During the Christmas season, people across our great country gather with friends and loved ones to worship, exchange gifts, practice traditions, and reflect on the year’s blessings. But this year, as we celebrate, I am reminded that the spirit of this season was once commonplace in American life, not relegated to a few weeks each year. A rich “associational life” made America great, but today, our friendships and communities aren’t what they used to be.
A new report by the Social Capital Project finds that American civil society has seen better days. Civil society is the area of life in which people voluntarily come together to pursue common goals, apart from government and the market. It includes the communities and organizations we most care about: churches, neighborhoods, schools, and the like. It contributes to economic opportunity and upward mobility by supporting relationships and cultivating important virtues, such as honesty and reciprocity.
