This week, host Judy Raper sits down with two of her colleagues at Greenfield Community College – Director of Strategic Innovation Samantha Wood and audio visual technician (and show producer!) Alex Audette – to discuss Robert Putnam's Join or Die: "a film about why you should join a club." The group starts with broad thoughts on the film and its central thesis before touching on their own experiences with loneliness in the U.S.A., and why many of us still struggle to call ourselves "joiners" despite that alienation.
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Hosted by Judy Raper
Produced by Alex Audette in the Teaching and Learning Innovation Center's Multimedia Studios at Greenfield Community College
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Episode Transcript
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Welcome to Backyard Oasis, a podcast designed by and for older adults living in the beautiful
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Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts and produced in the tech studios at Greenfield
Community College in Greenfield, Massachusetts.
Backyard Oasis reaches out to older adults who seek knowledge to help them live more
thoughtfully, healthily, and happily, who hope to inspire others with their ideas and
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who serve their communities in the interest of the greater good.
Okay everybody, this is Judy Raper, Associate Dean of Community Engagement at Greenfield
Community College and I'm here with a few of my colleagues today to talk about the incredible
documentary Join or Die.
So I'm going to allow them to introduce themselves before I tell you a little bit about this
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film in case you haven't seen it yourself.
Hi, I'm Samantha Wood.
I'm the Director of Strategic Innovation for Workforce Development at Greenfield Community
College.
Very happy to be here.
Yeah, and I'm Alex Audette.
I'm the Audiovisual Technician at Greenfield Community College.
Also happy to be here.
And you may recognize Alex as my producer from all my reality TV podcasts and now you'll
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be able to see the range that I have that I can also talk about serious topics.
That's right, she got the producer on mic.
It's tough to do.
So we're here today to talk about the documentary Join or Die and this documentary examines
social scientist Robert Putnam's bullying alone and his theory of how declining community
engagement created an American civic crisis.
(01:33):
He traces our civic engagement back to the 50s and makes the connection between a decline
in joining clubs and organizations that began in the 60s and the waning of our democracy.
He further connects this decline to technological evolution which began with the television.
He studied regional governments in Italy and discovered the common thread that ran through
effective governments was a strong social fabric.
(01:55):
At the heart of his work is the idea that we can save democracy by becoming joiners.
As it is through these associations that we encounter and connect with people we wouldn't
otherwise come across.
Hopefully reducing our partisan divide and enabling us to hold our government accountable
to working for the people.
And we will be showing this documentary March 24th which is a Monday night at 6 p.m. at
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the Garden Theater.
One of the directors will actually be with us afterwards for a Q&A and this is co-sponsored
by Furcog which stands for the Franklin Regional Council of Governance.
So with that sort of intro about the film I just like to start with what we thought
of it.
So Judy what do you think of it?
(02:39):
Oh I'm going to start?
Yep.
I get to go first.
So I forget how this film came to my attention.
I got some email and when I saw the content I immediately knew I wanted to watch it.
I watched it I think the same night I got the email.
And I had some familiarity with Robert Putnam's work.
I remember the book Bowling Alone back in the 90s.
I don't even recall if I read it.
(03:00):
I don't think I did.
But as soon as I watched the film like pretty much everything resonated for me.
It was just I found the research really compelling.
I found the theory around our decline in civic engagement being related to our struggles
with preserving our democracy to be extremely true from my observations and everything I've
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researched and read.
And I just I think for me it felt like a relief that somebody was talking about this.
Ironically when he wrote Bowling Alone I was working on my dissertation at the University
of Vermont.
And I am in no way suggesting my genius match as Robert Putnam's.
However so much of what he talks about I talked about in my dissertation and I'll talk a little
(03:43):
bit later about why I included that in my dissertation.
But it really resonated with me in terms of my personal life and my professional life.
And I loved every minute of it.
And I've watched it now four times just because I feel like I catch something new every time
I watch it.
So I will probably continue to rewatch it.
(04:07):
So I there are a lot of points in this movie that really resonate for me.
Before I came to a career in higher ed I worked for close to two decades in local journalism
here in Western Mass.
And watching the decline in local journalism nationally has raised a number of issues that
(04:30):
are in alignment with Robert Putnam's research in terms of community engagement in terms
of how people happen into relationships with one another because of common interests.
And the sort of the wonderful serendipity of running into people on the street.
I think the decline of local retail is also part of this.
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The opportunities we have for running into one another and the wonderful things that
come out of that around projects or community organizing or fundraising or civic events.
In local journalism a lot of the reason we covered stories was so people would know where
to bring the casserole when someone needed it.
When there's a house fire and people would I was a newsroom editor and people would say
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like why are you covering these horrible things.
It's not fair to the family.
And I would say I understand that criticism and we treat people with dignity at the same
time.
People need to know how to help.
And so seeing this film and I think it's masterfully done is really comes full circle for me without
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work.
I just want to respond to the part about journalism because I was looking for my grandfather's
obituary the other day which I was unable to find.
But I ended up finding like newspapers that were printed in the city where he lived around
the time that he was alive.
And I was so struck by and I've seen this before but I was so struck by the information
that used to be shared in newspapers around what was going on in the community.
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There would be things about somebody went to visit their aunt in Toronto and somebody
has a sickness in their family.
It's sort of like Facebook now or social media now.
They were sharing information but it was with the intention of bringing people together
and also alerting community members to who had needs that other folks could help out
with.
I was so struck by that.
(06:17):
Anyway.
Okay.
Alex you want to jump in?
I do.
Sorry about that.
Yeah.
Just a quick mic adjustment for Judy.
Yeah, I think I might have walked away from the film itself with maybe slightly more mixed
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feelings I suppose about maybe the way the message was delivered.
Like the urge, I guess maybe I didn't feel like it met the urgency of the moment in terms
of the kind of like explicit politics of what's going on.
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And I think I took and again I'm not approaching this as any sort of scientist right.
So these are all just words but the continued use of social capital right.
This just like the applying capitalism to everything including the way that we interact
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with each other treating everything as an exchange.
Treating as like a transaction I think is something that I just bump into a lot when
I watch movies like this that are calls to action.
They all tend to be framed within a system that I believe doesn't really work for us.
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However, I think the movie like does ultimately kind of have the right idea right which is
just like we all need to be meeting in person and talking in person about our shared interests.
And I think like it really is kind of as simple as that.
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And I was a little disappointed to see very little mention of the effects of like social
media the way people tend to only communicate online.
There were little bits here and there.
Especially about the positive ways it can be used like meeting on Facebook or talking
on Facebook and how that can be nonproductive ultimately.
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But I think there wasn't as much examination of how we've just migrated there rather than
trying to see each other out.
Join club specifically in the parlance of the movie right.
And I do think clubs specifically can be an answer right.
Like if we talk about like some of the most powerful organized labor movements have kind
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of started as clubs.
They talk about unions very briefly.
Another one of my sort of things is like I think they spent 90 seconds total in the
film talking about unions.
So yeah, I think like there was a lot of great takeaways like as far as oh and I do have
to say Robert Putnam is just like an amazing character.
(09:08):
And like subject of the film in every way.
And he's very compelling and like you can see that he really believes in not just his
work right but like humanity.
And that's very contagious.
And so it did make me want to read the books.
I'm reading one of them right now.
I'm reading his most recent one right now.
Oh cool.
The titles escaping me but yeah.
(09:28):
Is it the upswing?
Yes.
Yes.
Alex I want to ask you a question.
If you had a different way of saying what I think some of the meaning is behind how he
uses social capital I would love to know how you would phrase it.
Yeah.
Well I think we would just need to completely dissociate like separate our interactions
(09:55):
with one another from any form of capital or any form of transaction.
Like so bonds you know we can like use those sort of words rather than like our actual like
value to the community because that's what capital is right.
(10:16):
And yeah let's see if I can go over some of my some of my one interesting like note that
I took like so a lot of the data was super interesting right and he touches on how a lot
of his data on social gatherings was only collected by marketing agencies to sell stuff back to
us right.
So it's like we already detect sort of maybe subconsciously that in our society we are
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the product right and so we continue to just so we see each other as products right and
right down to our political affiliation we start to see each other as products of these
are ours next to our name right and relying on a concept of social capital only reinforces
that so what happens is you see like half of the country's social capital is being at
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an all time low right now right because like people can't stand one half of the country
because they see political parties as a social group now.
So yeah it's like and unlike I have a little note here so unlike market capital you don't
buy social capital low.
Like right so like you do it's it's an it's at an all time low right now so people really
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aren't trying to go talk to each other right now and because we see things as social capital
as transactional what have you done for the community and what can I do for you and we'll
keep it working that way.
So yeah I would see it as just like as a social like we are we're forced into this life together
we're forced not forced into it but we get to live in this community together and I think
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like it's just social life it's social bonding yeah I don't know I guess I don't have I wish
I did have more language to like put something new on it but I don't I think the movie was
very framed in social capital specifically though and I think that was part of my problem
with it you know.
I wonder if it's because I I've used that term a lot actually I use it in a lot of my
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teaching and I've never thought of it the way you're describing it but I can understand
your objections or your concerns about it because I think of social capital like I always
talk about how I believe and it's I mean research bears this out but that good relationships
lead to good work so I mean Sam you work on a very connected team in workforce development
and you do amazing work and I'm sure part of that could be attributed to the relationships
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and bonds that you have with each other.
Yeah I would say that those relationships are not even with each other but the way I see
my peers interacting with the community makes me want to work like that.
It's really a positive reinforcement.
So I think but I guess what I was what I was thinking about was I see social capital as
using relationships to solve problems and that we do a better job of solving problems
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when we're connected and so I can see how the word capital sounds super transactional
and maybe not applicable so do you think your objection is the word versus the concept or?
No I think even when they were in their little animation montage explaining social capital
they explain a transaction.
They explain helping someone in your community so they are more likely to help you.
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The mutual rest of the process.
Yeah of course which makes sense right?
That does make sense but like I think yeah I don't know again like I you're so much
more educated than I am on this like you've like well you have right like you've written
like dissertations on stuff like in related like and so I am just like fascinated to hear
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like I know that social capital is like a phrase that's been like they say in the in
the movie it's been a it's been rephrased four to three to four times over the course
of a hundred years but that's about as long as American capitalism has been around as
we know it right.
So like I think there is an association between the two but I can also understand like like
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where you're coming from with it which is like and I do I can accept that for this conversation
absolutely like that it wasn't necessarily meant that way in the in the film you know
what I'm saying?
Yeah absolutely.
So when you and Sam you got into this a little bit when you talked about your journalism
your career in journalism but how have you seen the concepts that were presented in this
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documentary show up in your personal and professional life were you able to sort of
relate it to your own life and your own observations?
Oh yeah very much so so I was born in 1969 I'm very much of a generation that said I'm
not much of a joiner and did not I did not have an affiliation my family was not affiliated
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with a religious organization when I was growing up for instance even though I come from a
Jewish family my mother had decided that she didn't want to be a practicing Jew and was
very interested in Unitarianism but I was I refused to be associated with that and I
think it had more to do with needing to start myself as a young person and then my affiliations
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were social or musical or based in the arts at that point and so I wasn't without association
I just didn't join formal organizations except for I will say I was a member of the Future
Farmers of America and was both attracted and repelled by how organized very organized
that national organization works and they have you know they use Robert Jules of Orders
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in their meetings and I was the first time I had been exposed to that and now I understand
it's like really important to know how to run a meeting when you're trying to get something
done with a lot of people and it's great to have a common process and now there are other
processes that people have developed to perhaps encourage a different kind of a different
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kind of participation but so I was not much of a joiner but as I got older and I went
to work in a newsroom and had a different kind of a critical mindset I began to have
to edit stories about how there weren't enough people helping to run local governments how
there is a decline in the number of volunteer firefighters and communities need volunteer
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firefighters if you don't have a fire department you can't get insurance for the homes in your
community so there are a lot of structures that are co- and interdependent with one
another that if we disengage civically they will fall apart and then of course it's been
shown that if reporters don't show up to meetings it's more likely that either there will either
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be a rise in corruption or there will just be a rise in mismanagement and so having
good engaged local journalism at every level helps to create structures that are more accountable
and more responsive.
Can you say that last part again you said if journalists don't show up to meetings there's
a possibility of increased corruption?
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There is documented increases in misuse of public funds.
Because it's not being recorded.
There's less scrutiny and if public officials don't have to answer questions it's not just
that they tend to be more corrupt it's that more errors are made.
A simple example of that is that in a local newsroom part of our job every year was to
go through every fiscal budget every municipal budget reporters would come back from town
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meetings with a copy of the budget and we would go through it and they would be reporting
on this line item or that line item and people would come to my desk and say can you double
read this I think there's an error and sure enough there would be some kind of a mathematical
error in the budget and the reporter would go back to their desk and they would call
the person who had made that budget for that town or had contributed to that and they'd
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say oh my goodness thank you so much for catching it.
So human error itself is just a fact of life.
People will make mistakes and without eyes on them more eyes on them there will be more
mistakes.
So even a lack of number of bodies in the room will contribute to a decline in good governance
whether it's by an active bribery or some kind of malfeasance or just not enough folks
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to take care of things.
And do you think local journalists have more freedom than those that are like the legacy
media that's reporting about the country?
So I think of local journalism as legacy media.
So it used to be that there were local newspapers all over the place and they did the on the
ground reporting that would be the source of news for TV stations for instance.
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And the people who came up in small local papers if they were really good they would
go on to bigger papers in other larger municipalities or they would stay and they would do excellent
reporting but hopefully rise through the ranks of their small papers.
Because that has disintegrated there's been a loss of that skill set.
Wow.
Well I think just the, and I even find this for myself, I think the challenges around
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discerning truth from fiction in terms of reporting has become like there's so many,
there's so many folks, you talked about the impact of social media and the internet and
so forth.
There's so many folks reporting on there and sometimes, and some really good independent
journalism, some excellent independent journalism but obviously some of the conspiracy theories
and so forth have come from folks who sort of almost pose as and the impact that's had
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on the frame of our fabric as socially as a society is really, really concerning.
Like if we could no longer trust.
What about you Alex, what did you?
Like how have I seen the effect?
Yeah, how is it relatable to me?
Well yeah, I think that's the element where I had to do the most like yeah self-examination
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while watching the film, right?
Because I don't think it's like limited to your generation, right?
Like I definitely am a part of that like oh no I don't really see myself as a joiner,
right?
And I think that's, and the movie touches on that like it's incredibly, we've been pushed
into an incredibly individualistic society, right?
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Like we're all sort of like forced into this bootstraps individualist sort of mindset.
And it does feel, it's so hard to, it does feel, I feel disconnected from the community,
less so in Greenfield I have to say since we moved here four years ago from the Boston
area.
I think in two years in Greenfield I met more people and made more connections than 10
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years in Boston.
And I think there's a lot of reasons, there's a lot of reasons for that, but like I think
Greenfield does have a special sauce to it.
Franklin County, the Valley, the Pioneer Valley area, all of this whole area, I do think there's
something, there's something, there's a bond here, there is like a social fabric here that
I feel more so than where I grew up in Rhode Island, more so than anywhere I've lived.
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So that's kind of what keeps us here.
But still, it's like hard to just like, it feels hard, in the morning it feels hard
to find a club to go to, and then in the afternoon it feels hard to go to that club.
Once you've done all your research and found it because you've worked all day or you have
a kid at home or whatever reason, you know?
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So I think like going back to social media, part of that for someone like me who is like
I'm not on any social media by choice, you know, I try to...
Oh really?
Yeah, no, none.
Well, I guess you can't, I can't say that, because like a lot of things that we might
not traditionally, I think a lot of websites that we might not like, YouTube is a social
media website and I do watch stuff on YouTube.
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Or...
You're not sharing about yourself on YouTube?
No, no, I don't have any Facebook profile, for example, or anything like that.
And most social sort of, it seems like, aside from some flyering out around town, that's
how you find out about stuff, is through an Instagram or a TikTok or whatever.
And without that, it's very alienating sort of, and so in an attempt to get away from
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all the toxicity of social media and the way people can behave on there, ultimately it
just kind of makes it a little bit harder to find stuff.
So then I kind of do eventually by walking around town or whatever.
And then yeah, I'm just wiped out, man.
Yeah, no, I think...
And also we have very social jobs.
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We do.
So like, I think sometimes at the end of the day, we've been a little tapped out of our
conversational ability, you know what I mean?
It's hard to be like, engaged all day sometimes, you know.
And then especially in a club, I think it can feel a little intimidating sometimes, because
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if you're in that room, presumably it's because there's a part of you in that room, right?
Like if it's like a music club or something, and like I'm there saying, I'm here because
I'm interested in this thing, it's a part of my soul, right?
And you're meeting people who share a part of that with you.
And so it's vulnerable.
And so I think something the movie touched on, but again, not enough for me, is like
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that, the drain we all feel, I think, is what's part of what...
It can be hard to find a place to go to, and then once you find it, it's like, who is it
just gonna be...
Is it just gonna make my day harder to go?
And ultimately, I generally, whenever I do get myself out, I never regret it.
Right, it's making yourself go.
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Exactly, it's kind of making yourself go.
And I think we all, I think, yeah, that's a tough puzzle to solve.
How do we all kind of make ourselves feel a little more vital again?
I wonder where they used to find time to go to clubs and organizations, because I mean,
they used to...
You work even longer hours, right?
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Well, I think a lot of it used to be trade union meetings after work, stuff like that.
I think a lot of it is political action.
They talk about some of Frederick Douglass's famous speeches.
They're given the anti-slavery, ladies' sewing society or something, which was an incredible
little factoid.
So that's where I think the movie is really on to something.
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It's like clubs, when you do finally, when it clicks and you find the right people around
you, it's not just a door to sewing.
It can be a door to abolition.
When you mentioned individualism, I was thinking about that part in the film where I can't
remember her name, but there was someone who talked about her belief that it was intentional,
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that it was actually designed to push back on the civil rights movement because they
were making too much progress.
The union organizer talked about how she felt during the area of suburbanization that there
was a real push to individualism in an effort to crack unions.
I think there's a lot of merit to that line of reasoning.
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It's really interesting to think about.
I think that the dissolution of unions has led to this more of this push on to the individual
as though they are to create all the benefits of society themselves, which is impossible.
But I do think it was intentional union busting in this country.
Don't be in the union, be the CEO.
(25:24):
Like a new push to be the entrepreneur.
We can all be the CEO now.
That's the new drive in American society.
It feels like.
I had not even thought about this until now, but I was like, because in my own life, and
I'm just five years older than Sam, and I grew up in a different geographic area.
I grew up in Indiana.
What resonated with me, and I was surprised when he talked about the decline in joining
(25:48):
starting in the 60s because I felt like I grew up in a time where we were part of everything.
My parents were always in a bowling league.
Now that you mentioned unions, my parents were both extremely active union members.
My mother was a teacher, so she was in a teacher's union.
My grandmother was in the teamsters.
I'd never met her, but she worked for them.
Then my father was United Auto Workers.
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We went to union camp when I was a kid.
We sang union songs.
I hadn't really thought about that because I always think about in terms of my own childhood
and my most important relationships and connectedness came from my neighborhood.
Our neighborhood was extremely tight.
I have such fond memories of the blizzard of 77 or 78 because seven or eight families,
(26:34):
we spent the whole week together.
We rotated houses.
One of the men in the group owned the local liquor store, so all the men would get the
sled and go to the liquor store and bring back.
I always associated liquor with fun because all the adults were much more fun when they
were drinking.
My mom had card club every month where the women came together to play cards, and there
was always great snacks.
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We spent tons of time at the skating rink, the mall.
I was in gymnastics and tap dance and swimming and everything.
I felt like I took that all for granted growing up, but I can remember if my parents were
super strict so I couldn't ride my bike around the neighborhood until I was way older than
(27:15):
you would think.
But I remember going around the neighborhood thinking, I know who lives there.
I know who lives there.
I feel safe because if I have a problem, I know where to go, which I don't think is
true in a lot of neighborhoods today.
All that said, I lived in a very homogeneous community, and I can't discount the impact
of that on our connections and what that might have meant.
(27:36):
In terms of my professional life, when I left home and went to college, I decided to go
into higher education and I spent the first 20 years of my career in residence life.
I have a very uncommon, untraditional life in that I lived in the residence halls from
1982 to 2003.
Over 20 years, I lived in the residence halls in various positions.
(28:03):
This is why I wrote about this in my dissertation is because I wish I had some sort of time-lapse
photography to really illustrate what happened from the time I started in res life till the
time I left and the impact of technology on community.
When I was an undergraduate and a graduate student and early in my career, the common
spaces, the lounges, were always full of students.
The dining halls were always full of students.
(28:23):
Never when I was in college.
Never, ever, ever.
Right.
I literally watched those common spaces empty out over the course of my time in residence
life and it broke my heart.
I knew something really important was happening and I knew it wasn't good.
Tell me, were people in their own rooms?
Yes, because they had everything they needed in their own rooms, in their own spaces.
I can remember one night, I was the associate dean of students at Linden State College up
(28:46):
in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, it no longer exists, it's now combined with another
institution, but no, it does exist.
It's still there, but it's a different college now.
But anyway, it was early 2000s and so we didn't even have iPhones yet, but people were still
often in their own rooms, like on the internet or whatever.
When I was in college, not everybody even had their own phone or their own television,
(29:09):
so you would gather in common spaces for that.
But I can remember one night, the power went out and it went out for a long time.
It was like 24 hours of a power outage and the students were flipping out.
I had an office full of board games and I went to every lounge on that campus and put
board games in the common spaces and I got candles and I emailed all the students and
I said, go to your lounge and just play games.
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I had so many students tell me in the aftermath of that, it was their favorite night.
You just said you emailed them during a power outage?
No, somehow I got word out.
That's a good point, I must not have emailed them.
I must not have emailed them.
I think I said the RAs around.
I'm so used to saying that's the way I communicate.
I probably sent the RAs around to tell them, come to the lounge.
Finish your story, did they come?
But anyway, they came and many of them told me it was the best night of their college
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career and I think that it was because they had never experienced that kind of, like it
was a novel to them.
It was really remarkable.
And right now, we're doing, I don't want to get too far into this because it might require
too much explanation, but as you all know, we're doing this program on campus called
Project Connect, where we're having folks come together in small groups.
(30:13):
We use a prescribed curriculum from Project Connect as an organization out of North Hampton,
Massachusetts.
It was founded by Jessica Gifford, who used to work in residence life and higher education.
And she developed a curriculum for connection.
It's designed to work with groups of six to eight people and to build relationship.
And we're doing that on the GCC campus right now.
And I was walking from the main building over here the other day and passed someone who had
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just come from the group and her eyes were lit up and she was like, this is one of the
best things I've done since I started working here.
And so I think we're hungry for that.
We don't necessarily know how to get it or create it because of the ways in which our
society has changed so much over the decades.
But when it's offered or when it's even forced upon someone, it's so meaningful.
(30:57):
And I, you know, as a person who got into this field because of my passion about relationship
and connection, it continues as I'm kind of moving toward the end of my career to feel
more important than ever because it used to happen so organically based on, you know,
like when you live in the residence halls, you're living together, you're eating together,
(31:19):
you're, you know, like you're together all the time.
And those relationships formed so organically, but now that nobody comes out of their room,
it's not as easy.
So finding ways, I think, I think us in higher education have an opportunity and a responsibility
to continue to encourage relationship between and among people who wouldn't normally encounter
each other or develop those connections.
(31:41):
That to me, the last bit you just said, people who wouldn't otherwise perhaps encounter each
other or develop relationships is fascinating because I think it's the, and it's making
me think, Alex, of something you said earlier about capitalism.
A few years ago, Greenfield built a new public library.
(32:02):
Before then, for several decades, there was a very clear need, demonstrated need for a
new public library in Greenfield.
There had never been a building actually built for that purpose.
It was in an old house.
And so there was a lot of good reasons on paper to do it, but it had been very difficult
to get the community willing to spend the money to do it or commit to it.
(32:23):
And the arguments against it began to be tied up with political trends of the time.
And so you saw the language bend in that direction, which had actually very little to do with the
actual need for the library.
One of the things to me that was so interesting about a public library is it's one of, and
maybe the only place in town where all the members of the general public can run into
(32:47):
one another and there is no exchange of money.
Everything is provided inside that space for use for free by each other as part of the
common good.
And we're there for another reason, and we might run into people from every walk of life
or every age group.
And it is unique in that way.
(33:09):
Otherwise you're going downtown.
It used to be you went downtown to buy things you needed or wanted.
Now that the retail has declined, there are just fewer of those opportunities to run
into people.
So as a civic space, we began to understand the value of the library to be magnified in
relation to those changes.
It's an amazing library.
It is a really good library.
(33:32):
And that's exactly right.
I think that's what makes libraries so special.
And I think why a lot of my favorite people in my life are librarians.
There's something about people who gravitate to things that are resources that everyone
has the right to.
And just to plug the Greenfield Public Library, excellent children space.
(33:55):
My daughter is obsessed with it.
One of the interesting things about the library is it has a lot of meeting room space because
Greenfield had not enough meeting space for folks who actually were in clubs or served
on town committees.
There was a constant need for people, where could we meet?
Where could we meet?
So the library was built with as many of those kinds of spaces available as possible that
(34:19):
you could sort of check out a space even.
And now there are also small meeting rooms in that library, which were a new concept
for me just to become familiar with where a group of four or fewer people could meet.
And those happened to be on the Board of Trustees, the Greenfield Public Library, for full disclosure.
(34:41):
So I get to see the numbers of patrons who used all the different resources in the library
every month because they create a report.
Those meeting rooms are constantly booked.
People need space to get together and work on projects.
Some of them are school groups.
Some of them are adult students who are working, like they're nurses in a class and they need
(35:03):
to do a group project.
I know I've had meetings there.
Subcommittees of the trustees have met there.
It's just fascinating to me that actually we need even more now spaces.
People are kind of always looking for spaces to meet and gather and also have events.
So another thing that we've sort of become aware of because the library can't always
(35:27):
provide it is people are desperate to rent spaces for birthday parties.
And there are not enough spaces, commercial or otherwise, for an event that's just too
big for a home where maybe you want to get 25 people together and you really can't do
in your apartment.
So that, there's a desire for that and that it's a good thing.
(35:51):
Maybe GCC should look at that.
Other thoughts from the film?
Were there moments that stood out to you or just things that you wanted to write down
and remember?
Let's see.
Well, I, well now of course I'm blanking as I had been holding onto it.
Oh, I think, so there's something that went unsaid in the film that kept sticking in my
(36:17):
head, which is the US government's historic role in demolishing many clubs.
You know, like, you know, the McCarthy era or I think like a J Edgar Hoover is probably
more responsible for the death of like American social life or radical social life than I
think a lot of the folks who the movie interviewed would be more comfortable admitting, you know.
(36:43):
So like, I think that was like part of my, part of like a little, like a bit of it that
I wish they would have acknowledged that there's been and will and that we're entering and
well, when this film was made, I think it was maybe a more hopeful year.
But like, like, a little bit more acknowledgement of like forming a club can get you targeted
(37:09):
forming a club can get you arrested.
A little bit more of the people who have come before us who have, you know, who have, who
have, you know, made sacrifices, you know, based on based on that.
And I think like that's what the movie wasn't willing to go into, you know, and I understand
(37:29):
why.
I think this was a little bit more trying to get us thinking about our act like just
the broader social fabric, right.
And I do think that's important too, but I guess that was just one it kept sticking in
my, my head as I watched.
So that was one, one little thought.
And also I wanted to come back around to talking about where all the college students are now,
(37:52):
because I do have a little more insight in it.
So I started in 2008, big state university for first couple years of my education.
I will say most folks, there was no hanging out in common rooms.
It was the gym or sports.
And it's not something that I was interested in.
And I think, I think, and a lot of, during what one of the little rapid montages of the
(38:17):
film when they're showing like, they're trying to counter Robert Putnam's thesis, like kind
of early on in his bowling alone theory.
They're like, no, no, no, like you can see like everyone is playing soccer now.
Like what are you talking about?
Yeah, they're just in different clubs.
Yeah, they're just in different clubs.
But I do think there's a fundamental difference between sports and the types of clubs that
(38:42):
this, that this film is talking about.
Not necessarily, but I think like the club, like it's, it's less like the actual rugby
team and more like the rugby team hanging out afterward is what the movie was more focused
on.
And I didn't see that part of, of anything during my time at university.
But I think that might have been me too.
You know, so I think there's plenty of clubs and resources and people at GCC work incredibly
(39:07):
hard to make sure that students have groups and stuff to attend to and stuff like that.
So I know people, people are trying, but you're right, it can just be hard to get people into
those common spaces to just hang out for an extended time.
You know, I don't see it as, I see it more.
I see it more again.
I see it at GCC more than I did at my time in college.
(39:29):
Well, and GCC is not that different than other institutions.
We now have almost half of our students online, which is something that, you know, a decade
ago I would have never imagined.
And I remember when distance learning was becoming a thing and I remember thinking,
this isn't going to last.
This isn't going to work.
And frankly, I mean, the access piece is so incredibly important, but what it's done to
(39:50):
like relationship because I do think learning happens best in the context of relationship.
And personally, I've heard a lot of students say this just doesn't work for me, but I have
to do it because I can't come in person because of A, B, or C.
So I love the fact that it gives access, but I think it's impact the things that you were
talking about, Alex, significantly.
Because how do you engage online learners in that, you know, it's, it's a real challenge.
(40:13):
It's different and it's a lot harder.
It's something in workforce development.
A lot of our programs are in person and some of them are hybrid with an online component
and it's building that connection and that community of practice has become something
that's really important in workforce development, partly because some of the students we serve
(40:34):
are some of the students with the highest needs.
And we know that a community of practice where they feel that they, that just them showing
up has value to that small community will keep them engaged and they'll have a higher
success rate, but it also help everybody in the room.
So like we have a thing to go to and to be together.
There's also now because of the pandemic, we all sort of have access to a common language
(41:00):
around data that show that when people are in close physical proximity to each other,
they have a response.
Like this isn't, it's not something we only imagine is quite real to be in physical community
together.
So there are benefits to it, but of course, like having access to a course you would never
have been able to take otherwise online is a wonderful thing.
(41:20):
Even where we live or it's a rural, we have to be able to give that now.
And I think that's great.
But it's a, Alex, when you were talking about being on campus and how it can be really isolating
unless you're sort of used to being on a team, in a team sport or attracted to that.
(41:41):
When I was an undergraduate and I was not, I was never on a team sport.
I was the kind of kid who only did horseback riding or swimming because I could do it just
by myself.
I wasn't great at team sports.
But man, I wanted to be in the radio station.
There was a radio station on my campus and college radio used to be a huge thing for
(42:02):
the artsy kids or the tech nerds and we would come together and here we are doing a podcast
and we're actually all in the same room together, which is super cool.
But one of the things that I've been worried about with some digital tools promote isolation
or creation in isolation.
(42:22):
And some of the analog tools were really great because by accident they brought us together.
So I remember being in the stacks at the radio station while a friend of mine was doing a
show and trying to be really quiet because I was pulling out LPs and I wanted to look
at all the records.
But he was literally on air like two feet away from me.
And so, and that's just fun.
(42:45):
And the tools are really not all that different than the ones we're using right now.
But I want more of that.
And now, unfortunately, radio, there's a similar decline in sort of live bootleg or small radio
as there has been in small newspapers.
But there is a very, very fun niche, small scale radio movement globally and I have friends
(43:13):
who have done really interesting work with that, but that is so niche and so small, it's
hard to even find out about it.
I think creating something together is like when I think back to the moments in my life
where I felt most alive and I was on, I actually did, I actually minored in journalism in college
and so I was on the newspaper staff all through high school and involved in newspaper work
(43:35):
early on in my career.
And so that's, I mean, there's other ways in which I've been, what I would call a creator.
I've never felt more alive than when I'm creating with other people, alongside other people.
And I think there's room for solitary work too, of course, but I feel like those are
the moments that stand out to me.
Or even, you know, I was thinking, when we were talking earlier, I was thinking about
when a friend of mine ran for mayor of Greenfield, I don't know, maybe 10 years ago, and we had
(44:01):
a team that was responsible for supporting her candidacy and we had an office downtown
and we had assigned nights to be in that office.
I can remember almost every night of the week, I'd be like, well, it's not my night, but
I'm going to go down there because it was so exciting to be with a group of, we were
all women, with a group of women who were trying to create change in our community and
coming together for the purpose of doing so.
(44:23):
And I just, it took me back to college because I often had those opportunities in college
that I just haven't had since, but it was such an incredible feeling to do that for
the people.
Yeah, it reminds me, it all kind of comes back in my, from my world quote.
Like, as a musician, everything is just starting a band, right?
Like Backyard Oasis, the podcast, it's a lot like a band.
(44:48):
Everyone brings their own ideas and goals and stuff and you have to try and wrangle personalities
and lots can happen in bands, right?
And like creation and tension and stuff.
And then once you have lots of small bands, you start to get a whole scene.
And once you have a scene, you know, that's when, that's when you have like a real club
and a real movement.
(45:09):
So like, yeah, like the music world and the, the sort of, has always been like a real inspirational
model for me, at least the independent music world has always been really inspirational
for me is how to organize.
How do you get like 50 people into a basement for a show in Boston?
I don't know.
It's hard to do.
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
But people do it.
It's cool.
(45:30):
It's the best feeling actually, a small basement show.
It's the best.
And there was a healthy radio station and a really healthy, vibrant music scene.
And being in proximity to that, I was never a good musician.
I was a couple of times roped into being in really bad bands, but.
No such thing as bad.
(45:51):
It feels good to be on a team.
I think that's what you were just saying.
And I know I felt that in a number of places of work, I've been really lucky to serve with
really good people and it makes you want to show up and do better.
You feel it the way you feel it in a band.
Musicians have to listen to each other.
(46:12):
Yeah, exactly.
It's a conversation, right?
Yeah, that's the old cliche.
It's true.
Yeah.
Yeah, music is a conversation.
When you said, Sam, it makes you want to show up.
I was thinking about, and I'm not just saying this because I'm at work right now.
I look forward to coming to work every day.
I really like, I love my job.
And I know a lot of people enjoy the remote work, and occasionally, I certainly, like
(46:36):
in the morning in particular, I'll often take some remote time before I come in just
to get through emails or maybe do a Zoom or whatever.
But I love coming here and seeing people, and I love walking around.
What are you going to do all day?
Watch TV?
Exactly, exactly.
And I know that we're, I know we probably need to wind up here, maybe we need to do
a part two.
(46:57):
But just like, what are some takeaways for you or some moments in that film you'll never
forget?
What are some thoughts as we wind this up?
I know we've been all over the place.
I think my big takeaway is that, yeah, even with all my criticism, I think it's that self-examination
(47:18):
of like, we all need to just be comfortable with being a part of something bigger than
ourselves, right?
We all need to start to think of ourselves, be more comfortable with being a joiner, right?
Even if the word kind of makes you cringe a little bit still.
Like I think we're going up against a lot of social conditioning when we're talking
about stuff like this.
And so, yeah, I do think my, when it comes down to it, my ultimate takeaway from it is
(47:41):
like, yeah, it's like, okay, it's self-examination about like, I think we need to be more connected.
Absolutely, yeah.
Absolutely.
I did something this year I'd never imagined I was going to do.
And a neighbor about a year ago, a neighbor started asking me if I'd be willing to join
(48:02):
the fire department in my small town.
And I had never considered doing such a thing.
I had a whole bunch of reasons why I didn't think that I would be appropriate for that.
I would probably have those for myself too.
And he asked me enough times and he wasn't kidding that I, he did a masterful job of
(48:24):
recruiting me because for whatever reason, I began to seriously consider it.
And I hadn't even really thought about that.
Funny enough, I had also checked the book Bowling Alone out of the library.
And so I had Bowling Alone sitting on my bedside table waiting for me to read it.
And I was reading, I would dip into it a little bit at night, but I never got all the way
through it and it actually came due back at the library.
(48:47):
So I got an email from my very small library in my very small town saying, your book's
overdue.
And I dropped Bowling Alone off at the library on the same day I went to my first fire department
training and I am now a firefighter on my volunteer fire department.
That's a great story.
And the great thing about it is I've met people in town I might never have met otherwise.
(49:09):
And I've overcome a bit of my shyness.
I've physically, it's been fantastic for me.
And I like the tech aspect of it very much.
It's a good thing to do.
And I'm realizing it doesn't really even matter so much about me.
I'll serve on it for as long as I can.
(49:30):
And then I'll stop at whatever point I need to stop.
And it's just a good thing to do in town.
And I'm serving with people who are much, much younger than I am and some who are older
than I am.
And it's just, I think in a weird way, it decenters me and really, it makes me a part
of something bigger than me.
(49:51):
And now you'll be recruiting people for the fire department.
Oh, I'd be very happy to recruit more people.
You probably do it quite effectively.
But it's just a cool thing to do.
And I had no idea how cool it was.
And I've actually, if I could, I don't often want to go back in time, but if I could go
back into my 20s, I might just be a professional firefighter.
It seems like a really cool job.
So yeah, I think one of the nicest things about living in this area, and Alex, this
(50:17):
goes back to something you had said earlier about the magic in Greenfield.
There's something about Franklin County that lets you be a lot of different versions of
yourself.
Yeah, absolutely.
And even ones you didn't know about yet.
And so you can organically go through that change, even very difficult transitions.
Like I've been through a divorce while living here.
And so, you know, there's like this danger of running into people on the street and
(50:38):
having to explain difficult things to them.
And how are they going to respond?
And how do you just get through your day?
And this is an OK place to be a real person.
It really is.
And that, there's something very magical about that.
Or also just good.
Well, it's kind of like when I was describing what it was like to grow up in my neighborhood,
knowing who lived where and that I was safe.
(51:00):
There's that feeling here, I think, where I kind of know where to go if I have a problem
here.
And that's who I am and I have some sort of relationship.
Two of the things that I've been thinking a lot about since the film, since I watched
the film, and I've watched it about four times now.
So, but I didn't watch as recently as last night.
So I'm not this morning.
This morning.
I'm older, so I forget things.
(51:20):
But I've been thinking a lot about, and this has been part of my own personal experience,
about 12 step organizations.
And when you, when you talk about join or die, you're literally talking about join or
die when you talk about an organization like AA or NA.
And I've been thinking a lot about how, you know, I've always said I think 12 step principles
and practices are actually the solution to all that ails us.
(51:44):
And this notion of our fates being connected is so apparent when you all share a disease
like alcoholism or drug abuse or whatever.
Not so apparent in the real world.
And if we could sort of transfer that understanding and knowledge to the real world, how powerful
that would be, that our lives literally depend upon us being in relationship with each other,
(52:05):
our actual physical lives.
So that's one thing I've been thinking a lot about is I'd love to do some more work
on how do we use 12 step as a model for other things in the world.
But I also, one of the, for me the most moving part of the film, and I definitely shed a
few tears, was when Robert described the arc.
I always, my friend the other day said to me, you always talk about people like they're
(52:27):
your neighbors.
You use their first names and you don't know these people.
I'm like, I guess I do.
Your buddy Robert.
I was like, that was a great compliment.
I know you met it as an insult, but I take it as a great compliment.
But when he talked about that pivotal moment when he heard JFK's speech and when he asked,
ask not what you can do for your country.
(52:48):
Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.
And then he has that moment in the White House when Obama awards him with the medal where
he sees the picture of JFK on the wall with his wife as a much older person.
And he describes that as the arc of his life.
And I thought that was so powerful because I think, you know, my hope, working in higher
(53:11):
education, I have so many hopes for our students.
But one of my greatest hopes is that they will have, are we having a fire alarm?
We are.
We are having a fire alarm.
We are having a fire alarm.
Should I wrap up the spot?
We have to wrap up the, we gotta wrap up.
Anyway, that our students would have a moment of realization that they want to use their
talents and intersect with what the world needs.
And that's what Robert talked about.
(53:31):
So please join us at the Garden Theater on Monday, March 24th.
Rebecca Davis, direct co-director, she directed with her brother Pete will be there for a
Q&A.
Thank you, everybody.
This concludes today's podcast.
We're always looking for new ideas, so feel free to reach out to Judy Raper, Associate
Dean of Community Engagement at Greenfield Community College at 413-775-1819.
(54:00):
If you have an idea, you'd love to share.
Special thanks to the creators of Backyard Oasis, Denise Schwartz, Chad Fuller, Dennis
Lee, and Christine Copeland.
Have a great day.
Welcome to Backyard Oasis, a podcast designed by and for older adults living in the beautiful
(00:09):
Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts and produced in the tech studios at Greenfield
Community College in Greenfield, Massachusetts.
Backyard Oasis reaches out to older adults who seek knowledge to help them live more
thoughtfully, healthily, and happily, who hope to inspire others with their ideas and
(00:31):
who serve their communities in the interest of the greater good.
Okay everybody, this is Judy Raper, Associate Dean of Community Engagement at Greenfield
Community College and I'm here with a few of my colleagues today to talk about the incredible
documentary Join or Die.
So I'm going to allow them to introduce themselves before I tell you a little bit about this
(00:51):
film in case you haven't seen it yourself.
Hi, I'm Samantha Wood.
I'm the Director of Strategic Innovation for Workforce Development at Greenfield Community
College.
Very happy to be here.
Yeah, and I'm Alex Audette.
I'm the Audiovisual Technician at Greenfield Community College.
Also happy to be here.
And you may recognize Alex as my producer from all my reality TV podcasts and now you'll
(01:12):
be able to see the range that I have that I can also talk about serious topics.
That's right, she got the producer on mic.
It's tough to do.
So we're here today to talk about the documentary Join or Die and this documentary examines
social scientist Robert Putnam's bullying alone and his theory of how declining community
engagement created an American civic crisis.
(01:33):
He traces our civic engagement back to the 50s and makes the connection between a decline
in joining clubs and organizations that began in the 60s and the waning of our democracy.
He further connects this decline to technological evolution which began with the television.
He studied regional governments in Italy and discovered the common thread that ran through
effective governments was a strong social fabric.
(01:55):
At the heart of his work is the idea that we can save democracy by becoming joiners.
As it is through these associations that we encounter and connect with people we wouldn't
otherwise come across.
Hopefully reducing our partisan divide and enabling us to hold our government accountable
to working for the people.
And we will be showing this documentary March 24th which is a Monday night at 6 p.m. at
(02:16):
the Garden Theater.
One of the directors will actually be with us afterwards for a Q&A and this is co-sponsored
by Furcog which stands for the Franklin Regional Council of Governance.
So with that sort of intro about the film I just like to start with what we thought
of it.
So Judy what do you think of it?
(02:39):
Oh I'm going to start?
Yep.
I get to go first.
So I forget how this film came to my attention.
I got some email and when I saw the content I immediately knew I wanted to watch it.
I watched it I think the same night I got the email.
And I had some familiarity with Robert Putnam's work.
I remember the book Bowling Alone back in the 90s.
I don't even recall if I read it.
(03:00):
I don't think I did.
But as soon as I watched the film like pretty much everything resonated for me.
It was just I found the research really compelling.
I found the theory around our decline in civic engagement being related to our struggles
with preserving our democracy to be extremely true from my observations and everything I've
(03:21):
researched and read.
And I just I think for me it felt like a relief that somebody was talking about this.
Ironically when he wrote Bowling Alone I was working on my dissertation at the University
of Vermont.
And I am in no way suggesting my genius match as Robert Putnam's.
However so much of what he talks about I talked about in my dissertation and I'll talk a little
(03:43):
bit later about why I included that in my dissertation.
But it really resonated with me in terms of my personal life and my professional life.
And I loved every minute of it.
And I've watched it now four times just because I feel like I catch something new every time
I watch it.
So I will probably continue to rewatch it.
(04:07):
So I there are a lot of points in this movie that really resonate for me.
Before I came to a career in higher ed I worked for close to two decades in local journalism
here in Western Mass.
And watching the decline in local journalism nationally has raised a number of issues that
(04:30):
are in alignment with Robert Putnam's research in terms of community engagement in terms
of how people happen into relationships with one another because of common interests.
And the sort of the wonderful serendipity of running into people on the street.
I think the decline of local retail is also part of this.
(04:50):
The opportunities we have for running into one another and the wonderful things that
come out of that around projects or community organizing or fundraising or civic events.
In local journalism a lot of the reason we covered stories was so people would know where
to bring the casserole when someone needed it.
When there's a house fire and people would I was a newsroom editor and people would say
(05:13):
like why are you covering these horrible things.
It's not fair to the family.
And I would say I understand that criticism and we treat people with dignity at the same
time.
People need to know how to help.
And so seeing this film and I think it's masterfully done is really comes full circle for me without
(05:34):
work.
I just want to respond to the part about journalism because I was looking for my grandfather's
obituary the other day which I was unable to find.
But I ended up finding like newspapers that were printed in the city where he lived around
the time that he was alive.
And I was so struck by and I've seen this before but I was so struck by the information
that used to be shared in newspapers around what was going on in the community.
(05:57):
There would be things about somebody went to visit their aunt in Toronto and somebody
has a sickness in their family.
It's sort of like Facebook now or social media now.
They were sharing information but it was with the intention of bringing people together
and also alerting community members to who had needs that other folks could help out
with.
I was so struck by that.
(06:17):
Anyway.
Okay.
Alex you want to jump in?
I do.
Sorry about that.
Yeah.
Just a quick mic adjustment for Judy.
Yeah, I think I might have walked away from the film itself with maybe slightly more mixed
(06:38):
feelings I suppose about maybe the way the message was delivered.
Like the urge, I guess maybe I didn't feel like it met the urgency of the moment in terms
of the kind of like explicit politics of what's going on.
(06:59):
And I think I took and again I'm not approaching this as any sort of scientist right.
So these are all just words but the continued use of social capital right.
This just like the applying capitalism to everything including the way that we interact
(07:19):
with each other treating everything as an exchange.
Treating as like a transaction I think is something that I just bump into a lot when
I watch movies like this that are calls to action.
They all tend to be framed within a system that I believe doesn't really work for us.
(07:40):
However, I think the movie like does ultimately kind of have the right idea right which is
just like we all need to be meeting in person and talking in person about our shared interests.
And I think like it really is kind of as simple as that.
(08:01):
And I was a little disappointed to see very little mention of the effects of like social
media the way people tend to only communicate online.
There were little bits here and there.
Especially about the positive ways it can be used like meeting on Facebook or talking
on Facebook and how that can be nonproductive ultimately.
(08:22):
But I think there wasn't as much examination of how we've just migrated there rather than
trying to see each other out.
Join club specifically in the parlance of the movie right.
And I do think clubs specifically can be an answer right.
Like if we talk about like some of the most powerful organized labor movements have kind
(08:46):
of started as clubs.
They talk about unions very briefly.
Another one of my sort of things is like I think they spent 90 seconds total in the
film talking about unions.
So yeah, I think like there was a lot of great takeaways like as far as oh and I do have
to say Robert Putnam is just like an amazing character.
(09:08):
And like subject of the film in every way.
And he's very compelling and like you can see that he really believes in not just his
work right but like humanity.
And that's very contagious.
And so it did make me want to read the books.
I'm reading one of them right now.
I'm reading his most recent one right now.
Oh cool.
The titles escaping me but yeah.
(09:28):
Is it the upswing?
Yes.
Yes.
Alex I want to ask you a question.
If you had a different way of saying what I think some of the meaning is behind how he
uses social capital I would love to know how you would phrase it.
Yeah.
Well I think we would just need to completely dissociate like separate our interactions
(09:55):
with one another from any form of capital or any form of transaction.
Like so bonds you know we can like use those sort of words rather than like our actual like
value to the community because that's what capital is right.
(10:16):
And yeah let's see if I can go over some of my some of my one interesting like note that
I took like so a lot of the data was super interesting right and he touches on how a lot
of his data on social gatherings was only collected by marketing agencies to sell stuff back to
us right.
So it's like we already detect sort of maybe subconsciously that in our society we are
(10:40):
the product right and so we continue to just so we see each other as products right and
right down to our political affiliation we start to see each other as products of these
are ours next to our name right and relying on a concept of social capital only reinforces
that so what happens is you see like half of the country's social capital is being at
(11:02):
an all time low right now right because like people can't stand one half of the country
because they see political parties as a social group now.
So yeah it's like and unlike I have a little note here so unlike market capital you don't
buy social capital low.
Like right so like you do it's it's an it's at an all time low right now so people really
(11:24):
aren't trying to go talk to each other right now and because we see things as social capital
as transactional what have you done for the community and what can I do for you and we'll
keep it working that way.
So yeah I would see it as just like as a social like we are we're forced into this life together
we're forced not forced into it but we get to live in this community together and I think
(11:48):
like it's just social life it's social bonding yeah I don't know I guess I don't have I wish
I did have more language to like put something new on it but I don't I think the movie was
very framed in social capital specifically though and I think that was part of my problem
with it you know.
I wonder if it's because I I've used that term a lot actually I use it in a lot of my
(12:08):
teaching and I've never thought of it the way you're describing it but I can understand
your objections or your concerns about it because I think of social capital like I always
talk about how I believe and it's I mean research bears this out but that good relationships
lead to good work so I mean Sam you work on a very connected team in workforce development
and you do amazing work and I'm sure part of that could be attributed to the relationships
(12:30):
and bonds that you have with each other.
Yeah I would say that those relationships are not even with each other but the way I see
my peers interacting with the community makes me want to work like that.
It's really a positive reinforcement.
So I think but I guess what I was what I was thinking about was I see social capital as
using relationships to solve problems and that we do a better job of solving problems
(12:55):
when we're connected and so I can see how the word capital sounds super transactional
and maybe not applicable so do you think your objection is the word versus the concept or?
No I think even when they were in their little animation montage explaining social capital
they explain a transaction.
They explain helping someone in your community so they are more likely to help you.
(13:16):
The mutual rest of the process.
Yeah of course which makes sense right?
That does make sense but like I think yeah I don't know again like I you're so much
more educated than I am on this like you've like well you have right like you've written
like dissertations on stuff like in related like and so I am just like fascinated to hear
(13:36):
like I know that social capital is like a phrase that's been like they say in the in
the movie it's been a it's been rephrased four to three to four times over the course
of a hundred years but that's about as long as American capitalism has been around as
we know it right.
So like I think there is an association between the two but I can also understand like like
(13:59):
where you're coming from with it which is like and I do I can accept that for this conversation
absolutely like that it wasn't necessarily meant that way in the in the film you know
what I'm saying?
Yeah absolutely.
So when you and Sam you got into this a little bit when you talked about your journalism
your career in journalism but how have you seen the concepts that were presented in this
(14:22):
documentary show up in your personal and professional life were you able to sort of
relate it to your own life and your own observations?
Oh yeah very much so so I was born in 1969 I'm very much of a generation that said I'm
not much of a joiner and did not I did not have an affiliation my family was not affiliated
(14:43):
with a religious organization when I was growing up for instance even though I come from a
Jewish family my mother had decided that she didn't want to be a practicing Jew and was
very interested in Unitarianism but I was I refused to be associated with that and I
think it had more to do with needing to start myself as a young person and then my affiliations
(15:05):
were social or musical or based in the arts at that point and so I wasn't without association
I just didn't join formal organizations except for I will say I was a member of the Future
Farmers of America and was both attracted and repelled by how organized very organized
that national organization works and they have you know they use Robert Jules of Orders
(15:31):
in their meetings and I was the first time I had been exposed to that and now I understand
it's like really important to know how to run a meeting when you're trying to get something
done with a lot of people and it's great to have a common process and now there are other
processes that people have developed to perhaps encourage a different kind of a different
(15:52):
kind of participation but so I was not much of a joiner but as I got older and I went
to work in a newsroom and had a different kind of a critical mindset I began to have
to edit stories about how there weren't enough people helping to run local governments how
there is a decline in the number of volunteer firefighters and communities need volunteer
(16:15):
firefighters if you don't have a fire department you can't get insurance for the homes in your
community so there are a lot of structures that are co- and interdependent with one
another that if we disengage civically they will fall apart and then of course it's been
shown that if reporters don't show up to meetings it's more likely that either there will either
(16:39):
be a rise in corruption or there will just be a rise in mismanagement and so having
good engaged local journalism at every level helps to create structures that are more accountable
and more responsive.
Can you say that last part again you said if journalists don't show up to meetings there's
a possibility of increased corruption?
(17:00):
There is documented increases in misuse of public funds.
Because it's not being recorded.
There's less scrutiny and if public officials don't have to answer questions it's not just
that they tend to be more corrupt it's that more errors are made.
A simple example of that is that in a local newsroom part of our job every year was to
go through every fiscal budget every municipal budget reporters would come back from town
(17:24):
meetings with a copy of the budget and we would go through it and they would be reporting
on this line item or that line item and people would come to my desk and say can you double
read this I think there's an error and sure enough there would be some kind of a mathematical
error in the budget and the reporter would go back to their desk and they would call
the person who had made that budget for that town or had contributed to that and they'd
(17:45):
say oh my goodness thank you so much for catching it.
So human error itself is just a fact of life.
People will make mistakes and without eyes on them more eyes on them there will be more
mistakes.
So even a lack of number of bodies in the room will contribute to a decline in good governance
whether it's by an active bribery or some kind of malfeasance or just not enough folks
(18:12):
to take care of things.
And do you think local journalists have more freedom than those that are like the legacy
media that's reporting about the country?
So I think of local journalism as legacy media.
So it used to be that there were local newspapers all over the place and they did the on the
ground reporting that would be the source of news for TV stations for instance.
(18:35):
And the people who came up in small local papers if they were really good they would
go on to bigger papers in other larger municipalities or they would stay and they would do excellent
reporting but hopefully rise through the ranks of their small papers.
Because that has disintegrated there's been a loss of that skill set.
Wow.
Well I think just the, and I even find this for myself, I think the challenges around
(19:01):
discerning truth from fiction in terms of reporting has become like there's so many,
there's so many folks, you talked about the impact of social media and the internet and
so forth.
There's so many folks reporting on there and sometimes, and some really good independent
journalism, some excellent independent journalism but obviously some of the conspiracy theories
and so forth have come from folks who sort of almost pose as and the impact that's had
(19:26):
on the frame of our fabric as socially as a society is really, really concerning.
Like if we could no longer trust.
What about you Alex, what did you?
Like how have I seen the effect?
Yeah, how is it relatable to me?
Well yeah, I think that's the element where I had to do the most like yeah self-examination
(19:48):
while watching the film, right?
Because I don't think it's like limited to your generation, right?
Like I definitely am a part of that like oh no I don't really see myself as a joiner,
right?
And I think that's, and the movie touches on that like it's incredibly, we've been pushed
into an incredibly individualistic society, right?
(20:11):
Like we're all sort of like forced into this bootstraps individualist sort of mindset.
And it does feel, it's so hard to, it does feel, I feel disconnected from the community,
less so in Greenfield I have to say since we moved here four years ago from the Boston
area.
I think in two years in Greenfield I met more people and made more connections than 10
(20:33):
years in Boston.
And I think there's a lot of reasons, there's a lot of reasons for that, but like I think
Greenfield does have a special sauce to it.
Franklin County, the Valley, the Pioneer Valley area, all of this whole area, I do think there's
something, there's something, there's a bond here, there is like a social fabric here that
I feel more so than where I grew up in Rhode Island, more so than anywhere I've lived.
(20:57):
So that's kind of what keeps us here.
But still, it's like hard to just like, it feels hard, in the morning it feels hard
to find a club to go to, and then in the afternoon it feels hard to go to that club.
Once you've done all your research and found it because you've worked all day or you have
a kid at home or whatever reason, you know?
(21:21):
So I think like going back to social media, part of that for someone like me who is like
I'm not on any social media by choice, you know, I try to...
Oh really?
Yeah, no, none.
Well, I guess you can't, I can't say that, because like a lot of things that we might
not traditionally, I think a lot of websites that we might not like, YouTube is a social
media website and I do watch stuff on YouTube.
(21:43):
Or...
You're not sharing about yourself on YouTube?
No, no, I don't have any Facebook profile, for example, or anything like that.
And most social sort of, it seems like, aside from some flyering out around town, that's
how you find out about stuff, is through an Instagram or a TikTok or whatever.
And without that, it's very alienating sort of, and so in an attempt to get away from
(22:09):
all the toxicity of social media and the way people can behave on there, ultimately it
just kind of makes it a little bit harder to find stuff.
So then I kind of do eventually by walking around town or whatever.
And then yeah, I'm just wiped out, man.
Yeah, no, I think...
And also we have very social jobs.
(22:30):
We do.
So like, I think sometimes at the end of the day, we've been a little tapped out of our
conversational ability, you know what I mean?
It's hard to be like, engaged all day sometimes, you know.
And then especially in a club, I think it can feel a little intimidating sometimes, because
(22:52):
if you're in that room, presumably it's because there's a part of you in that room, right?
Like if it's like a music club or something, and like I'm there saying, I'm here because
I'm interested in this thing, it's a part of my soul, right?
And you're meeting people who share a part of that with you.
And so it's vulnerable.
And so I think something the movie touched on, but again, not enough for me, is like
(23:15):
that, the drain we all feel, I think, is what's part of what...
It can be hard to find a place to go to, and then once you find it, it's like, who is it
just gonna be...
Is it just gonna make my day harder to go?
And ultimately, I generally, whenever I do get myself out, I never regret it.
Right, it's making yourself go.
(23:36):
Exactly, it's kind of making yourself go.
And I think we all, I think, yeah, that's a tough puzzle to solve.
How do we all kind of make ourselves feel a little more vital again?
I wonder where they used to find time to go to clubs and organizations, because I mean,
they used to...
You work even longer hours, right?
(23:57):
Well, I think a lot of it used to be trade union meetings after work, stuff like that.
I think a lot of it is political action.
They talk about some of Frederick Douglass's famous speeches.
They're given the anti-slavery, ladies' sewing society or something, which was an incredible
little factoid.
So that's where I think the movie is really on to something.
(24:18):
It's like clubs, when you do finally, when it clicks and you find the right people around
you, it's not just a door to sewing.
It can be a door to abolition.
When you mentioned individualism, I was thinking about that part in the film where I can't
remember her name, but there was someone who talked about her belief that it was intentional,
(24:42):
that it was actually designed to push back on the civil rights movement because they
were making too much progress.
The union organizer talked about how she felt during the area of suburbanization that there
was a real push to individualism in an effort to crack unions.
I think there's a lot of merit to that line of reasoning.
(25:03):
It's really interesting to think about.
I think that the dissolution of unions has led to this more of this push on to the individual
as though they are to create all the benefits of society themselves, which is impossible.
But I do think it was intentional union busting in this country.
Don't be in the union, be the CEO.
(25:24):
Like a new push to be the entrepreneur.
We can all be the CEO now.
That's the new drive in American society.
It feels like.
I had not even thought about this until now, but I was like, because in my own life, and
I'm just five years older than Sam, and I grew up in a different geographic area.
I grew up in Indiana.
What resonated with me, and I was surprised when he talked about the decline in joining
(25:48):
starting in the 60s because I felt like I grew up in a time where we were part of everything.
My parents were always in a bowling league.
Now that you mentioned unions, my parents were both extremely active union members.
My mother was a teacher, so she was in a teacher's union.
My grandmother was in the teamsters.
I'd never met her, but she worked for them.
Then my father was United Auto Workers.
(26:09):
We went to union camp when I was a kid.
We sang union songs.
I hadn't really thought about that because I always think about in terms of my own childhood
and my most important relationships and connectedness came from my neighborhood.
Our neighborhood was extremely tight.
I have such fond memories of the blizzard of 77 or 78 because seven or eight families,
(26:34):
we spent the whole week together.
We rotated houses.
One of the men in the group owned the local liquor store, so all the men would get the
sled and go to the liquor store and bring back.
I always associated liquor with fun because all the adults were much more fun when they
were drinking.
My mom had card club every month where the women came together to play cards, and there
was always great snacks.
(26:54):
We spent tons of time at the skating rink, the mall.
I was in gymnastics and tap dance and swimming and everything.
I felt like I took that all for granted growing up, but I can remember if my parents were
super strict so I couldn't ride my bike around the neighborhood until I was way older than
(27:15):
you would think.
But I remember going around the neighborhood thinking, I know who lives there.
I know who lives there.
I feel safe because if I have a problem, I know where to go, which I don't think is
true in a lot of neighborhoods today.
All that said, I lived in a very homogeneous community, and I can't discount the impact
of that on our connections and what that might have meant.
(27:36):
In terms of my professional life, when I left home and went to college, I decided to go
into higher education and I spent the first 20 years of my career in residence life.
I have a very uncommon, untraditional life in that I lived in the residence halls from
1982 to 2003.
Over 20 years, I lived in the residence halls in various positions.
(28:03):
This is why I wrote about this in my dissertation is because I wish I had some sort of time-lapse
photography to really illustrate what happened from the time I started in res life till the
time I left and the impact of technology on community.
When I was an undergraduate and a graduate student and early in my career, the common
spaces, the lounges, were always full of students.
The dining halls were always full of students.
(28:23):
Never when I was in college.
Never, ever, ever.
Right.
I literally watched those common spaces empty out over the course of my time in residence
life and it broke my heart.
I knew something really important was happening and I knew it wasn't good.
Tell me, were people in their own rooms?
Yes, because they had everything they needed in their own rooms, in their own spaces.
I can remember one night, I was the associate dean of students at Linden State College up
(28:46):
in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, it no longer exists, it's now combined with another
institution, but no, it does exist.
It's still there, but it's a different college now.
But anyway, it was early 2000s and so we didn't even have iPhones yet, but people were still
often in their own rooms, like on the internet or whatever.
When I was in college, not everybody even had their own phone or their own television,
(29:09):
so you would gather in common spaces for that.
But I can remember one night, the power went out and it went out for a long time.
It was like 24 hours of a power outage and the students were flipping out.
I had an office full of board games and I went to every lounge on that campus and put
board games in the common spaces and I got candles and I emailed all the students and
I said, go to your lounge and just play games.
(29:30):
I had so many students tell me in the aftermath of that, it was their favorite night.
You just said you emailed them during a power outage?
No, somehow I got word out.
That's a good point, I must not have emailed them.
I must not have emailed them.
I think I said the RAs around.
I'm so used to saying that's the way I communicate.
I probably sent the RAs around to tell them, come to the lounge.
Finish your story, did they come?
But anyway, they came and many of them told me it was the best night of their college
(29:52):
career and I think that it was because they had never experienced that kind of, like it
was a novel to them.
It was really remarkable.
And right now, we're doing, I don't want to get too far into this because it might require
too much explanation, but as you all know, we're doing this program on campus called
Project Connect, where we're having folks come together in small groups.
(30:13):
We use a prescribed curriculum from Project Connect as an organization out of North Hampton,
Massachusetts.
It was founded by Jessica Gifford, who used to work in residence life and higher education.
And she developed a curriculum for connection.
It's designed to work with groups of six to eight people and to build relationship.
And we're doing that on the GCC campus right now.
And I was walking from the main building over here the other day and passed someone who had
(30:35):
just come from the group and her eyes were lit up and she was like, this is one of the
best things I've done since I started working here.
And so I think we're hungry for that.
We don't necessarily know how to get it or create it because of the ways in which our
society has changed so much over the decades.
But when it's offered or when it's even forced upon someone, it's so meaningful.
(30:57):
And I, you know, as a person who got into this field because of my passion about relationship
and connection, it continues as I'm kind of moving toward the end of my career to feel
more important than ever because it used to happen so organically based on, you know,
like when you live in the residence halls, you're living together, you're eating together,
(31:19):
you're, you know, like you're together all the time.
And those relationships formed so organically, but now that nobody comes out of their room,
it's not as easy.
So finding ways, I think, I think us in higher education have an opportunity and a responsibility
to continue to encourage relationship between and among people who wouldn't normally encounter
each other or develop those connections.
(31:41):
That to me, the last bit you just said, people who wouldn't otherwise perhaps encounter each
other or develop relationships is fascinating because I think it's the, and it's making
me think, Alex, of something you said earlier about capitalism.
A few years ago, Greenfield built a new public library.
(32:02):
Before then, for several decades, there was a very clear need, demonstrated need for a
new public library in Greenfield.
There had never been a building actually built for that purpose.
It was in an old house.
And so there was a lot of good reasons on paper to do it, but it had been very difficult
to get the community willing to spend the money to do it or commit to it.
(32:23):
And the arguments against it began to be tied up with political trends of the time.
And so you saw the language bend in that direction, which had actually very little to do with the
actual need for the library.
One of the things to me that was so interesting about a public library is it's one of, and
maybe the only place in town where all the members of the general public can run into
(32:47):
one another and there is no exchange of money.
Everything is provided inside that space for use for free by each other as part of the
common good.
And we're there for another reason, and we might run into people from every walk of life
or every age group.
And it is unique in that way.
(33:09):
Otherwise you're going downtown.
It used to be you went downtown to buy things you needed or wanted.
Now that the retail has declined, there are just fewer of those opportunities to run
into people.
So as a civic space, we began to understand the value of the library to be magnified in
relation to those changes.
It's an amazing library.
It is a really good library.
(33:32):
And that's exactly right.
I think that's what makes libraries so special.
And I think why a lot of my favorite people in my life are librarians.
There's something about people who gravitate to things that are resources that everyone
has the right to.
And just to plug the Greenfield Public Library, excellent children space.
(33:55):
My daughter is obsessed with it.
One of the interesting things about the library is it has a lot of meeting room space because
Greenfield had not enough meeting space for folks who actually were in clubs or served
on town committees.
There was a constant need for people, where could we meet?
Where could we meet?
So the library was built with as many of those kinds of spaces available as possible that
(34:19):
you could sort of check out a space even.
And now there are also small meeting rooms in that library, which were a new concept
for me just to become familiar with where a group of four or fewer people could meet.
And those happened to be on the Board of Trustees, the Greenfield Public Library, for full disclosure.
(34:41):
So I get to see the numbers of patrons who used all the different resources in the library
every month because they create a report.
Those meeting rooms are constantly booked.
People need space to get together and work on projects.
Some of them are school groups.
Some of them are adult students who are working, like they're nurses in a class and they need
(35:03):
to do a group project.
I know I've had meetings there.
Subcommittees of the trustees have met there.
It's just fascinating to me that actually we need even more now spaces.
People are kind of always looking for spaces to meet and gather and also have events.
So another thing that we've sort of become aware of because the library can't always
(35:27):
provide it is people are desperate to rent spaces for birthday parties.
And there are not enough spaces, commercial or otherwise, for an event that's just too
big for a home where maybe you want to get 25 people together and you really can't do
in your apartment.
So that, there's a desire for that and that it's a good thing.
(35:51):
Maybe GCC should look at that.
Other thoughts from the film?
Were there moments that stood out to you or just things that you wanted to write down
and remember?
Let's see.
Well, I, well now of course I'm blanking as I had been holding onto it.
Oh, I think, so there's something that went unsaid in the film that kept sticking in my
(36:17):
head, which is the US government's historic role in demolishing many clubs.
You know, like, you know, the McCarthy era or I think like a J Edgar Hoover is probably
more responsible for the death of like American social life or radical social life than I
think a lot of the folks who the movie interviewed would be more comfortable admitting, you know.
(36:43):
So like, I think that was like part of my, part of like a little, like a bit of it that
I wish they would have acknowledged that there's been and will and that we're entering and
well, when this film was made, I think it was maybe a more hopeful year.
But like, like, a little bit more acknowledgement of like forming a club can get you targeted
(37:09):
forming a club can get you arrested.
A little bit more of the people who have come before us who have, you know, who have, who
have, you know, made sacrifices, you know, based on based on that.
And I think like that's what the movie wasn't willing to go into, you know, and I understand
(37:29):
why.
I think this was a little bit more trying to get us thinking about our act like just
the broader social fabric, right.
And I do think that's important too, but I guess that was just one it kept sticking in
my, my head as I watched.
So that was one, one little thought.
And also I wanted to come back around to talking about where all the college students are now,
(37:52):
because I do have a little more insight in it.
So I started in 2008, big state university for first couple years of my education.
I will say most folks, there was no hanging out in common rooms.
It was the gym or sports.
And it's not something that I was interested in.
And I think, I think, and a lot of, during what one of the little rapid montages of the
(38:17):
film when they're showing like, they're trying to counter Robert Putnam's thesis, like kind
of early on in his bowling alone theory.
They're like, no, no, no, like you can see like everyone is playing soccer now.
Like what are you talking about?
Yeah, they're just in different clubs.
Yeah, they're just in different clubs.
But I do think there's a fundamental difference between sports and the types of clubs that
(38:42):
this, that this film is talking about.
Not necessarily, but I think like the club, like it's, it's less like the actual rugby
team and more like the rugby team hanging out afterward is what the movie was more focused
on.
And I didn't see that part of, of anything during my time at university.
But I think that might have been me too.
You know, so I think there's plenty of clubs and resources and people at GCC work incredibly
(39:07):
hard to make sure that students have groups and stuff to attend to and stuff like that.
So I know people, people are trying, but you're right, it can just be hard to get people into
those common spaces to just hang out for an extended time.
You know, I don't see it as, I see it more.
I see it more again.
I see it at GCC more than I did at my time in college.
(39:29):
Well, and GCC is not that different than other institutions.
We now have almost half of our students online, which is something that, you know, a decade
ago I would have never imagined.
And I remember when distance learning was becoming a thing and I remember thinking,
this isn't going to last.
This isn't going to work.
And frankly, I mean, the access piece is so incredibly important, but what it's done to
(39:50):
like relationship because I do think learning happens best in the context of relationship.
And personally, I've heard a lot of students say this just doesn't work for me, but I have
to do it because I can't come in person because of A, B, or C.
So I love the fact that it gives access, but I think it's impact the things that you were
talking about, Alex, significantly.
Because how do you engage online learners in that, you know, it's, it's a real challenge.
(40:13):
It's different and it's a lot harder.
It's something in workforce development.
A lot of our programs are in person and some of them are hybrid with an online component
and it's building that connection and that community of practice has become something
that's really important in workforce development, partly because some of the students we serve
(40:34):
are some of the students with the highest needs.
And we know that a community of practice where they feel that they, that just them showing
up has value to that small community will keep them engaged and they'll have a higher
success rate, but it also help everybody in the room.
So like we have a thing to go to and to be together.
There's also now because of the pandemic, we all sort of have access to a common language
(41:00):
around data that show that when people are in close physical proximity to each other,
they have a response.
Like this isn't, it's not something we only imagine is quite real to be in physical community
together.
So there are benefits to it, but of course, like having access to a course you would never
have been able to take otherwise online is a wonderful thing.
(41:20):
Even where we live or it's a rural, we have to be able to give that now.
And I think that's great.
But it's a, Alex, when you were talking about being on campus and how it can be really isolating
unless you're sort of used to being on a team, in a team sport or attracted to that.
(41:41):
When I was an undergraduate and I was not, I was never on a team sport.
I was the kind of kid who only did horseback riding or swimming because I could do it just
by myself.
I wasn't great at team sports.
But man, I wanted to be in the radio station.
There was a radio station on my campus and college radio used to be a huge thing for
(42:02):
the artsy kids or the tech nerds and we would come together and here we are doing a podcast
and we're actually all in the same room together, which is super cool.
But one of the things that I've been worried about with some digital tools promote isolation
or creation in isolation.
(42:22):
And some of the analog tools were really great because by accident they brought us together.
So I remember being in the stacks at the radio station while a friend of mine was doing a
show and trying to be really quiet because I was pulling out LPs and I wanted to look
at all the records.
But he was literally on air like two feet away from me.
And so, and that's just fun.
(42:45):
And the tools are really not all that different than the ones we're using right now.
But I want more of that.
And now, unfortunately, radio, there's a similar decline in sort of live bootleg or small radio
as there has been in small newspapers.
But there is a very, very fun niche, small scale radio movement globally and I have friends
(43:13):
who have done really interesting work with that, but that is so niche and so small, it's
hard to even find out about it.
I think creating something together is like when I think back to the moments in my life
where I felt most alive and I was on, I actually did, I actually minored in journalism in college
and so I was on the newspaper staff all through high school and involved in newspaper work
(43:35):
early on in my career.
And so that's, I mean, there's other ways in which I've been, what I would call a creator.
I've never felt more alive than when I'm creating with other people, alongside other people.
And I think there's room for solitary work too, of course, but I feel like those are
the moments that stand out to me.
Or even, you know, I was thinking, when we were talking earlier, I was thinking about
when a friend of mine ran for mayor of Greenfield, I don't know, maybe 10 years ago, and we had
(44:01):
a team that was responsible for supporting her candidacy and we had an office downtown
and we had assigned nights to be in that office.
I can remember almost every night of the week, I'd be like, well, it's not my night, but
I'm going to go down there because it was so exciting to be with a group of, we were
all women, with a group of women who were trying to create change in our community and
coming together for the purpose of doing so.
(44:23):
And I just, it took me back to college because I often had those opportunities in college
that I just haven't had since, but it was such an incredible feeling to do that for
the people.
Yeah, it reminds me, it all kind of comes back in my, from my world quote.
Like, as a musician, everything is just starting a band, right?
Like Backyard Oasis, the podcast, it's a lot like a band.
(44:48):
Everyone brings their own ideas and goals and stuff and you have to try and wrangle personalities
and lots can happen in bands, right?
And like creation and tension and stuff.
And then once you have lots of small bands, you start to get a whole scene.
And once you have a scene, you know, that's when, that's when you have like a real club
and a real movement.
(45:09):
So like, yeah, like the music world and the, the sort of, has always been like a real inspirational
model for me, at least the independent music world has always been really inspirational
for me is how to organize.
How do you get like 50 people into a basement for a show in Boston?
I don't know.
It's hard to do.
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
But people do it.
It's cool.
(45:30):
It's the best feeling actually, a small basement show.
It's the best.
And there was a healthy radio station and a really healthy, vibrant music scene.
And being in proximity to that, I was never a good musician.
I was a couple of times roped into being in really bad bands, but.
No such thing as bad.
(45:51):
It feels good to be on a team.
I think that's what you were just saying.
And I know I felt that in a number of places of work, I've been really lucky to serve with
really good people and it makes you want to show up and do better.
You feel it the way you feel it in a band.
Musicians have to listen to each other.
(46:12):
Yeah, exactly.
It's a conversation, right?
Yeah, that's the old cliche.
It's true.
Yeah.
Yeah, music is a conversation.
When you said, Sam, it makes you want to show up.
I was thinking about, and I'm not just saying this because I'm at work right now.
I look forward to coming to work every day.
I really like, I love my job.
And I know a lot of people enjoy the remote work, and occasionally, I certainly, like
(46:36):
in the morning in particular, I'll often take some remote time before I come in just
to get through emails or maybe do a Zoom or whatever.
But I love coming here and seeing people, and I love walking around.
What are you going to do all day?
Watch TV?
Exactly, exactly.
And I know that we're, I know we probably need to wind up here, maybe we need to do
a part two.
(46:57):
But just like, what are some takeaways for you or some moments in that film you'll never
forget?
What are some thoughts as we wind this up?
I know we've been all over the place.
I think my big takeaway is that, yeah, even with all my criticism, I think it's that self-examination
(47:18):
of like, we all need to just be comfortable with being a part of something bigger than
ourselves, right?
We all need to start to think of ourselves, be more comfortable with being a joiner, right?
Even if the word kind of makes you cringe a little bit still.
Like I think we're going up against a lot of social conditioning when we're talking
about stuff like this.
And so, yeah, I do think my, when it comes down to it, my ultimate takeaway from it is
(47:41):
like, yeah, it's like, okay, it's self-examination about like, I think we need to be more connected.
Absolutely, yeah.
Absolutely.
I did something this year I'd never imagined I was going to do.
And a neighbor about a year ago, a neighbor started asking me if I'd be willing to join
(48:02):
the fire department in my small town.
And I had never considered doing such a thing.
I had a whole bunch of reasons why I didn't think that I would be appropriate for that.
I would probably have those for myself too.
And he asked me enough times and he wasn't kidding that I, he did a masterful job of
(48:24):
recruiting me because for whatever reason, I began to seriously consider it.
And I hadn't even really thought about that.
Funny enough, I had also checked the book Bowling Alone out of the library.
And so I had Bowling Alone sitting on my bedside table waiting for me to read it.
And I was reading, I would dip into it a little bit at night, but I never got all the way
through it and it actually came due back at the library.
(48:47):
So I got an email from my very small library in my very small town saying, your book's
overdue.
And I dropped Bowling Alone off at the library on the same day I went to my first fire department
training and I am now a firefighter on my volunteer fire department.
That's a great story.
And the great thing about it is I've met people in town I might never have met otherwise.
(49:09):
And I've overcome a bit of my shyness.
I've physically, it's been fantastic for me.
And I like the tech aspect of it very much.
It's a good thing to do.
And I'm realizing it doesn't really even matter so much about me.
I'll serve on it for as long as I can.
(49:30):
And then I'll stop at whatever point I need to stop.
And it's just a good thing to do in town.
And I'm serving with people who are much, much younger than I am and some who are older
than I am.
And it's just, I think in a weird way, it decenters me and really, it makes me a part
of something bigger than me.
(49:51):
And now you'll be recruiting people for the fire department.
Oh, I'd be very happy to recruit more people.
You probably do it quite effectively.
But it's just a cool thing to do.
And I had no idea how cool it was.
And I've actually, if I could, I don't often want to go back in time, but if I could go
back into my 20s, I might just be a professional firefighter.
It seems like a really cool job.
So yeah, I think one of the nicest things about living in this area, and Alex, this
(50:17):
goes back to something you had said earlier about the magic in Greenfield.
There's something about Franklin County that lets you be a lot of different versions of
yourself.
Yeah, absolutely.
And even ones you didn't know about yet.
And so you can organically go through that change, even very difficult transitions.
Like I've been through a divorce while living here.
And so, you know, there's like this danger of running into people on the street and
(50:38):
having to explain difficult things to them.
And how are they going to respond?
And how do you just get through your day?
And this is an OK place to be a real person.
It really is.
And that, there's something very magical about that.
Or also just good.
Well, it's kind of like when I was describing what it was like to grow up in my neighborhood,
knowing who lived where and that I was safe.
(51:00):
There's that feeling here, I think, where I kind of know where to go if I have a problem
here.
And that's who I am and I have some sort of relationship.
Two of the things that I've been thinking a lot about since the film, since I watched
the film, and I've watched it about four times now.
So, but I didn't watch as recently as last night.
So I'm not this morning.
This morning.
I'm older, so I forget things.
(51:20):
But I've been thinking a lot about, and this has been part of my own personal experience,
about 12 step organizations.
And when you, when you talk about join or die, you're literally talking about join or
die when you talk about an organization like AA or NA.
And I've been thinking a lot about how, you know, I've always said I think 12 step principles
and practices are actually the solution to all that ails us.
(51:44):
And this notion of our fates being connected is so apparent when you all share a disease
like alcoholism or drug abuse or whatever.
Not so apparent in the real world.
And if we could sort of transfer that understanding and knowledge to the real world, how powerful
that would be, that our lives literally depend upon us being in relationship with each other,
(52:05):
our actual physical lives.
So that's one thing I've been thinking a lot about is I'd love to do some more work
on how do we use 12 step as a model for other things in the world.
But I also, one of the, for me the most moving part of the film, and I definitely shed a
few tears, was when Robert described the arc.
I always, my friend the other day said to me, you always talk about people like they're
(52:27):
your neighbors.
You use their first names and you don't know these people.
I'm like, I guess I do.
Your buddy Robert.
I was like, that was a great compliment.
I know you met it as an insult, but I take it as a great compliment.
But when he talked about that pivotal moment when he heard JFK's speech and when he asked,
ask not what you can do for your country.
(52:48):
Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.
And then he has that moment in the White House when Obama awards him with the medal where
he sees the picture of JFK on the wall with his wife as a much older person.
And he describes that as the arc of his life.
And I thought that was so powerful because I think, you know, my hope, working in higher
(53:11):
education, I have so many hopes for our students.
But one of my greatest hopes is that they will have, are we having a fire alarm?
We are.
We are having a fire alarm.
We are having a fire alarm.
Should I wrap up the spot?
We have to wrap up the, we gotta wrap up.
Anyway, that our students would have a moment of realization that they want to use their
talents and intersect with what the world needs.
And that's what Robert talked about.
(53:31):
So please join us at the Garden Theater on Monday, March 24th.
Rebecca Davis, direct co-director, she directed with her brother Pete will be there for a
Q&A.
Thank you, everybody.
This concludes today's podcast.
We're always looking for new ideas, so feel free to reach out to Judy Raper, Associate
Dean of Community Engagement at Greenfield Community College at 413-775-1819.
(54:00):
If you have an idea, you'd love to share.
Special thanks to the creators of Backyard Oasis, Denise Schwartz, Chad Fuller, Dennis
Lee, and Christine Copeland.
Have a great day.
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