Victor Perichon strikes again

Hi blog. I know it's been a while but I wanted to pick up on a similar vein as where I left off: biking. This past november, a friend of mine and his girlfriend decided to bike from Boulder Colorado to St. Louis. They set out without any prearranged accomodations and basically relied on the goodness in people's hearts for beds at night. Through this adventure, Victor and Leah were able to stare various communities right in the eye and see how they responded to needy strangers. To me, this is the best way to obtain an indication of a society's health.

There's a lot of talk about indicators: social indicators, economic indicators, national indicators. But I think the best way to tell how good a society is doing is not by how many hospitals they have or how well their roads are maintained, but by how the people treat eachother and others. After all, if someone's able to reach out and share with another person, more than likely that means they believe this action would reciprocated,nwhich implies a level of trust essential to the sustaining of social capital. However, sharing with complete strangers, especially broke ass strangers that are passing through town and likely will never be encountered again, reveals a trust and sense of universal communion so ingrained that it must be dissected at another level altogether. For in this instance, the opportunity for reciprocation does not exist and thus the only satisfaction imparted on the giver is the knowledge that the gift is not taken for granted. This requires a universal trust in human kind.

I think the best way to gauge a society's social capital is to go out and meet the people and see how they treat you. But then, what do I know?

Here's a link to an article about Victor and Leah's crazy adventure:
http://dailystarjournal.com/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=2329&SectionID=14&SubSectionID=29&S=1