Patron’s Lecture: why social capital matters I Robert D. Putnam I RSA REPLAY

Estimated read time: 1:20

Summary

The lecture by Professor Robert D. Putnam at RSA highlights the critical importance of social capital and its role in shaping society. Despite travel disruptions preventing his in-person attendance, Putnam delivered his insights online, discussing the influence of social connectedness on economic mobility and societal well-being. Key themes included the historic rise and decline of social cohesion, political polarization, and economic inequality in America, alongside the importance of cultural shifts driven by younger generations. The discussion also explored global parallels and the vital role of love and connection in overcoming social isolation.

Highlights

Social capital's influence on shaping life opportunities and community well-being was the lecture's core theme. 🌱
Professor Putnam linked low social capital areas to the rise of populist movements in the US. 🇺🇸
The discussions stressed the importance of forging connections across economic and social lines. 🧩
The role of culture and morality as key factors in societal change was emphasized. 🎭
Panelists discussed how love and personal connections can overcome social divides and isolation. 💞

Key Takeaways

Social capital significantly influences economic mobility and societal well-being. 🌍
Political polarization and economic inequality in the US are at historic highs, comparable to periods like the Civil War era. 📉
Young generations were pivotal in past societal upswings and can lead present changes. 🔄
Love and genuine human connections are vital for rebuilding social cohesion. 💖
Technology, while divisive, can also be a tool for fostering connections if utilized mindfully. 💻

Overview

In a enlightening and compelling lecture, Professor Robert D. Putnam explored the profound role of social capital in shaping the fabric of society. Despite the travel hiccups, Putnam's virtual presence at the RSA event allowed him to delve into the intricacies of political polarization, economic inequalities, and the historical patterns of societal cohesion and fragmentation.

The session illuminated how past social networks influenced economic disparity outcomes, emphasizing the potential for lessons to address today's challenges. The significant parallels between historical and current societal challenges related to economic inequality and social capital offered a powerful call for action. His insights into potential solutions involved generational shifts in attitudes and empathy-driven cultural changes.

Amidst discussions on economic and political divides, a heartfelt acknowledgment of the power of love and connection resonated throughout the event. Panelists shared poignant examples of how genuine human compassion and networks can serve as a tool to mend societal fissures, reinforcing the timeless human need for community and empathy. This narrative urges a reevaluation of priorities, championing personal bonds as conduits for broader societal improvements.

Chapters

00:00 - 04:00: Introduction and Event Context The chapter introduces the setting of a distinguished gathering at RSA House. The speaker addresses the audience, which includes dignitaries, colleagues, and friends, both present in the room and viewing online.
04:00 - 34:00: Robert D. Putnam's Lecture The chapter is centered around a lecture by Robert D. Putnam, presented as part of a special event and recognized as one of the key highlights of the RSA calendar. The focal theme of the lecture is social capital and social connections, described as an 'invisible web of relationships' that significantly influence our personal lives, opportunities, and communities. Putnam's insights are set to delve into the profound importance of these social constructs.
34:00 - 36:00: Panel Discussion Introductions The chapter begins with the introduction to a panel discussion focused on societal issues. The host announces the main speaker, Professor Robert Putnham, who is recognized as a leading authority on the subject. Unfortunately, due to recent disruptions at Heathrow, he is unable to attend in person but will be joining virtually.
36:00 - 43:00: Panel Discussion - Session 1 The chapter titled 'Panel Discussion - Session 1' begins with a lecture by a speaker, possibly named Bob, whose pioneering work is a central theme for the RSA's activities throughout the year. This includes research on 'revealing social capital,' which has been published recently, aligning with the organization's ongoing themes and explorations.
43:00 - 51:00: Panel Discussion - Session 2 This chapter focuses on the results pertaining to the United States, emphasizing the powerful impact of social connectedness, particularly between wealthy and impoverished individuals, on the opportunities and well-being of the most disadvantaged in society. It highlights the significance of fostering and maintaining social cohesion and connections within communities to enhance life prospects for the poorest members.
51:00 - 78:00: Q&A Session The chapter discusses the RSA's connected places program which is involved in nurturing social capital in various locations including Eling, Essex, and Baltimore. The timing of their programs is considered ideal due to rising political polarization and inequality of opportunity.

Patron’s Lecture: why social capital matters I Robert D. Putnam I RSA REPLAY Transcription

00:00 - 00:30 your all highness uh distinguished guests, colleagues, friends. Uh it's wonderful lovely to see you all here um in the room in RSA house in the great room and also I know the many hundreds that are watching us uh online uh for
00:30 - 01:00 tonight our very special event uh our patrons uh lecture one of the real highlights of the RSA calendar and this year our patrons lecture tackles an issue I'm sure you all agree of really profound importance that is to say social capital and social uh connections, that invisible web of relationships that shapes our lives, our opportunities, our communities uh and
01:00 - 01:30 our societies. And we're privileged to do so this evening with the world's leading voice on this very subject, Professor Robert Putnham. Now, life is never simple. um especially when it comes to getting a flight across the Atlantic. Um so uh last week's Heathro disruptions mean that Bob can't regret regrettably be here in person, but he's very much with us uh online looking forward to deliver
01:30 - 02:00 uh delivering his lecture. Uh Bob's pioneering work on this very topic uh is the theme, the golden thread that's running through all of the RSA's work uh this year. That includes uh our research on so-called revealing social capital uh which was published uh today and which shows echoing the
02:00 - 02:30 results for the US just how powerful social connectedness in particular between rich and poor uh can be for shaping uh the life prospects and the well-being of the poorest people uh in society. It also underscores the importance of doing what we can to forge and nurture social cohesion and connectedness in communities. And the
02:30 - 03:00 RSA's connected places program working with places such as Eling and Essex and across the pond in Baltimore is about acting in place to nurture just that social capital. Now, the timing of tonight's event and our accompanying program could hardly be better at a time when political polarization is that question on the rise where inequality of opportunity is
03:00 - 03:30 growing, when social division and isolation are on the rise. Tonight, tonight is how we do a better job of forging those cohesive communities and indeed uh societies. It's a real honor to have her Royal Highness Princess Royal, our patron with us this evening. um someone who's not just a huge and longtime supporter of the RSA, but also a
03:30 - 04:00 longtime and powerful advocate for the importance of social connection and social cohesion. So, it's my privilege to welcome to the stage Heral Highness to introduce tonight's keynote speaker. [Applause]
04:00 - 04:30 Well, good evening my lords, ladies and gentlemen, and I'm delighted to be able to join you for this um always enlightening event, but this of course is the RSA patrons lecture and uh I it is my pleasure to help slightly introduce um your speaker, Robert D. Putnham um as we've just heard that um sadly the repercussions are still being felt uh after Heathrow's um closure on
04:30 - 05:00 Friday. Um I very nearly didn't get back from Greece, but most of you would have said, "Well, why would you have stayed?" But no um um there are other things to be done. But we're delighted uh that Professor Putnham is still able to join us. Although there is a slight irony here about this. social connection and has been done online via um live broadcast from Boston. But uh that
05:00 - 05:30 perhaps underlines one of the issues that we all have to face and certainly have been facing and the sort of how it's put into stark um relationship with through COVID is the ability where it made real change possible and advanced our ability to stay in touch and on others um the downside of that particular technology and how it sort of separated us a bit more. But professor Patnham of course is
05:30 - 06:00 is the Malcolm research professor of public policy at Harvard University and he is uh one of the most influential social scientists. So he's been thinking about this for for a lot longer than most of us and his groundbreaking research has largely transformed global understanding of the role and importance of social capital. That's the invisible but essential
06:00 - 06:30 networks of trust and connection that shape our lives and our communities. Something that was very difficult to define, probably still is, but it is this is a real attempt to make that definition uh more uh uh acceptable. Now he's of course written an awful lot in that time from bowling alone to the upswing. Um, Professor Putnham's books have provided those profound insights
06:30 - 07:00 into the decline of what I suppose we would call civic life and crucially how we might go about uh rebuilding that. In fact, what we understood as civic life and how we might rebuild that. The RSA, I feel, has always understood that social infrastructure is just as vital as the physical infrastructure and that strong communities built on relationships and the mutual support are
07:00 - 07:30 fundamental to tackling all sorts of things um that affect people's lives and whether that's inequality, improving well-being, and creating opportunities for all. The revealing social capital research program, which you'll probably hear more about this evening, is a significant step in this effort. Exploring how social connections influence life outcomes across education, employment,
07:30 - 08:00 health, and that social mobility. Now, we've just been hearing why this work could not be more important, and I think all of you have slightly different ideas of why it is so important, but it is, especially if that if it's really true that one in 20 people today in the UK, say they have no close friends at all. levels of trust, whether that's neighbors, institutions, or actually
08:00 - 08:30 each other, have declined dramatically. Now, how much of this is our inability to cope with the impact of the internet, worldwide web, IT, um, artificial intelligence, social media, um, who knows? Perhaps the professor has a better answer than um I would have to those questions. We see the effects in all
08:30 - 09:00 sorts of different ways uh and particularly on the communities that kind of feel left behind. But as Professor Putnham's research shows, history tells us that change is possible and it's constant and societies have faced similar crises before uh and they have certainly turned the tide. But you could argue that it's a circular system which seems to go on and people react to it.
09:00 - 09:30 But this work certainly aligns directly with the RSA's mission to create a world where everyone can participate, contribute and thrive and that's important and I hope the presence of so many people here and uh online listening in rather shows that uh there is a real interest in how we translate that into our lives and I hope very much that this
09:30 - 10:00 evening's discussion will inspire us all to think about how we can strengthen the social fabric that underpins our communities and ensure that everyone wherever they come from um has the connections they need to flourish as individuals. So, thank you for joining us and please join me in wel welcoming Professor Robert Putnham. [Applause]
10:00 - 10:30 Thank you, your royal highness, for those uh wholesome remarks and thanks also to the RSA for hosting this um event. Um, I should say also that there's much overlap in what I'm going to say with what Andy Haldane said last month in the RSA CEO's lecture. Um,
10:30 - 11:00 therefore, Bush tonight is going to be Putinham agreeing with Haldane agreeing with Putinham and therefore critical comments from panelists in the audience will be especially important. So, let's take the next slide. Um, I'm going to be talking about the state of American democracy today. I obviously know a lot about Britain. I, my wife and family and I have spent many years in Britain, but I'm going to be talking here in the first instance entirely about America. Let's have the
11:00 - 11:30 next slide, please. Um, and I'm going to begin with the American national election of of last November. Um despite what you will hear from other people, especially the Trump administration, the last national our last national election was entirely normal. It was not exceptional in any regard. First of all, despite um the Trump claims, uh 2024 was not a classic landslide. had a landslide would be something like FDR winning by
11:30 - 12:00 23 24% in 1936 and submitting the New Deal or LBJ winning by nearly 23% in 1964 which led to the Great Society and Medicare and Medicaid and civil rights bills or even Reagan who won by 18% uh ushering in the Reagan revolution. By comparison, Trump won by 1.5%. This was not a classic landslide. And second, the key issue, all commentators and analysts agree the key issue in this 19 2024 election was economics. And it's almost
12:00 - 12:30 elections are almost always about the economy. Stupid. Uh whenever the economy turns as it does now, as it often does and is now turning, the pendium the political pendulum reverses. Next slide please. Um, so it was a normal election, but in a deeper sense, it is true that the 2024 election was a major signpost historically. First of all, Trump did not create the polarized, atomized, unequal
12:30 - 13:00 America that we're now living in. He exploited, he was he was a consequence of that. And you don't need to trust me. Steve Bannon and JD Vance have also both said that um that when they were trying to work out Trump's political strategy back in the day in 2016, they read bowling alone and they said, "Huh, this guy at Harvard has come up with a idea about declining social capital and and that means that social that our strategy for rousing a populist authoritarian
13:00 - 13:30 populist movement should focus on the places that Putinham discovered had low social capital and and in fact empirical research now confirms that low social capital led directly to the Trump vote. And therefore in that deeper sense um the historical uh threat illustrated by Trump, not caused by Trump but illustrated by Trump goes on. Um and the real historical
13:30 - 14:00 threat um revealed by the most recent election is growing social isolation and a growing class gap. And both of those have been shown in uh in two recent works of mine. So I'm I'm going to now shift a little bit to just summarize what my own research says about how we got in this pickle. Next slide, please. Um the first part of this is drawn from a book that I published together with
14:00 - 14:30 Shane and Romney uh Garrett called the upswing how America came together a century ago and how we can do it again. Next slide please. Um and the this book begins by observing by showing empirically that we are America is today at historic levels of four different maladies. political polarization. Uh we've American, as I will show in a minute, America's politics have rarely been as polarized
14:30 - 15:00 as they are today are today. Economic inequality. America has probably never been as unequal economically as we are today. we're a little bit uh measures of social isolation are a little bit less rigorous over long periods of time, but it's still true that it's probably the case that rarely has America been social Americans been so socially isolated. And finally, cultural uh self self-centeredness. So the the next part of these slides is going to try to say,
15:00 - 15:30 well, how did we get to this pickle? Next slide, please. Sorry. Pickle is a I'm told is a a purely midcentury middle of America term, but being in a pickle means you're in a tough shape. So all the next four or five graphs are all going to have the same shape. So I'm going to I mean dimensions. So I'm going to show you a little bit on this. The horizontal axis here runs from over at the left hand side about the end of the 19th century
15:30 - 16:00 about 1890 1895 and ends up uh in about 2015 actually um we've been keeping track since the book was published we've been keeping track and um the polarization has continued. So if the if we had a the full up-to-date graph into 2025 it would show actually the lower right hand uh graph going even further. Um and the only period in American history which is
16:00 - 16:30 it's close but the only period in American history which has been as polarized as we are today is a period between 1860 and 1865. Those of you are familiar with American history knows know that that means the Civil War. So we are really very polarized. Um and now how about the vertical axis? vertical up means is a period in in American history when we're getting along and down is polarized here. So you can see now looking at the graph I'm not going to th behind each of
16:30 - 17:00 these graphs there are thousands of data points but I'm not this is nothing not a methodological exercise so I'm not going to be going through how exactly we produce these charts but as you can see over at the end of the 19th century America American politics were really tribal very polarized almost no cooperation across party lines but then as the 20th century opened we began to get a little more cooperative across
17:00 - 17:30 party lines. Not very cooperative, but still more. But significantly that got kept going up and up and up. It rose before World War II and it rose after World War II. And in the middle of the 20th century around reached its peak around in the middle 50s, which happens to have been the the period of the Eisenhower presidency. Eisenhower was the least polarized polit I mean president in American history except for George Washington. Um but Eisenor was the s was the consequence the symptom of
17:30 - 18:00 the polarization not the cause and and it we continued to be relatively not polarized. People worked across party lines uh into the 70s and even the early 80s but then suddenly the trend reversed and we became more and more polarized down down and as I said it just keeps going down and it's still going down. Let's have the next slide now. Um the next slide is a shows trends in economic equality and again this is
18:00 - 18:30 measured in many different ways. It's measured in uh the gap between rich and poor. It's measured in terms of income and equality in terms of wealth equal wealth equality in terms of um wealth and income and before and after taxes and in terms of upward mobility. So this is a quite comprehensive measure and all of the various components of it show the same picture and you can see well the data here begins strictly speaking in 1914 which is when the internal revenue service was created and that's when
18:30 - 19:00 again we have really hard data but we have not we have pretty good data beforehand and in the late late 1990s and early 1900s it was what is was called then and still is called the guilded age. the gap between rich and poor was enormous. But then you could see in the beginning of the 20th century that began to change. Still pretty unequal, but it began to change. You see that dip there in during the 1920s. That's was a period of the roaring 20s both in the UK and in
19:00 - 19:30 the US. So stock markets were going up. Unemployment was going up and therefore inequality went in equality went down. But then even before the the crash um America the American economy began to be less and more and more equal and even before FDR took um office in in the in 1932 we had already begun to become a little more equal and it kept going up. Um obviously
19:30 - 20:00 the World War II had some effect, but even after World War II, we were increasingly um cooperative with um I'm sorry, equal. The gap between rich and poor in the 1950s and 1960s was um uh quite low indeed. This will maybe shock you. In that period around 19 at the late 1950s, there were two countries in the world which were this equal. America,
20:00 - 20:30 capitalist America and socialist Sweden. That's I mean it's a true fact. We were unbelievably equal. No, exceeded only by capitalist Sweden and not by capitalist Norway or Denmark or anybody or anybody. We were we were really equal in the middle of the 20th century. But then that turned and now it's getting boring. We've had every year less and less equality. Pardon me. Every year the gap between rich and poor um grew. It looks
20:30 - 21:00 here in the in the Obama years in the middle of the 2010s um it looked like that was finally leveling off. But no, once once it becomes the Trump years, the the gap between rich and poor uh grows even more rapidly. And now, as I said before, we're down well below. I mean, I think it's probably true that America has never been so unequal as we are today in
21:00 - 21:30 economic terms. Let's have the next slide, please. Um the next slide is a measure of what I hear call social capital but I have social cohesion but you all know as social capital and I won't go through in detail about how we measure this because Andy has gone out at great length about how to measure it but it's things like um do you belong to groups do you trust your neighbors um uh you know do you get married all sorts of measures of togetherness and or social cohesion now the graph is looking very
21:30 - 22:00 familiar at the end of the 19th century Americans were very socially isolated. That's because that was the the uh height of our industrial revolution and lots of people had moved from the from the farms to the cities, the farms in Iowa or the farms in Sicily and and they didn't have friends or have connections in the new in their new homes. Uh but then as you can see again beginning in the early 19s that began to improve and once again
22:00 - 22:30 we can see the pause during the 1920s but I and I don't actually have an explanation for that pause but beginning in the 1930s every year more and more friends more and more marriages more and more kids more and more social trust more and more belonging to groups and in the in the middle 1960s Um, by the way, I should say that I actually came of age
22:30 - 23:00 um in the I was born in 1941. So, in 1961, I was 20 years old and I actually um began voting just at the peak of this curve. It's possible that by starting to vote, I may have inadvertently caused the collapse of American civilization. But, you know, we we want to look at other possible explanations for that decline. But the decline is actually almost linear every year. Um, fewer club meetings, less trust in neighbors.
23:00 - 23:30 Um, every measure goes down, down, down. And once again, if we kept that chart running until 2025, it turns out it's still going down. Let's have the last slide, please. Uh, this is a measure of cultural solidarity. Um I wish I had time here to go through the ways we measured it because I'm rather proud of the methodological ways in which we measured the degree of cultural solidarity. Um I don't this is
23:30 - 24:00 not a methodological exercise but so I will just say quickly down at the at the beginning of the 20th century America was very much f Americans were very much um focused on themselves. Um, and that rose gradually from the beginning of the 20th century to the middle of 20th century. And by the middle of the 20th century, Americans were all about we. Um, in their we thought that we were all in this together, not everyone, every person on their own. But then again,
24:00 - 24:30 once again, in the middle 60s, that turns and goes the other direction. And by now, we're back down into this extremely self-centered uh period. Um, now if we have the next slide, I'm going to put these three these four graphs I've shown you together. I'm not going to explain it all except it turns out these graphs are all so closely correlated that this one chart summarizes much of what happened to America in economics, politics, society, and culture from the beginning of from the late 19th century until the early
24:30 - 25:00 years of the 21st century. Um, that's what we call the I we eye century. We were an a collection of eyes. Then we became a Wii in the middle of the century and now we're back to being unequal, politically divided, socially isolated and focused on me. Next slide, please. Um, and this one I want to show here just one slide that indicates how the degree to which this increase in social isolation is not evenly spread across all Americans. There's a growing
25:00 - 25:30 class divide in how many friends people have. And this graph on the left hand side it shows how many people with a bachelor's degree or or higher that is people who have gone to college graduated from college or on the other hand people who've only gone through high school and you can see the social isolation is much more concentrated among workingclass Americans and having lots of friends is even even well
25:30 - 26:00 educated people have fewer friends than they did but nothing like the drop from 49% having six close friends to 17% having six close friends. So let's go to the next slide, please. Um here's the the bottom line of our democratic crisis are first of all a shriveled sense of we um that's sort of illustrated in all the slides I've shown. Secondly, class-based social isolation. Um and again, I've just shown you some of the multitude of evidence
26:00 - 26:30 that shows that. And finally, it's not just about economics. And this is a point I want to emphasize as I come to the close close now. Um, the reason that pe that workingass people voted in such large degrees for Trump and voted against Democrats last time was not just e inflation or not just economics. It was about the fact that upper class people like me, I mean, well educated people, um, like the
26:30 - 27:00 Democrats who run for office simply refuse to recognize that we didn't even see the twothirds of America who are not as well educated as we. Let's go to the next slide. And I am getting very close to the end here. I want to go back just for a second to this eyewi graph. Many people looking at this graph, their eyes are focused on the middle of it. What happened in the 1960s, they would say, and there is an interesting debate to be had about what happened in the 1960s to cause that downturn. But the but the
27:00 - 27:30 relative part of the graph that I want to focus on is the lower left hand side because that's the period in American history that is most like our period. To put it in a nutshell, folks, some Americans at least back in the 1890s and and around 1900 must have done something right because after that it we for twothirds of a century we went steadily upward and therefore that's what we need to do now. What we need to do now is to ask what did they do? That area era
27:30 - 28:00 happens to become called a progressive era in American history. And so the question that and we turn to the next slide. The question is what what are the four lessons from the America's last um upswing. Um the first I have to say and I'm happy to talk more about this later. The Wii that was created in the progressive era wasn't inclusive enough. Most especially it was not racially inclusive enough. Um, and therefore, if
28:00 - 28:30 as I hope we move toward a new upswing in the 21st century, this time we're going to have to be really careful that it that the Wii is not just a white wei or worse even worse, a white male wei, but a an a wei that encompasses all Americans. Second lesson from that that f upswing is that the people who led the movement were not old folks like me. They were young people. Um, for example, there's a one of the leaders of it was
28:30 - 29:00 um uh a a the creator of Pole House uh a settlement house in America that she had brought the idea actually from London to to Chicago. Um and um I'm blanking for a moment on her name. Jane Adams. Jane Adams. Yeah, Jane Adams. Fortunately, I've got a person just off screen here who's knows that I need help reminders from time to time. We're familiar with a picture of of Jane
29:00 - 29:30 Adams, an old lady getting the Nobel Prize sometime in the 1930s for her work um in the progressive era. But the fact is she she she was getting that honor because of work she had done when she was in her 20s. And virtually all of the really interesting ideas that came out of the progressive era were created by young people. That was true then and it will be true again. Old people like me have lived long enough to know that it doesn't have to be like this. But old
29:30 - 30:00 people like me are not don't have the kind of mind or the kind of experience that will work for um creating new forms of social capital that you know in the middle of the 21st century. Third point um it was a bottom up uh um that was a that trend was bottom up. Um I'm going to be um hopeful that it would be bottom bottom up this time. I wish I had more
30:00 - 30:30 time to give you some examples of how extraordinary things that changed America and eventually changed the world were ideas that were first in created in fly over America in the small villages of middle America. Um that's where the innovations came mostly from last point and this is in a way the most surprising and I'm I'm going to end with this point. it was if you look at all of
30:30 - 31:00 those variables in all of those graphs that I've showed you um they're all highly me well measured and so you would think well okay let's just you know do a econometric analysis and find what's the leading variable is and I thought for sure we would know what the leading variable is I thought for sure it was economics turns out the only thing we can be sure of is that economics was the last to turn I'm not saying economic inequality is not important I'm saying the last time around it was the last thing to change economics did not
31:00 - 31:30 lead the last time and it won't lead this time. What led last time actually turns out to be morals. There was a moral and cultural shift the last time. And I'm delighted in the Q&A to talk about what my evidence for that is. But in effect, Americans, especially young Americans, at the turn of the last century, looked around and said, young, well-off Americans, said, "We're doing fine, but lots of other Americans
31:30 - 32:00 aren't." They began to focus on their moral obligations to other Americans, especially have not Americans. And that was the first thing that led in short uh a bunch of young people themselves well educated and well off came to think that they had obligations to other people and especially to have nots and they led the cultural shift which in turn led to political changes and eventually led to
32:00 - 32:30 changes in our economic um equality. Le next slide please. Um, and I want to, this is what I'm concluding about. I really want to emphasize this, especially in this setting. Um, and I'm not sure whether Andy knew when he invited me that I was going to turn out to be, I'm I'm of course I think economics is really important, but I think what the evidence says to me is that culture is at least as important as economics in two different senses. First of all, the central problem is cultural. that is educated progressives like me looking
32:30 - 33:00 down their noses at what Hillary Clinton, against my advice, called the deplorables. But if I'm correct, it's not just that the central problem is cultural. It's that the central cause of the problem is cultural. It is it is our, and I'm talking about well-educated Democrats like me, well educated progressives. It is our um disrespecting and not recognizing the problems of the lower
33:00 - 33:30 twothirds of American society. Can we have the next slide, please? And I'm going to close with two quotes. This is one that's only a couple of weeks old. Elon Musk, who's great for saying things that you can't imagine any person saying, the fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy. In other words, what's basically wrong is we care for other people. That's the dominant view among America's leaders today. But let's go to the last slide, which is what we really need. The leader of the last progressive
33:30 - 34:00 movement, President Theor, Theodore Roosevelt, also a Republican, as it turns out, said the fundamental rule of our national life, the fundamental rule of our national life, is not that we should be selfish. It is the rule that underlines all the others is that on the whole and in the long run we go up or down together. Thank you very much for listening. [Applause]
34:00 - 34:30 Sarah Nick's on the far left as if the um first of all, thank you Bob for an absolutely wonderful uh lecture
34:30 - 35:00 and thank you um for for bridging through the technical uh glitches at the uh at the beginning. Um, listen, we've got a fantastic panel. Let me introduce them brie briefly before I turn to them for some comments. Uh, firstly to my, uh, direct left, uh, Sarah Heinger, uh, founder and CEO of a fantastic not for profofit called Thread in Baltimore, which you'll hear more about in a second. And Sarah's also leading our work in Baltimore as part of RSA US. Uh
35:00 - 35:30 and then to Sarah's left, Ammani Freeman, co-founder and director of Neighborly Labs, who've been one of our fantastic partners on the revealing social capital project, about which Man will be saying more in a second. And finally, uh to Man's left, um Sick Kle, president of global affairs at Meta until around May, I think, Nick, um give or take. Um and formerly, of course, deputy prime minister and leader of the Liberal Democratic Party.
35:30 - 36:00 Let me turn to the panel and take some reflections on Bob's wonderful tour to force lecture starting if I could with Sarah. Thoughts from you. Well, good evening. It is truly an honor to be with all of you. Um, you know, I think the bell curve is interesting in that there's two other things that happen in the United States that are represented on that curve or on those curves. The first is the formation of the American
36:00 - 36:30 high school which happened early in the 20th century. And the second is Brown versus Board of Education which happened in 1954 which was intended it was five legal cases but that were intended to desegregate our schools. The challenge is that what actually happened is we really had not done the inner work, the intrapersonal work or the interpersonal work of bridging and bonding. We hadn't built the will, let alone the skill. And so in cities like Baltimore, you had white
36:30 - 37:00 flight out of the cities followed by middle-class black flight. And so when you look at our two historically black high schools in Baltimore today, Douglas and Dunar, they're actually more segregated than they were in 1954 because they're segregated both by race and by class. And so when we think about Rashetti's work showing that the the relationship between economic connectedness and economic mobility, we've essentially extracted from our communities the one lever that actually can lead to more just outcomes across
37:00 - 37:30 the board. And so when we think about um what is our work at Thread, what we do is we enroll high school freshmen who are academically in the bottom of their class. So the average incoming GPA is 73 on a 40 scale. Um they are exceptional individuals but they are in extraordinary situations facing all kinds of barriers both in and out of school. And then the radical thing that we do is we commit to them for 10 years. Um and we never unenroll a young person.
37:30 - 38:00 So during that time we take a place-based approach where they're matched with up to four adults who live, work, or go to school near them. And the idea is that they do life together. That could be giving the high school student a ride to school, packing their lunch. Um it could be going to an Orioles game. If you would do it with your own child, we do it with ours. Um and what we've seen over the last two decades of building community in this way is outcomes that are off the charts. So
38:00 - 38:30 in Baltimore City for young people who have GPA of less than 1.0, Ino. So remembering our young people, the average is 73. Only 6% complete high school in four years. In thread, keeping in mind that we never unenroll a single young person. 65% of our young people complete high school and sometimes it takes four years, 5 years, six years, seven. Um, but they do it and they go on to build lives. They go on to post-secondary pathways of entrepreneurship. They go into the military, the workforce, onto
38:30 - 39:00 college. um many of them are now my colleagues at Thread or um sit on our board as my bosses. Um and I'll just give one quick, you know, story to kind of illustrate the two things we've learned um that are maybe takehomes. The first is that the quantity of connection matters. So just literally the count of touch points between a young person in thread and those four adults that they're matched with in a given month allows us to predict if they are going
39:00 - 39:30 to complete high school on time. So just it's a simple think of like how you would look at dollars in a corporation. That's how we look at touch points inside of our community. The second is the quality of connection matters. So, it's not just giving a young person a ride to school, but what we've learned is that after so many rides to school, both individuals start describing feeling very known, very seen. If you ask them further out in time, what happens is the young person starts
39:30 - 40:00 describing the adult asking for their help. It might be they had an argument with their spouse that morning or they're struggling at work or at school themselves. And it's in asking for help that there starts to be this fundamental shift in identity. And so to me, my background is as a computational neuroscientist, like that makes sense. Like we're hardwired to want to be helpers. We get dopamine and oxytocin and serotonin. Our cortisol goes down.
40:00 - 40:30 And yet our young people are told they're disadvantaged. They're at risk. they're disenfranchised. All these things that basically say you're only to be helped, you're never to be the helper. And so when we think about like who are the halves and the who are the have nots, part of the cultural shift that I think Bob is really referring to, the moral shift is the genuine acknowledgment, not just that each human being matters, but that we actually need each other. And it's figuring out how do we have space and place to to really
40:30 - 41:00 message that in our words and in our actions. Wonderful Sarah. Thank you for nodding heads in the room. I can see Marley. Talk us through some of the UK work that you've been working on. Oh, thank you. Um, well, before I start, I'd love a quick show of hands. I'd love to understand, um, for you in terms of thinking of the settings where social connections happen and form, how many of
41:00 - 41:30 you are friends with people from secondary school? Fantastic. How many of you are friends with some of your neighbors? Okay. And how many of you who may be a part of a hobby or recreation group have friends through them? Okay. Thank you. You're in the right place. Um I'd love also for you to think without showing hands now. of those social connections, how many of them do you think are across lines of
41:30 - 42:00 economic difference which was the work that we were looking at? So that's thank you. So in thinking about that we did we were lucky to be part of a wide research team with RSA BIT Meta Stripe partners where we were looking at bringing to life the data from um from meta understanding the relationship between economic connectingness people's well-being and their social mobility. The qualitative
42:00 - 42:30 team, the Neighborly Lab team went out and about to four locations across the UK to understand what was really going on, what was really happening in communities, in communities that had either really high and good economic connectedness across lines of difference or not very good and low. And we and we went and we spoke to lots of residents in many places through the winter walking about understanding what was going on. And we did see that there was lots of examples of social capital in
42:30 - 43:00 many places. There were some examples of crossing lines of economic difference with social and well-being benefits and there were some that led to social mobility. So thinking about that made us think well what are the settings and conditions for that upswing that Bob optimistically says that we can potentially have things that we could leverage. What are those green shoots that will enable the people in this room and beyond to start thinking about changing our
43:00 - 43:30 communities? How can we build that vibrant social connection? Is it the infrastructure? Is it with the residents? Is it doing that bottomup co-produce type of work? Is it investment? Is it policy? Is it a mix of all of these things? So why was there social capital in some places and economic connectedness in some of these places but actually in other places there was absolutely nothing but everything else was similar. So we spoke to the residents and we spent time in their community centers, their leisure centers, their libraries,
43:30 - 44:00 their cafes, their pubs. A lot of time was spent in some of their pubs trying to understand what was going on. And to give some examples, we saw that like the quant data, it it mirrored it really clearly that that there were two really good strong settings where this happened. It took place in employment and and uh the workplace and hobbies and activities and sports groups. So thinking about that for example in Stley in Birmingham where there was the
44:00 - 44:30 Cadbury factory and Land Rover, they invested really strongly in their community. They invested in a much more culturally equal organization. They invested in um bringing together people across the organization and mixing them so that if you were a cleaner or you were the director, you would work together in these you would play together in these spaces, you would go out for drinks, you would mix and meet so that there was much more mixing and economic connectedness. So for example,
44:30 - 45:00 we met a woman whose husband worked in the factory in Cabbury and he started life out in the pub but met the director, got friendly, got a job and eventually worked his way up and then continued to do that within the community himself. We saw the same in Massam in um in the north last week where there are breweries and mills that involve themselves not just in employing the local community but investing in the community. They've sponsored the triathlons. They get involved in the town square in local markets. They
45:00 - 45:30 employ local people and they bring about social change that brings people together not just through work. So it's a cultural shift as well as investing economically. Then we look at the um we looked at social this the social fabric what was going on there with the music, the culture, the arts and those settings what was happening with sports and we saw that a few things were really important. that was about around specificity that was around inclusivity
45:30 - 46:00 and um also around the information sharing. So those are the shoots that we can really harness to think about what next. Marty did a wonderful job, masterful job there actually of summarizing what's 18 months of research with a a coalition of partners. For those interested in more, there's an online version, written version of that that's available for bedtime reading this evening. Um, so Nick, Med has been
46:00 - 46:30 a wonderful partner uh in this research and in US research on a similar topic by Raj Shetty. Love to hear your thoughts on what you've heard so far from Bob and others. Well, first I'm just so delighted that some of these sort of treasure troves of data are being put to good, you know, research use. One of the things that I discovered when I turned up at Silicon Valley what almost seven years ago was partly because of recent events um in that period of time. But
46:30 - 47:00 there was just this um there was just this huge reluctance to use these very very uh versatile data sets for you know to to to really um look into particularly some of the claims and counter claims about what these technologies were doing society. So, so um uh anyway, one one of the I I sort of got the ball rolling myself and others to try and change that. There was a very big uh project um with about 11 US universities during the 2020 election
47:00 - 47:30 where you had very large um groups of people I mean 200 300,000 people who were using social media metas apps um and for let's say 200,000 that test control group there would be no virality or the other one there'd be no distribution the other one there'd be no algorithmic ranking to sort of try and work out what effect those changes would have on polit you know subsequent political behavior. Uh the published independently published papers so far have suggested somewhat underwhelmingly
47:30 - 48:00 that it basically seems to make very little difference to political behavior but but it was then it was an important stepping stone because it it it um got the the lawyers and others a little bit more relaxed about uh using these these data set. So when Raj Chetty and I first started talking about this, it took months and months and months, but we finally got that work done in in in in um um in the US and then with the help of many people in this room, we we sort of obviously now and with the partnership with Mani and so many other
48:00 - 48:30 organizations, we've been able to duplicate that in the UK. So I just hope it serves as a it hope it serves as a model because I think the more the more these these big tech companies can become partners and friends of of high quality research the the better. The the second observation I'd make um is uh one of the things I've learned in the time I've been in Silicon Valley is there are two sets of people I came to trust less and less and less in when they made assertions about the role of technology
48:30 - 49:00 in society. was the most ardent advocates of technology and the most ardent critics of technology because they both make the same error. They wildly overstate the deterministic nature of technology in human life. And in one sort of wellressearched area after the next and in fact Bob Putnham's excellent you know II graphs are just another illustration of it. It was Bob's voting habits in 1960 not Facebook that turned that turned the curve on on on polarization. I mean, but but but sort
49:00 - 49:30 of facitiousness and joking aside, I do think because we've been society through this, and we're still through it. We're still going through it. We've been through these almost violent mood swings of sort of ludicrous, naive, euphoria about social media in the early days and uh um these new communication technologies in the age of the Arab Spring. It was going to spread te democracy. Everyone was going to be happy. The traffic was going to flow. The sun was going to shine. Then it all swung the other way. And everything from a referendum or election result you
49:30 - 50:00 don't like or an unhappy person, everything gets ascribed to something which is called the algorithm as if it's got some sort of ability to borrow into our borrow into our neural pathways and make us feel and and you know none of the evidence suggests that's true. All the evidence suggests that human beings are way more complicated than that. That technology plays a role but it is a role often often actually outweighed by far far more whether it's moral, whether it's cultural, whether it's economic, whether it's historical forces. much of which I think are borne out by Bob Putnham's uh you know lecture today. And
50:00 - 50:30 I don't say this and of course it's it's terribly dangerous for me to say this it sounds like I'm sort of trying to absolve these big technology companies of the responsibility they rightly should bear and there are all sorts of fraud issues. I would however just because I think it's so crystal clear from Bob's presentation just you know dwell on the fact that the it's sometimes comforting to think there's a switch you can flick there's an algorithm you can tweak and all will be well. There's no evidence at all that that is the case and I think it is way way more complex than that and it's so
50:30 - 51:00 refreshing to hear Bob put that case again so compellingly this evening. The third thing I would just observe in this this study that you talk about Andy which is available to all of you this evening. It's really fascinating to see the similarities and differences between the the the the data that this study has revealed in the UK and the US. the some similarities of social isolation of the driving importance of the connections that people have across income groups. It does appear to be an incredibly
51:00 - 51:30 powerful catalyst for social mobility. Um in fact way more than some educational economic factors which I found very striking when I first read uh Raj and his team's early US results. But the differences are so interesting. Firstly, thankfully in the UK, we still have much much higher, which is interesting given what a sort of class adult society we are. We have much much higher rates of connection between people of lower and higher income than you do across the United States. Um,
51:30 - 52:00 secondly, how geographically dependent it is. So, you just see big differences in the connections between people from lower and higher income groups in London and around London compared to other parts of the country. big questions to ask about that, but also the nature of those connections. We were talking about it earlier, weren't we? Um, in the US, you had a lot of faith-based organizations which seem to be really important venues for that kind of connection, whereas in this somewhat perhaps more godless uh country of ours, it's sports. We're a country of hobbyists. So, um, it's it's knitting
52:00 - 52:30 rather than god that seems to be that seems to be the driver of of of social connection across income groups in the United Kingdom, which again is fascinating and and needs to be fostered. understanding those things um to to to to Bob's point and it's my final observation is also crucial for local decision makers for social innovators for politicians and for governments to understand what levers to pull what things to support because they're not they're not all equal. Some just seem to deliver much more bangs for
52:30 - 53:00 their bucks than than others. In a second, let me go to the audience for some questions. So, get primed on that. Um, before I do that though, let me log one on to the panel to pick up. So, from what you've all said, uh, and indeed from Bob's, um, earlier work. There's a broadly shared diagnosis of what's going on here. The evidence is absolutely compelling. And the question
53:00 - 53:30 I have, I'll go down the panel starting with Bob, is why is this not at the top of the inbox of our political leaders? And what might we do, Bob, to put it towards the top of the inbox of our political leaders? Uh Bob, do you want to kick us off on that? Can I just go directly to this question of um the relevant role of religion and moralism in America and uh the you know
53:30 - 54:00 faith-based connections and so on um as as contrasted with England because I know that America I lived in England long enough to know how odd it is to talk about religion or even morality but I want to refer back to an earlier peri period. I'm not talking about sexual morality morality here at all. I'm I'm not talking about sexual morality. I'm talking about um the simple morality as in do you worry about other people? And
54:00 - 54:30 what I want to remind you of and I'm sure you have this all in mind is the importance of social of morality, social morality in the mid V and late Victorian social reforms. Think of how many of the of the mid Victorian social reforms came directly out of a sense of moral obligation beginning with slavery. Of course, that was even earlier in that period. But Wilberforce was not driven by economic interest. He was driven by a sense of obligation and and exploitation of all forms. Child labor, prisons. Think of
54:30 - 55:00 the role that Charles Dickens novels played in stimulating popular understanding and revulsion against inequality. So I guess the one thing I want to make um really to Nick and to by the way Nick you may not remember we actually met while you were deputy prime prime minister and I'm glad to see you again at least see you virtually. Um Andy that's I guess the main point that
55:00 - 55:30 I would make. How do we get how do we get national leaders to take this seriously? Well, I'm doing my best. Um, the national there was a set of national leaders who paid a lot of attention to what I thought. They happen not. You will have noticed I don't have a lot of uh clout in Washington today. Actually, I don't know anybody who has a lot of clout in Washington today. Wonderful. Bob, thank you um for that. Sarah, follow that. I'll try to try to answer the first
55:30 - 56:00 question. Um, so I'll just share an example of two humans that I find to be um they illustrate what it looks like to get this right. So I'll change their names for the purposes of privacy. So we'll say Eileen. So Eileen um at the time was in her late 70s and had joined Thread as a volunteer. And it was March of 2020 and she was paired with a young person who was a freshman in high school, Alice. And they never got to
56:00 - 56:30 meet because the world shut down. And so Eileen would text Alice every single day and say, "I'm here. I want to support you. What's happening with you and your family during COVID?" And there would be no response. So months months of texting, sometimes multiple times a day with no response. So the first part of if we understand here's the symptoms, here's the diagnosis and the treatment
56:30 - 57:00 plan is connection, why aren't we doing it? Because it's hard and it's especially hard if you're trying to do it across lines of difference. It's hard to text someone every day for months and not get a response. So what happens um happened in this circumstance was that Eileen had a heart attack. It was her third heart attack and she was in the hospital. So she texted Alice. She said, "I'm so sorry. I haven't texted for a few days. I had a heart attack. What do you think happened next?" Alice is at the hospital standing
57:00 - 57:30 outside in the middle of a global pandemic trying to figure out how to get to her room. So, it's that moment of feeling like I'm needed. I can help. And so, it was this high school student who then helped Eileen to recuperate from her heart attack, to get home, to get settled, to become well. And then that fall it was Eileen picking up Alice from her house, bringing her back home, and basically setting up a pod where she was able to zoom and go to school sometimes with her friends coming over.
57:30 - 58:00 Um, and then Alice ended up graduating from high school on time. And so it just all of the things that have to prove true in that situation. There's a there's a resilience that's required. There's a tolerance of imperfection. there's um a willingness to be patient and not let a sense of urgency um drive the situation. And so I think relationships are hard and they're really messy and what's required I mean
58:00 - 58:30 it's what's required is just to not give up and to stay persistent and to show someone that you're there and then eventually you know that connection that connection happens. I think to your point, um, I'd never thought of this until listening to you just now, maybe we've gotten to the point where technology is actually like food. Um, that it's necessary to live, but it's how you consume it and it's how you
58:30 - 59:00 modulate your view and your relationship to it. Um, and I think about the ways in which technology is such a powerful tool for connection and how it can also be one that that causes disconnection. And so I think it's here, we need it. It's a s it's a source of sustenance. It's just how do we how do we engage it and how do we utilize it um in each of our lives? And I think so from a policy perspective answering maybe that question um maybe
59:00 - 59:30 thinking about it in the same way as we regulate food. on it. Thank you, Sarah. Barney, to echo Sarah's words, it's hard. It's really hard and it's difficult to measure and they don't know how to measure social connection because it's is it relational? Is it looking at longerterm outcomes? And there's nobody to to look at longerterm outcomes. You need to be in power for a long time. And we change over and things change. And it's really difficult to keep that level of interest. We were looking at loneliness for a very long time. And now
59:30 - 60:00 the narrative's changing to social connection. But ultimately it's looking at the same thing we want to understand how to support communities to connect better. Another reason I think that is looking at the social infrastructure and where from going out and about in all these communities and understanding what's there but also fundamentally what's missing. It's very hard to measure what's not there. So it's actually looking at what do we need to do to build back and build it together. And that it's it's it's expensive as well. There's a lot that needs to be
60:00 - 60:30 invested in places and then invested in people in communities to do the work to connect with each other to do that outreach and to say to other people we're welcoming you. It's okay. You can come out now and and let's build this thing together. What do you want? What do you need? People don't know, but they know when you ask them. Marty, thank you. Uh and finally, Nick, as someone who has um been a political leader, what would it take, Nick, to get this
60:30 - 61:00 as lift to lift up? Well, f first of course politicians are incentivized by winning votes and they win votes in short as he just said money very short sort of cycles. So these long-term issues just they just it just is misaligned with the political incentives. You can't blame the politicians for that. that's what they're, you know, they're in a sense just responding to to the way that they're kind of set up to to to to act. Um, having said all of that, you you do get these rare m I was in Austin, Texas
61:00 - 61:30 last the week before last went and just popped in to see the um this ext if any of you were there, go to see the LBJ library or museum. It really is an extraordinary it's an extraordinary tribute to the man, but also to this very unusual combination of ruthless political guile with sort of moral leadership. I mean there was he was both appalling uh and extraordinarily inspiring in almost equal measure. And it's a really interesting if you're interested in politics and of someone trying to do good but doing good through bare knuckle
61:30 - 62:00 political you know methods. it it it's you know that's a man who knew how to count you know he knew how to kind of get those votes in Congress and and so I I I um but also what he did which certainly I found very striking as I sort of went through the the library the museum is um of course he allied it which you which is what all great politics is what all great politicians succeed in doing is he didn't introduce a series of measures he didn't introduce a series of policies he he told a story
62:00 - 62:30 he told a story of where America was or had been, where it came from, where it was, and where it wanted to go, the great society and so on. And um and certainly my I mean Bob called it shriveled. My much much more shriveled experience in in in politics was uh one of the many things that I realized with hindsight I got wrong was I would spend so much time delivering individual initiatives and forgetting that unless you tell the story in politics you're not going to I mean some of the things that uh I try to do in government with
62:30 - 63:00 people like Paulie McKenzie and others work squarely in the tradition of trying to promote social mobility um the pupil premium radical shift in trying to funnel uh uh funding to the kids who need it most in school. Um universal free school meals which we introduced which I read in the papers today. Labour's apparently to get rid of apparently when they do it it's not called austerity but when we did it is but anyway that's a that's a little aside there but um but what I realized then I asked myself why is though why were those policies why you know one of them now if I understand it being
63:00 - 63:30 unwound by a labor government other one was being unwound by a conservative government. both of them really good policies. All the evidence show they really promote fairness. And I think one of the things I felt was yeah, it just it we didn't tell a story about them. And I think I think you know I think modern politicians are no different to politicians in the LBJ era era. If you want to deliver transformational change, you've got to tell a story about where the country was, is where you want it to go. And if you don't do that, all the amount of research and individual policy
63:30 - 64:00 wonkery in places like this won't get you anywhere unless you tell a good story. Wonderful. Let's get the audience. We got a little bit of time. Let's collect some questions in um there's a roving mic. Wait for the mic so we all hear your excellent question and try keep it as a question uh rather than a speech and on topic. Even better. Um let's start here and then we'll go down. Yeah. Hello. My name is Sasha. I work up in Heartley in a
64:00 - 64:30 small estate based charity. I just wonder, I've heard a lot and I've been here today and I just wonder, is there space or should there be more space for love in these conversations? We don't talk about love and actually the people from threat, you're not telling me they don't love them kids cuz they will. We just don't use a word. So, I wonder how do we bring love into this conversation in a way which is meaningful. Wonderful. Uh let let's go down. We'll
64:30 - 65:00 collect three questions and then go back to the audience. We'll go down here. Um, sorry, I'm making the Yeah, Karen, I just went the uh mic. Karen, and then we'll go. Uh, thank thank you very much, professor, and to the panel. Uh, I went to a refresher in January 2017, Professor Ravi Abdullal at Harvey Pleasant School, HBS, and he did a diagnosis of Brexit and Trump the year before on the fault lines, and they were
65:00 - 65:30 identical. And he closed the lecture with a graph and like your bell curves he start you started at the end of the civil war and the beginning of the guilded age. He started at the end of the battle of Waterloo where globalization was zero. Went up to 1900 globalization peaked and then the first world war second world war crashed. Then he went from 1945 and globalization went up and peaked in 2017. And he said if history repeats itself we're going to have conflict. So where's the comparison
65:30 - 66:00 between what you've studied in America with individuals and on this global basis where on the one extreme we could be headed for a third world war. Thank you Karen. Sobering question there. Uh let's take one more here. Um and then we'll go back to the panel. Thank you. My name is Tom Schullah. Thanks Bob for the lecture. You may rec remember at OECD you came to help us introduce social capital into that
66:00 - 66:30 organization for a while. But my my question or challenge to you is on on the youth dimension. You I'm not sure if you were attributing this historically or whether you're saying this is the case today that you expect it to be you youthled. And my question is why are you discarding the potential of intergenerational bridging social capital which I seems to me really important and of course that's a sort of
66:30 - 67:00 prejudice plea cuz I'm in that older generation but it just seems to me if you if you if you leave it with youth or if you say that's what we should look to you're ignoring a huge potential of social interaction. Thank you. One more question and then we'll go back to the panel. Yeah. Hi, thank you. I'm Amanda Asen from Eling Council. Uh I just wondered and and not to disagree with the previous speaker, but I was interested in your first question Andy about the inbox of politicians and thinking actually we've heard from both
67:00 - 67:30 Bob and Sarah that this has got to be a youthled movement and we know the disconnection at the moment between quite a lot of youth and politics. Is there a different way of getting this into a different inbox which would give us that grassroots youth movement that we need for really good social innovation? Four fantastic questions. Uh if the panelists could keep their uh their answers nice and short, we'll just about fit in another round of uh questions. So Bob, can I turn to you first to pick off any of those you fancy? Bob, um I want to focus on this
67:30 - 68:00 question of um of um youth and the role of youth and age. I certainly agree that it's important to have age bridging. I'm probably the oldest person virtually in the room. In fact, um but as it happens, my son is in the room and his and my grandson, his son maybe. I'm not sure whether he's in the room or not. Um, and
68:00 - 68:30 so let me talk about my role and my grandson's role. Um, his name is Gideon, by the way. Um, I'm old enough. We talk all the time. It's wonderful. We have a very good relationship as I do with all my grandchildren. My role is to say it doesn't have to America doesn't have to be the America that you've always lived in. I remember personally a time when we didn't lock our doors. And they kind of all laugh at me, but that's the role I play. say it doesn't have to be this way. And then I say, but it's up to you
68:30 - 69:00 guys, my grandchildren, to figure out what's the next step. What do we do going forward? Cuz I can't imagine. Well, it it probably will involve social media, but maybe not. And probably in unexpected ways, and I don't have the right mindset to be able to figure out what's going to work in 2050. I'm There's more to be said, of course, but I'm going to stop there. Thank you. Um, thank you, Bob. uh Sarah figure out what's going to work in 2050.
69:00 - 69:30 So just to the question about love um if we were to find love as honest recognition of who someone truly is almost a mirror um there's reciprocity that comes in that and I think that to the question about young people there has to be reciprocity in cross-generational relationships that are fully inclusive. I think anytime we shrink the circle, we're going to lose [Music]
69:30 - 70:00 um getting to 360 degrees in the vantage points um that we need to see. I do think one of the beautiful things about young people is they they have this ability to be direct with kindness. So when they see something, they say something, there's less of a filter. they've they've had less time where they've been told, "Here's how to do it." And there's a rawness and a beauty, an authenticity and an honesty to youth
70:00 - 70:30 that I do think we have to listen to and that I do think is why there's oftent times a lot of innovation that comes um that way. But I don't think that excludes us, those of us that um I think it just means that I give you quick example. I had a disagreement with my daughter. We were looking at a sunrise and I was having this like best moment of my life. My dad had been sick. My whole family went on this trip. We're standing on this cliff and I
70:30 - 71:00 kept saying to her, she was six at the time. Look at the sun. Look at the sun. Look at the sun. And I kept getting very frustrated with her that she would not listen to me. And I started thinking, she kept saying, "No, the moon." And I kept saying, "Please look at the sun." And I started thinking, does my six-year-old not know the difference between the sun and the moon? Has CO gone that badly in our household educationally? And she finally got so frustrated with me that she grabbed my arm and turned me around and there was the moon and we were standing at the
71:00 - 71:30 exact same place on the planet at the exact same time and we were just facing 180 degrees apart and seeing something so different than the sun and the moon. So regardless of age, I think part of love is just building the habit to when someone says, "I see the moon." Turn around before they have to pull your arm. Lovely, Martin. I don't know how to follow that. That was
71:30 - 72:00 beautiful. That was really lovely. My interpretation of love is thinking about one of these women that I met in Derby Road in Southampton who I would say she embodied love because she embodied love for her community so much that she was tirelessly working to change things. She didn't intend ever to be a community mobilizer, a community connector. She had the opportunity when
72:00 - 72:30 she had her baby to go to a children's center and was lucky enough to meet other women from different backgrounds and think about, you know, and got support and got community and felt a a a love of other women to support each other. Then they realized that when their children were going to school, they needed to get involved and they needed to do things to love their community, to love the school, to invest in it. So they got involved in the PTA and and they and they helped that. Then the school went a bit difficult and and
72:30 - 73:00 they changed things and then they decided that actually they needed to do things for their health and their well-being. So they brought in other women, other people from other communities and set up walking groups and aerobics and then they set up a local swimming group. And again, Sasha, to your point about love, this was all founded on we want to build a community, a proper community for our children to grow up in and to support everyone around us. Then the then they they set
73:00 - 73:30 up a women's swimming group. Then the swimming pool was going to be shut down. So what did they do? They poured their love into activism and they saved the swimming pool. So I do say I love is at the heart of it. It doesn't get put on application forms for funding and it doesn't, you know, can you measure love in these outcomes? No, but it actually is it's it's that is what is motivating us to support our communities to do better and grow stronger. It's at the heart of the culture that Bob was
73:30 - 74:00 talking about how we can build things better. Nick, I think you may well have given the time, this may well be the last words. Oh, really? Oh gosh, I better better raise my game then. Um, no, the only thing I was going to add was I I I think um it's sort of buried within a lot of these um this conversation. I I do think your fundamental attitude towards the future is terribly important. I I um and since we're all
74:00 - 74:30 sort of drawing on our own experiences, I one of the things I found most striking in this sort of to to my mindly somewhat surprising um life switch I made from 20 odd years in politics, 12 years as an MP in the House of Commons to then the sort of bright shiny gleaming kind of world of Silicon Valley was I went from a world which was really suffocated by the past. I mean Westminster is just drowning in the past. It's sort of it's it's it's just it's smothered by it. And we had as
74:30 - 75:00 a country basically re shortly before I left basically had an argument about the past. Brexit is an is a triumph of nostalgia over a claim on the future. Um um and then I went to this place where everyone kind of there wasn't any past because the place looks as if it was built last Tuesday and everyone's competing with each other about to lay greater claim on the future. And of course it's silly and you can mock it and a lot of it's wildly hyperbolic and annoying sometimes and so on. But it was
75:00 - 75:30 a huge culture shift for me. And I remember thinking how important it is to try and foster an environment where you where you are excited about trying to shape the future. And I sort of felt for for a whole bunch of reasons that our country had the best way I can put it to to use the word love. I feel we sort of fell out of love with the future. We just stopped thinking about, we kept arguing about what our past was and whether we should try and repeat it and recapture it and reoccupy it. And I just think we
75:30 - 76:00 got and I oddly enough actually bizarrely think that um the events in in in Washington and the actions of the US government over the last few weeks weirdly and unexpectedly presents this old battered tattered continent of ours Europe a chance to try and reclaim the future again because we're going to have to do it on our own. We can't rely on Uncle Sam. So I do think talk about storytelling talking about loving the future again. I do think there's a odd opportunity for us which I didn't think
76:00 - 76:30 was going to be afforded to Europe given given how battered and bruised we are to to try and sort of reassert our own claim on the future. And that is very very very powerful. It's a hell of a lot better than spending all your time arguing about your past. And what a wonderful uh inspiring and and forward-looking way to to end. Um listen, we're in overtime, so let's draw
76:30 - 77:00 things to a close. Let me thank all of you uh in the room, and I know there many hundreds online uh for joining today, for contributing so actively. I'm sorry we didn't get to all your questions, but there will always be uh a next time I I suspect uh on the questions we've been discussing today. Let me thank all our partners, the RSO's partners. Uh, too many to mention uh in the work that we've done so far and the work we intend doing in future to build uh an even stronger platform for change. To all our amazing um panelists, to
77:00 - 77:30 Sarah, to Mani, and to Nick uh for their absolutely fabulous uh rich stories uh big word tonight uh and contributions. um to our patron uh Royis Princess Royal for coming along, for welcoming us and for inspiring us uh with your opening uh talk. And last but no means least uh the man on the screen peering over us all um Bob Putnham um across the pond. Uh Bob u
77:30 - 78:00 we'll have to get you across uh next time. Uh but for this evening, a huge thank you not just for your lecture uh but also for opening all of our eyes to the fundamental importance of these issues of social connection uh and social capital at this most crucial uh of time. So on behalf of everyone, please join me in thanking everyone.