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Their outlook was activist and optimistic, not fatalist and despondent. The distinctive characteristic of the Progressives was their conviction that social evils would not remedy themselves and that it was foolhardy to wait passively for time's cure.

— Robert D. Putnam Bowling Alone (2000)

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More quotes by Robert D. Putnam

TV-based politics is to political action as watching ER is to saving someone in distress.

Bowling Alone (2000)

Financial capital — the wherewithal for mass marketing — has steadily replaced social capital — that is, grassroots citizen networks — as the coin of the realm.

Bowling Alone (2000)

Serendipitous connections become less likely as increased communication narrows our tastes and interests. Knowing and caring more and more about less and less. This tendency may increase productivity in a narrow sense while decreasing social cohesion.

Bowling Alone (2000)

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Robert D. Putnam (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.