Tönnes Community and Society PDF

“Community and Society” from C. P. Loomis (ed.), Community and Society (1963) Ferdinand Tönnies...

“Community and Society” from C. P. Loomis (ed.), Community and Society (1963) Ferdinand Tönnies Editors’ Introduction Ferdinand Tönnies (1855–1936) was born into a wealthy farming family in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, in an era in which the peasant culture of the rural province was being transformed by mechanization and the money economy. His oldest brother was engaged in a thriving trade with English merchants, exposing Tönnies first-hand to the world of English capitalism. In 1881 he became a lecturer at the University of Kiel, where he remained until ousted by the Nazis in 1933 because of his social democratic political associations. Though less influential than his contemporaries Max Weber and Emile Durkheim, Tönnies may be recognized as a founding father of sociology. His enduring contribution to urban sociology is the distinction between two basic types of social forma- tions, Gemeinschaft (community) and Gesellschaft (society), with a general historical trend from the former to the latter. Societies of the earlier form are organized around family, village, and town, with a mainly agricultural economy and local political culture. The latter form of society, by contrast, is exemplified by larger-level social units of metropolis and nation-state, and based on complex trade and industry. Primary sentimental relation- ships predominate in Gemeinschaft, while secondary associational relationships proliferate in Gesellschaft. While some of his interpreters proliferated the impression that Tönnies sentimentalized Gemeinschaft while criticizing Gesellschaft, he disclaimed such intention. For him, the shift was a normal developmental process of the body social, comparable to the transition from youth to adulthood. Tönnies was strongly influenced by English thinkers, including the political philosopher Thomas Hobbes, Sir Henry Maine, and the Social Darwinist Herbert Spencer. The concept of will was central to his theory. Tönnies argued that there are two basic forms of human volition, or will. Gemeinschaft is formed around Wesenwille, or essential will, which is the underlying, organic, self-fulfilling or instinctive driving force, while Copyright © 2012. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved. Gesellschaft is characterized by Kurwille, or arbitrary will, which is deliberative, purposive, instrumental, and future (goal) oriented. Wesenwille is that which springs intrinsically from a person’s temper and character. Kurwille is the capacity to distinguish means from ends and to act practically out of rational self-interest. Tönnies decried totalitarianism (including the Nazism that emerged in Germany), but he was intrigued by the force of “public opinion” that enforces the communal will of society and may involve the use of sanctions against dissidents. He dealt with these ideas in other publications, including Die Sitte (1909) and Critique of Public Opinion (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002, edited and translated by Hanno Hardt and Slavko Splichal from Kritik der Offentlichen Meinung, 1922). His concept of Kurwille can thus be related to the Hobbesian social contract, whereby citizens control the state through deliberation and reasoned discussion to counter tyrannical authority and avaricious despotism. Tönnies developed his concepts Gemeinschaft/Gesellschaft as “ideal types,” which are paradigms or models that may not fully conform to social reality, but are useful for purposes of analytical comparison. Rather than being polar extremes, the two ideal types can be seen as being on opposite ends of a continuum. Tönnies The Urban Sociology Reader, edited by Jan Lin, and Christopher Mele, Taylor & Francis Group, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bostoncollege-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1075388. Created from bostoncollege-ebooks on 2025-01-13 02:54:04.  “COMMUNITY AND SOCIETY” 17 conceived of any society as always to some degree possessing characteristics of both ideal types. The original concept of ideal types may be credited to the German sociologist Max Weber. Gemeinschaft may be compared with the traditional society conceived by the French sociologist Emile Durkheim (The Division of Labor in Society , translated by George Simpson. New York: Free Press, 1933) through his notion of mechanical solidar- ity, characterized by a simple division of labor and a morally homogeneous population bound by similar values O and beliefs. Gesellschaft corresponds with Durkheim’s notion of organic solidarity, found in the modern society N that has a complex division of labor and a heterogeneous population held together by interdependency, laws, and E contracts. The American sociologist Robert Redfield, on the basis of fieldwork in rural Mexico, later characterized the traditional society as the “folk society” (“The Folk Society,” American Journal of Sociology 52 , 293–308). Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft is also available in an earlier edition, which also contained some of Tönnies’ later essays, as Fundamental Concepts of Sociology (Oxford: American Book Co., 1940). Tönnies’ ten other books, of which the major work dealing with sociology is his 1931 Einführung in die Soziologie (An Introduction to Sociology; Stuttgart: Ferdinand Enke), plus most of his essays, still await English translations. A full bibliography of Tönnies’ work can be found in American Journal of Sociology, 42 (1937), 100–101. A brief critique of Tönnies’ works can be found in Louis Wirth, “The Sociology of Ferdinand Tönnies,” American Journal of Sociology, 32 (1927), 412–422. ORDER – LAW – MORES There is, further, the dual concept of moral- ity as a purely ideal or mental system of norms There is a contrast between a social order which – for community life. In the first case, it is mainly being based upon consensus of wills – rests on har- an expression and organ of religious beliefs and mony and is developed and ennobled by folkways, forces, by necessity intertwined with the con- mores, and religion, and an order which – being ditions and realities of family spirit and the based upon a union of rational wills – rests on con- folkways and mores. In the second case, it is vention and agreement, is safeguarded by political entirely a product and instrument of public opin- legislation, and finds its ideological justification in ion, which encompasses all relations arising out public opinion. of contractual sociableness, contacts, and political There is, further, in the first instance a common intentions. and binding system of positive law, of enforcible Order is natural law, law as such = positive law, norms regulating the interrelation of wills. It has its mores = ideal law. Law as the meaning of what may roots in family life and is based on land ownership. or ought to be, of what is ordained or permitted, Its forms are in the main determined by the code constitutes an object of social will. Even the of the folkways and mores. Religion consecrates natural law, in order to attain validity and reality, and glorifies these forms of the divine will, i.e., as has to be recognized as positive and binding. But Copyright © 2012. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved. interpreted by the will of wise and ruling men. This it is positive in a more general or less definite system of norms is in direct contrast to a similar way. It is general in comparison with special positive law which upholds the separate identity of laws. It is simple compared to complex and the individual rational wills in all their interrelations developed law. and entanglements. The latter derives from the conventional order of trade and similar relations but attains validity and binding force only through DISSOLUTION the sovereign will and power of the state. Thus, it becomes one of the most important instruments The substance of the body social and the social will of policy; it sustains, impedes, or furthers social consists of concord, folkways, mores, and religion, trends; it is defended or contested publicly by the manifold forms of which develop under doctrines and opinions and thus is changed, favorable conditions during its lifetime. Thus, each becoming more strict or more lenient. individual receives his share from this common The Urban Sociology Reader, edited by Jan Lin, and Christopher Mele, Taylor & Francis Group, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bostoncollege-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1075388. Created from bostoncollege-ebooks on 2025-01-13 02:54:04.  18 FERDINAND TÖNNIES center, which is manifest in his own sphere, i.e., social and historical life of mankind there is partly in his sentiment, in his mind and heart, and in his close interrelation, partly juxtaposition and opposi- conscience as well as in his environment, his tion of natural and rational will. possessions, and his activities. This is also true of each group. It is in this center that the individual’s strength is rooted, and his rights derive, in the last THE PEOPLE (VOLKSTUM) AND instance, from the one original law which, in its THE STATE (STAATSTUM) divine and natural character, encompasses and sustains him, just as it made him and will carry him In the same way as the individual natural will away. But under certain conditions and in some rela- evolves into pure thinking and rational will, which tionships, man appears as a free agent (person) in tends to dissolve and subjugate its predecessors, his self-determined activities and has to be conceived the original collective forms of Gemeinschaft have of as an independent person. The substance of the developed into Gesellschaft and the rational will common spirit has become so weak or the link of the Gesellschaft. In the course of history, folk connecting him with the others worn so thin that culture has given rise to the civilization of the state. it has to be excluded from consideration. In con- The main features of this process can be trast to the family and co-operative relationship, this described in the following way. The anonymous is true of all relations among separate individuals mass of the people is the original and dominating where there is no common understanding, and no power which creates the houses, the villages, and time-honored custom or belief creates a common the towns of the country. From it, too, spring the bond. This means war and the unrestricted freedom powerful and self-determined individuals of many of all to destroy and subjugate one another, or, being different kinds: princes, feudal lords, knights, as well aware of possible greater advantage, to conclude as priests, artists, scholars. As long as their economic agreements and foster new ties. To the extent that condition is determined by the people as a whole, such a relationship exists between closed groups all their social control is conditioned by the will and or communities or between their individuals or power of the people. Their union on a national between members and non members of a com- scale, which alone could make them dominant as munity, it does not come within the scope of this a group, is dependent on economic conditions. And study. In this connection we see a community their real and essential control is economic control, organization and social conditions in which the which before them and with them and partly against individuals remain in isolation and veiled hostility them the merchants attain by harnessing the labor toward each other so that only fear of clever retali- force of the nation. Such economic control is ation restrains them from attacking one another, achieved in many forms, the highest of which is and, therefore, even peaceful and neighborly rela- planned capitalist production or large-scale indus- tions are in reality based upon a warlike situation. try. It is through the merchants that the technical This is, according to our concepts, the condition conditions for the national union of independent of Gesellschaft-like civilization, in which peace individuals and for capitalistic production are cre- Copyright © 2012. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved. and commerce are maintained through conventions ated. This merchant class is by nature, and mostly and the underlying mutual fear. The state protects also by origin, international as well as national this civilization through legislation and politics. and urban, i.e., it belongs to Gesellschaft, not To a certain extent science and public opinion, Gemeinschaft. Later all social groups and dignitaries attempting to conceive it as necessary and eternal, and, at least in tendency, the whole people acquire glorify it as progress toward perfection. the characteristics of the Gesellschaft. But it is in the organization and order of Men change their temperaments with the place the Gemeinschaft that folk life and folk culture and conditions of their daily life, which becomes persist. The state, which represents and embodies hasty and changeable through restless striving. Gesellschaft, is opposed to these in veiled hatred Simultaneously, along with this revolution in the and contempt, the more so the further the state has social order, there takes place a gradual change moved away from and become estranged from of the law, in meaning as well as in form. The these forms of community life. Thus, also in the contract as such becomes the basis of the entire The Urban Sociology Reader, edited by Jan Lin, and Christopher Mele, Taylor & Francis Group, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bostoncollege-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1075388. Created from bostoncollege-ebooks on 2025-01-13 02:54:04.  “COMMUNITY AND SOCIETY” 19 system, and rational will of Gesellschaft, formed by entail. For this presentation, however, the following its interests, combines with authoritative will of few remarks may suffice to outline the underlying the state to create, maintain and change the legal principles. system. According to this conception, the law can and may completely change the Gesellschaft in line O with its own discrimination and purpose; changes TYPES OF REAL COMMUNITY LIFE N which, however, will be in the interest of the E Gesellschaft, making for usefulness and efficiency. The exterior forms of community life as repres- The state frees itself more and more from the ented by natural will and Gemeinschaft were traditions and customs of the past and the belief distinguished as house, village, and town. These in their importance. Thus, the forms of law change are the lasting types of real and historical life. In from a product of the folkways and mores and a developed Gesellschaft, as in the earlier and the law of custom into a purely legalistic law, a middle stages, people live together in these differ- product of policy. The state and its departments ent ways. The town is the highest, viz., the most and the individuals are the only remaining agents, complex, form of social life. Its local character, in instead of numerous and manifold fellowships, common with that of the village, contrasts with the communities, and commonwealths which have family character of the house. Both village and grown up organically. The characters of the town retain many characteristics of the family; the people, which were influenced and determined by village retains more, the town less. Only when the these previously existing institutions, undergo new town develops into the city are these character- changes in adaptation to new and arbitrary legal istics almost entirely lost. Individuals or families constructions. These earlier institutions lose the firm are separate identities, and their common locale is hold which folkways, mores, and the conviction of only an accidental or deliberately chosen place in their infallibility gave to them. which to live. But as the town lives on within the Finally, as a consequence of these changes and city, elements of life in the Gemeinschaft, as the only in turn reacting upon them, a complete reversal real form of life, persist within the Gesellschaft, of intellectual life takes place. While originally although lingering and decaying. On the other rooted entirely in the imagination, it now becomes hand, the more general the condition of dependent upon thinking. Previously, all was cen- Gesellschaft becomes in the nation or a group of tered around the belief in invisible beings, spirits nations, the more this entire “country” or the and gods; now it is focalized on the insight into vis- entire “world” begins to resemble one large city. ible nature. Religion, which is rooted in folklife or However, in the city and therefore where general at least closely related to it, must cede supremacy conditions characteristic of the Gesellschaft prevail, to science, which derives from and corresponds to only the upper strata, the rich and the cultured, are consciousness. Such consciousness is a product of really active and alive. They set up the standards learning and culture and, therefore, remote from the to which the lower strata have to conform. These people. Religion has an immediate contact and is lower classes conform partly to supersede the Copyright © 2012. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved. moral in its nature because it is most deeply others, partly in imitation of them in order to related to the physical–spiritual link which con- attain for themselves social power and independ- nects the generations of men. Science receives its ence. The city consists, for both groups (just as moral meaning only from an observation of the laws in the case of the “nation” and the “world”), of of social life, which leads it to derive rules for an free persons who stand in contact with each other, arbitrary and reasonable order of social organiza- exchange with each other and cooperate without tion. The intellectual attitude of the individual any Gemeinschaft or will thereto developing among becomes gradually less and less influenced by them except as such might develop sporadically religion and more and more influenced by science. or as a leftover from former conditions. On the con- Utilizing the research findings accumulated by the trary, these numerous external contacts, contracts, preceding industrious generation, we shall investig- and contractual relations only cover up as many ate the tremendous contrasts which the opposite inner hostilities and antagonistic interests. This is poles of this dichotomy and these fluctuations especially true of the antagonism between the rich The Urban Sociology Reader, edited by Jan Lin, and Christopher Mele, Taylor & Francis Group, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bostoncollege-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1075388. Created from bostoncollege-ebooks on 2025-01-13 02:54:04.  20 FERDINAND TÖNNIES or the so-called cultured class and the poor or the COUNTERPART OF GEMEINSCHAFT servant class, which try to obstruct and destroy each other. It is this contrast which, according Family life is the general basis of life in the to Plato, gives the “city” its dual character and Gemeinschaft. It subsists in village and town life. makes it divide in itself. This itself, according to The village community and the town themselves our concept, constitutes the city, but the same con- can be considered as large families, the various clans trast is also manifest in every large-scale relation- and houses representing the elementary organ- ship between capital and labor. The common town isms of its body; guilds, corporations, and offices, life remains within the Gemeinschaft of family the tissues and organs of the town. Here original and rural life; it is devoted to some agricultural kinship and inherited status remain an essential, or pursuits but concerns itself especially with art at least the most important, condition of participat- and handicraft which evolve from these natural ing fully in common property and other rights. needs and habits. City life, however, is sharply Strangers may be accepted and protected as distinguished from that; these basic activities serving-members or guests either temporarily or are used only as means and tools for the special permanently. Thus, they can belong to the purposes of the city. Gemeinschaft as objects, but not easily as agents The city is typical of Gesellschaft in general. and representatives of the Gemeinschaft. Children It is essentially a commercial town and, in so far are, during minority, dependent members of the as commerce dominates its productive labor, a family, but according to Roman custom they are factory town. Its wealth is capital wealth which, called free because it is anticipated that under in the form of trade, usury, or industrial capital, is possible and normal conditions they will certainly used and multiplies. Capital is the means for be masters, their own heirs. This is true neither of the appropriation of products of labor or for the guests nor of servants, either in the house or in the exploitation of workers. The city is also the center community. But honored guests can approach the of science and culture, which always go hand position of children. If they are adopted or civic in hand with commerce and industry. Here the rights are granted to them, they fully acquire this arts must make a living; they are exploited in a position with the right to inherit. Servants can be capitalistic way. Thoughts spread and change with esteemed or treated as guests or even, because of astonishing rapidity. Speeches and books through the value of their functions, take part as members mass distribution become stimuli of far-reaching in the activities of the group. It also happens importance. sometimes that they become natural or appointed The city is to be distinguished from the heirs. In reality there are many gradations, lower national capital, which, as residence of the court or higher, which are not exactly met by legal or center of government, manifests the features formulas. All these relationships can, under special of the city in many respects although its popula- circumstances, be transformed into merely interested tion and other conditions have not yet reached and dissolvable interchange between independent that level. In the synthesis of city and capital, the contracting parties. In the city such change, at Copyright © 2012. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved. highest form of this kind is achieved: the metro- least with regard to all relations of servitude, is only polis. It is the essence not only of a national natural and becomes more and more widespread Gesellschaft, but contains representatives from with its development. The difference between a whole group of nations, i.e., of the world. In the natives and strangers becomes irrelevant. Every- metropolis, money and capital are unlimited and one is what he is, through his personal freedom, almighty. It is able to produce and supply goods through his wealth and his contracts. He is a and science for the entire earth as well as laws servant only in so far as he has granted certain and public opinion for all nations. It represents services to someone else, master in so far as he the world market and world traffic; in it world receives such services. Wealth is, indeed, the only industries are concentrated. Its newspapers are effective and original differentiating characteristic; world papers, its people come from all corners of whereas in Gemeinschaften property it is con- the earth, being curious and hungry for money sidered as participation in the common owner- and pleasure. ship and as a specific legal concept is entirely the The Urban Sociology Reader, edited by Jan Lin, and Christopher Mele, Taylor & Francis Group, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bostoncollege-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1075388. Created from bostoncollege-ebooks on 2025-01-13 02:54:04.  “COMMUNITY AND SOCIETY” 21 consequence and result of freedom or ingenuity, cannot be revived by coercion and teaching. The either original or acquired. Therefore, wealth, to the state will then arrive at the conclusion that in extent that this is possible, corresponds to the order to create moral forces and moral beings it degree of freedom possessed. must prepare the ground and fulfill the necessary In the city as well as in the capital, and espe- conditions, or at least it must eliminate counteracting O cially in the metropolis, family life is decaying. The forces. The state, as the reason of Gesellschaft, N more and the longer their influence prevails the should decide to destroy Gesellschaft or at least to E more the residuals of family life acquire a purely reform or renew it. The success of such attempts accidental character. For there are only few who is highly improbable. will confine their energies within such a narrow circle; all are attracted outside by business, inter- ests, and pleasures, and thus separated from THE REAL STATE one another. The great and mighty, feeling free and independent, have always felt a strong inclination Public opinion, which brings the morality of to break through the barriers of the folkways and Gesellschaft into rules and formulas and can rise mores. They know that they can do as they please. above the state, has nevertheless decided tenden- They have the power to bring about changes in their cies to urge the state to use its irresistible power favor, and this is positive proof of individual to force everyone to do what is useful and to leave arbitrary power. The mechanism of money, under undone what is damaging. Extension of the penal usual conditions and if working under high code and the police power seems the right means pressure, is means to overcome all resistance, to to curb the evil impulses of the masses. Public obtain everything wanted and desired, to eliminate opinion passes easily from the demand for freedom all dangers and to cure all evil. This does not hold (for the upper classes) to that of despotism always. Even if all controls of the Gemeinschaft are (against the lower classes). The makeshift conven- eliminated, there are nevertheless controls in the tion has but little influence over the masses. In their Gesellschaft to which the free and independent striving for pleasure and entertainment they are individuals are subject. For Gesellschaft (in the limited only by the scarcity of the means which the narrower sense), convention takes to a large degree capitalists furnish them as price for their labor, the place of the folkways, mores, and religion. It which condition is as general as it is natural in a forbids much as detrimental to the common world where the interests of the capitalists and interest which the folkways, mores, and religion had merchants anticipated all possible needs and in condemned as evil in and of itself. mutual competition incite to the most varied The will of the state plays the same role expenditures of money. Only through fear of dis- through law courts and police, although within covery and punishments, that is, through fear of narrower limits. The laws of the state apply equally the state, is a special and large group, which en- to everyone; only children and lunatics are not held compasses far more people than the professional responsible to them. Convention maintains at least criminals, restrained in its desire to obtain the Copyright © 2012. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved. the appearance of morality; it is still related to the key to all necessary and unnecessary pleasures. folkways, mores, and religious and aesthetic feel- The state is their enemy. The state, to them, is an ing, although this feeling tends to become arbitrary alien and unfriendly power; although seemingly and formal. The state is hardly directly concerned authorized by them and embodying their own will, with morality. It has only to suppress and punish it is nevertheless opposed to all their needs and hostile actions which are detrimental to the desires, protecting property which they do not common weal or seemingly dangerous for itself possess, forcing them into military service for a and society. For as the state has to administer the country which offers them hearth and altar only in common weal, it must be able to define this as it the form of a heated room on the upper floor or pleases. In the end it will probably realize that no gives them, for native soil, city streets where increase in knowledge and culture alone will make they may stare at the glitter and luxury in lighted people kinder, less egotistic, and more content windows forever beyond their reach! Their own life and that dead folkways, mores, and religions is nothing but a constant alternative between work The Urban Sociology Reader, edited by Jan Lin, and Christopher Mele, Taylor & Francis Group, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bostoncollege-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1075388. Created from bostoncollege-ebooks on 2025-01-13 02:54:04.  22 FERDINAND TÖNNIES and leisure, which are both distorted into factory They proceed from class consciousness to routine and the low pleasure of the saloons. class struggle. This class struggle may destroy City life and Gesellschaft down the common society and the state which it is its purpose to people to decay and death; in vain they struggle reform. The entire culture has been transformed to attain power through their own multitude, into a civilization of state and Gesellschaft, and and it seems to them that they can use their this transformation means the doom of culture power only for a revolution if they want to free itself if none of its scattered seeds remain alive themselves from their fate. The masses become and again bring forth the essence and idea of conscious of this social position through the Gemeinschaft, thus secretly fostering a new culture education in schools and through newspapers. amidst the decaying one. Copyright © 2012. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved. The Urban Sociology Reader, edited by Jan Lin, and Christopher Mele, Taylor & Francis Group, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bostoncollege-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1075388. Created from bostoncollege-ebooks on 2025-01-13 02:54:04.