Surprise Package

Well, ok, not entirely a surprise - I did some digging and turned up a fantastic little gimme. The surprise was that it actually showed up today - I didn't really think this was going to work.

Let me take a step back for a second. Regular readers will probably know that I'm a fairly hardcore gamer - board games, that is, and not your momma's board games either. But I cut my teeth on stuff you've probably played, stuff like Risk. My buddies and I used to sink hours and hours of time into Risk, and for a long time I thought it was a fantastic game - that is, until I discovered more complex fare. Risk hasn't been in regular rotation around here for quite some time.

That may be about to change - I got my hands on a preview copy of the new version of Risk that's coming out this summer. The preview version is called Black Ops, and it's seriously one of the most beautifully designed games I've ever seen. The whole board is done in black and gray, with just enough color to make all of the territories really pop. The graphic design on the cards and box is fantastic. It's simply stunning. And the gameplay has been completely revamped as well; it now centers on completing objectives, such as conquering a certain amount of territories or a particular continent. It looks quite promising, and it's been garnering its share of good reviews thus far as well. I can't wait to get this one on the table.

But the best part is this (from the card that came attached to the box):

Technorati Tags: Risk Black Ops

Professionalization and the Suburban Condition

I mentioned in my last post on Putnam's Bowling Alone that I wanted to discuss a phenomenon that I'm calling professionalization. This isn't something that Putnam necessarily addresses directly, but rather I think it's tangentially related to both isolation and entertainment, which I plan to discuss next. This particular concern fits nicely at this point because I think it both follows from and reinforces the trend towards isolation that I discussed previously. By "professionalization", I'm referring in a general sense to what seems to be an increasing trend away from doing things for oneself and instead toward hiring a third party to do things for us or in our stead.

What put me onto this particular train of thought was Putnam's discussion of lawyers and the shift from informal to formal means of conflict resolution and reinforcement of norms. My thought is that we are becoming a society that is less able to disagree respectfully and resolve conflict amicably, primarily because we have outsourced our disagreement and conflict resolution to a professional class of persons who do these things for us. In other words, as we lean more and more heavily on lawyers and other formal means for resolving differences, we as a society gradually lose the ability to do so for ourselves, much like a muscle that atrophies due to lack of use. This prompted me to think of other ways in which professionalization has crept into our lives - and I'm surprised that, the more I think about this, the more confident I am that this is in fact occurring in many ways.

Think, for example, of the decline of the home cook. Gone are the days when a meal was a labor of love, or at least a labor of craft and skill. Go into any supermarket and you'll be confronted, not with aisle upon aisle of fresh ingredients, but with mountains of prepared and packaged foods, waiting merely to be reconstituted into insipid piles of carbohydrates with chemically enhanced flavors. Cooking is more and more a hobby instead of a necessity - we've outsourced our food preparation in the interests of expedience. And, I would wager that this trend is more pronounced among younger folks. According to Food Technology magazine, fewer than one third of all meals in America are still prepared from scratch:

While three-quarters of all adults ate last night’s meal at home, the number of meals prepared at home continues to decline, falling from 64% in 2003 to 58% in 2005 (MSI, 2005). “Scratch” dinners prepared at home dropped another 7% over the past two years and now account for only 32% of all evening meals. One quarter (26%) of last night’s dinners used convenience foods and 17% used restaurant/supermarket take-out, while 23% were eaten at a restaurant.

Think of it this way - for how many people does the process of making cookies begin with opening a box of premixed dry goods? Does tomato sauce begin with a tomato, or a can opener? When was the last time that you took your bread from an oven instead of from a bag? Even our salad comes in convenient packages - we can't even be bothered to cut our own lettuce anymore. But I think we lose something of ourselves when we outsource even our most basic of necessities, something that makes us human. We become disconnected from our very selves, unable to even participate in sustaining ourselves from one day to the next, passive recipients of whatever lowest common denominator has made it through the assembly line and onto our plates. We cede power over our day to day existence to a faceless corporate entity that is most concerned with market share and protecting a brand.

I know there are reasons for this - I know them myself. I am the primary cook in our house, so I bear most of the burden of meal preparation. And there are nights when a pizza just fits the bill. But I try to resist, and I try to do as much from scratch as possible - it's almost a spiritual practice for me, one that I try to maintain as I'm able. But this shift towards professionalization is bigger than just cooking. We could discuss the same trend in any of a dozen different spheres of life. Besides the discussion of lawyers, Putnam also discusses it in the context of social engagement - meaning that, for most people, social action has become more about writing a check than about actually working to implement change. We are chronic outsourcers - we want someone else to do our stuff, and we'll pay good money for them to do so. And people of faith should absolutely recognize this trend - we see it every day as folks outsource spiritual development.

That's a tangent that I'm dying to engage right now - but I want to place a few more pieces in the puzzle before I go there. It's part of a bigger picture that frames where we are, and I want to resist making it the whole scene.

Technorati Tags: Bowling Alone, suburbs

Isolation and the Suburban Condition

Continuing our discussion of Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone, I want to reflect for a bit on the connection between suburban isolation and the loss of social capital that Putnam describes. While Putnam is clear that this phenomenon is by no means limited to suburban communities, he also discusses in detail the ways in which the suburban condition participates in the decline of social capital through mobility and sprawl. He concludes that suburbanization is a factor in three ways:

• Time - Sprawl associated with suburbanization results in valuable time consumed in commuting, primarily alone.
• Social homogeneity - Suburbanization creates isolation between persons and families of different backgrounds. In other words, when we choose our neighbors, we are more likely to choose neighbors that are much like ourselves. Suburbanization represents in large part the end result of such self-selection.
• Community "boundedness" - This is Putnam's way of discussing what I have elsewhere called the sense of "place" that a community has, its sense of itself as a community. In a vague sense, it describes the sense of commitment and "neighborliness" that a group of geographically located people feel towards one another. It's hard to put into words - but I know exactly what he's talking about here. Suburban living is designed primarily for the pursuit of privatized, personal self-fulfillment and contentment, often in opposition to community well-being.

In short - the suburban ethos drips with isolation. The interconnectedness that characterizes a community with robust social capital finds no purchase in the craggy heights of suburbia, each home a castle surrounded by a moat and walls.

As my wife and I are currently attempting to move to a larger house, I've become cognizant of how even the architecture of the suburban home is oriented towards isolation. Others have remarked on the demise of the front porch and its significance for American social interactions. I'm particularly intrigued by a further move: the emphasis on private spaces in the current market, particularly kitchens, bathrooms, and bedrooms. The elements of a home that are most in demand and most upgraded are also those elements that are most private. In spite of the fact that we Americans seem to be doing less actual cooking, a well-apportioned kitchen is at the top of most buyers' lists. Increasingly, a master suite is also viewed as a necessity, including a private bathroom that is distinct from that used by the rest of the family. In other words, the center of the home - the places in which we invest time, money, and emotion - is increasingly moving farther and farther to the interior, to the extent of even introducing isolation from members of our own families. This is, of course, to say nothing of the desire to have a yard that is hidden from the view of the neighbors, or the prominence of the television in our spatial arrangements. Simply put - the suburban experience is oriented towards privatization, even down to the way in which we position our furniture.

The corresponding trend, then, is most certainly disconnectedness from one's neighbors. Not only do we no longer know our neighbors on any level more than a first-name greeting, we most certainly do not interact with them in any meaningful sense. And, in truth, it is becoming increasingly likely that we no longer even know our neighbors' first names. In the cul-de-sac where we live, my wife and I know the names of six of our roughly sixteen or so neighbors - and we've lived in our home for nearly ten years. Only four of those six have actually been inside of our home. In truth, nearly all of our original neighbors have since moved, leaving us as one of the longest-tenured resident families in our part of the development. This only serves to complicate matters further. Suburban culture lives by the words of the Robert Frost poem, "Good fences make good neighbors."

What has happened in parallel with these trends is a corresponding movement from informal to formal enforcement of norms in suburban life. (Whether this relationship is causative or not is unclear.) Things that were once accomplished through relationships and networks are now accomplished through rules and legalities. If my neighbor's property begins to deteriorate, I can do several things to encourage him or her to pick up the slack: I can approach him or her directly and mention my concern (informal), or I can invoke some sort of authority, such as a homeowner's association, to do so in my stead (formal). Informal ties are reflections of strong social capital - they grease the wheels of society, so to speak. Formal mechanisms reflect a lack of trust and neighborliness and serve in some sense as a substitute for relationships and connection. The shift from informal to formal in our society is not an encouraging sign, and is evidenced by our increasing reliance on lawyers to serve as our intermediaries. Putnam has this to say:

Throughout the American society and economy, beginning around 1970, informal understandings no longer seemed adequate or prudent. The suddenness of this change and its timing seem uncannily similar to trends in other measures of social capital that we have examined. Spouses, neighbors, business partners and would-be partners, parents and children, pastors and parishoners, donors and recipients - all of us abruptly began to demand to "get it in writing." (p. 147)

The problem is that most quality of life endeavors work best when supported by informal, not formal, ties. Formal mechanisms carry significant overhead, as they rely on external structure. In addition, they create less of a reciprocal effect - there simply isn't the sense of shared well-being and neighborliness that undergirds informal ties. They lack the intrinsic motivation that comes with trusting relationships. In other words - I am more likely to do the right thing when I view that thing as a reflection of my relationship with another person, as opposed to a mandate from a faceless entity. Conversely, I am more likely to ignore a request or mandate when it comes from an impersonal representative or group. Deterioration of social capital directly results in a deterioration in the quality of life of a neighborhood, as Putnam demonstrates excellently (and relentlessly).

I'll return to this shortly - I think this has direct and massive implications for the task of communities of faith in suburbia. First, though, I want to comment on a related trend, something I describe as the increasing professionalization of American culture.

Technorati Tags: Bowling Alone, suburbs

Surprised by Hope

Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church

This book addresses two questions that have often been dealt with entirely separately but that, I passionately believe, belong tightly together. First, what is the ultimate Christian hope? Second, what hope is there for change, rescue, transformation, new possibilities within the world in the present? And the main answer can be put like this. As long as we see Christian hope in terms of "getting to heaven", of a salvation that is essentially away from this world, the two questions are bound to appear as unrelated. Indeed, some insist angrily that to ask the second one at all is to ignore the first one, which is the really important one. This in turn makes some others get angry when people talk of resurrection, as if this might draw attention away from the really important and pressing matters of contemporary social concern. But if the Christian hope is for God's new creation, for "new heavens and new earth," and if that hope has already come to life in Jesus of Nazareth, then there is every reason to join the two questions together. And if that is so, we find that answering the one is also answering the other. - N.T. Wright (p. 5)

Technorati Tags: new creation, NT Wright, Surprised by Hope