Restricting concern to local issues stunts learning about the wider world

Evidence

Trying to care about people but not politics meant trying to limit their concerns to issues about which they felt they could … Volunteers worked hard to keep that circle of concern small — in cultivating a sense of connection to each other, they curtailed their ability to learn about the wider world. — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics, 130

Categorization

• XREF: Reverses the reader’s core research premise: solidarity built through connection to fellow volunteers actively shrinks rather than grows outward — connects to Putnam’s social-capital literature and theories of ‘bonding vs bridging’ capital. — connects to: Care for particular places and creatures sustains rather than blocks global concern — Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, 709; Directing criticism to the local and cultural level best addresses global formations; Local problems motivate environmental action more than abstract global harms — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 2949 (+3 more)
• QUESTION: Is this circle-shrinking inherent to small-group bonding or a distinctively American civic pattern? Could the mechanism differ in solidarity built without an external enemy?

Broader Connections

• Local problems motivate environmental action more than abstract global harms #contradicts (0.85) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2949
• Care for particular places and creatures sustains rather than blocks global concern #contradicts (0.82) — Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, 709
• Directing criticism to the local and cultural level best addresses global formations #contradicts (0.78)
• Genre functions as a switch mechanism between local and global environmental concern. #contradicts (0.75) — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 92
• Social influence spreads beliefs locally, producing stable subcultural clusters instead of homogenization #corroborates (0.72) — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 1910
• Localized communication clusters sustain cultural diversity of beliefs within a larger society #corroborates (0.72) — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1910