in my mind is:

1. What do I care about?
2. What do I want to see changed?
3. How often are the meetings?
4. Who do I want to also be frank, who do I want to hang around with all the time too on a monthly basis?

I’m leaving my household, my kids, I’m cashing in some chips to be away from the home. So I think about things like the coast, this beautiful coast that we live on. It’s a very unique place that we live in and has not been developed yet. Let’s keep it that way. So maybe that’s one thing. What else is unique to Santa Barbara and what do I want to contribute? I think about the harbor as well. It’s unique to Santa Barbara. And so these are the types of ways I’m trying to think about how I want to get involved and join.

And I also think I’m the type of person that when I join, when I say yes and I commit, I’m joining for years probably and I’m going to follow through. So I’m probably more think heavy on the which one do I want to join side of things. And so I’m just searching right now and I’m learning from different people who have joined other organizations in town to find out opportunities, opportunities to give back.

Tania Israel: Yeah, absolutely. And one of the remarkable things that they talk about in this film is in the process of giving back, you also get something. The reason that the film is called Join or Die is because participating in these civic organizations isn’t just good for our democracy and it’s not just good for repairing social division. It’s actually good for our physical health and our mental health, I would say too.

So there’s something about community that we’re not getting from, frankly, staying at home watching this film on Netflix by ourselves. I was like, oh my God, I need to host a screening of this film in our community. So I hear this like, okay, this takes a commitment. I have to take some time away from the other things in my life and from just, you know, if I’m like, I don’t know, I feel like just, you know, gardening or, you know, not having those presses on my time because I have so many other things that I’m trying to do.

So, I think that that’s an interesting question of how do we balance out that “me time” with this thing that is also good for us, but is a commitment to other people. And I hear you saying, well, okay, I got to think about who I want to hang out with. And absolutely. But one of the things that civic engagement does is that we end up kind of rubbing up against other people who aren’t like us. And we might be like, oh, I don’t want to have to deal with them. But if we don’t have the practice in that, I think that’s really one of the things that is contributing to our social division these days, that we’re so unpracticed at actually interacting with other folks who might see things differently or use different terminology to talk about something or who might not even ever talk about the same kinds of things that we talk about and might have other priorities.

And so part of the affinity groups is sort of creating these groups of people who never challenge us. And I understand that because some of us are like, oh, my God, I’m challenged so much in the world. Like, don’t make me be challenged again. But there’s something we need from that, too. I think we need a little bit of that in order to, well, I don’t know, just operate effectively in our lives. Like kids need to learn that, adults need to learn that. And the more autonomy we have in some ways, the more we’re opting out of those kinds of things.

Elizabeth Sharp: I agree with you. It’s time to opt in and join.

Tania Israel: Yeah. One of the other things from the film that I’ll say is they were looking at black churches, African-American churches, and how important those were for people who were marginalized in society. Because, okay, you’re marginalized as a society, but then you come together, and it is an affinity group. But you can have leadership here. You have respect here.

You also have this network of people, and you all lift each other up.

So I’m a little, like we’ve said some things about, like, what’s important about the civic organizations.But I also think there’s something that this film says that, yes, joining a civic organization like these traditional ones, there’s a lot of benefits. A civic organization like these traditional ones, there’s a lot of benefit that we can see. from that. But it is also even talking about like a bowling league, which isn’t necessarily doing something to give back to the community. You know, a church where you are with other people who have a lot in common with you.

But so I think some of it is really about recognizing that something that we can do for ourselves is participating with other people. But I think that we sometimes have this idea that what we need to do for ourselves, the whole, you know, the rest is resistance. And like what we need most is just to create boundaries and to be able to make our own decisions about everything. There’s something about being in an environment where we are in a collective that really benefits us.

Elizabeth Sharp: And on that note, we just had a giant kickball game on Sunday and we invited the whole class, second grade class. And to be honest, I hung out with parents I normally wouldn’t hang out with. I was on Monday morning, I was high fiving some dads I’ve never spoken to. Nice kick, we still got it. And that felt really good to connect in that way. And yeah, I wasn’t really giving back, but it is something that I needed and we needed, all of us. And I feel like there’s more cohesion because of it.

Tania Israel: Yeah, you’re so good at creating community. So I really just appreciate those things that you do to bring people together.

So what I’m hearing from our conversation is people can join something that exists out there, that there’s lots of clubs, there’s lots of organizations that you can just be part of. I know somebody who does Toastmasters, you know, they go and they work on public speaking. And I’m like, oh my gosh, I should do that. You know, like there’s so many things that we can do that might have something to do with a particular activity or interest, but also might just be this very broad civic organization.

But what I’m getting from this conversation and from Robert Putnam’s work and from this film, Join or Die, is that any way that we are getting out of our own lives and getting out of our homes and connecting in real life with other people in our community is going to be beneficial to our community and to ourselves.

Elizabeth Sharp: Absolutely. Well put. 

Tania Israel: Thank you.

Tania Israel: I’m Tania Israel, professor, psychologist, and author of Facing the Fracture.

Elizabeth Sharp: I’m Elizabeth Sharp, social entrepreneur and urgent optimist.

Tania Israel: Make your choice. 

Elizabeth Sharp: Are you ready to be strong?