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Community and Society: History of The Concepts: Bo Stra TH, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

Community and society were originally understood as synonymous concepts in ancient Greece. Over time, philosophers began developing distinctions between the two. By the 19th century, community and society had become counterconcepts expressing social and institutional alternatives. Many philosophers and social theorists contributed contradictory and supplementary views on community and society, including Hobbes, Locke, Kant, Hegel, Durkheim, Marx, Tönnies, and Weber. Their debates helped establish sociology as a field and shaped modern understandings of social organization.
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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
160 views7 pages

Community and Society: History of The Concepts: Bo Stra TH, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

Community and society were originally understood as synonymous concepts in ancient Greece. Over time, philosophers began developing distinctions between the two. By the 19th century, community and society had become counterconcepts expressing social and institutional alternatives. Many philosophers and social theorists contributed contradictory and supplementary views on community and society, including Hobbes, Locke, Kant, Hegel, Durkheim, Marx, Tönnies, and Weber. Their debates helped establish sociology as a field and shaped modern understandings of social organization.
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Community and Society: History of the Concepts

Bo Strath, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland


2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Abstract

Community and society are key concepts in sociology, political theory, and philosophy of history. In ancient Greece,
community and society were kept together in one concept. Translated into the political organization of the Roman Republic
and Empire, the two concepts began to take on various meanings although without clear distinctions. During the nineteenth
century community and society split up and had become counterconcepts expressing social and institutional alternatives. The
roots of this separation were developed already in the eighteenth century. Together with another, closely connected, couple of
counterconcepts, state and society, they played a crucial role in the reection and the theory building in social sciences with
clear ideological and political implications. This article discusses the contradictory and supplementary views on the two
concepts expressed by philosophers like Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, Kant, Smith, Hume, Ferguson, Fichte, Herder, Hegel,
Durkheim, Marx, Engels, Tnnies, Weber, Simmel, Parsons, and Knig, and ends with a connection to the debate between the
communitarians and the libertarians during the last decades of the twentieth century.

Community and society are key concepts in sociology, political concept of society understood as synonymous with community
theory, and philosophy of history. In antique Greece, commu- a new concept of society emerged based on a conventional
nity and society were kept together in one concept. Translated meaning identical to that of the state in the modern sense of
into the political organization of the Roman Republic and the word.
Empire, the two concepts began to take on various meanings From the middle of the eighteenth century and increasingly
although without clear distinctions. The synonymity and the from the 1850s society and the social were seen as taking shape
ambiguity continued with the scholastic philosophy. In the between individuals or households and the political order.
eighteenth century the complexity of the conceptual eld around Almost all social thought during this period was preoccupied
the equivalent terms of community and society had increased with conceptualizing the collective entities that emerged within
and included communion, participation, joining, taking part, the social in order to describe and analyze their nature,
sharing, liaison, union, corporation, cooperative, friendship, stability, and ties of cohesion. Besides community and society,
brotherhood, fellowship, etc. Rooting in the eighteenth century concepts like nation, class, and culture were suggested. Societies
but explicitly only during the nineteenth century community were seen as organized by division of labor and social interests,
and society split up and had become counterconcepts express- by class struggle, or by culturallinguistic identity. This was the
ing social and institutional alternatives. Together with another, more general framework of the debate on community and
closely connected, couple of counterconcepts, state and society, society.
they played a crucial role in the reection and the theory- John Locke (16321704) emphasized the transformation
building in social sciences with clear ideological and political from the traditional view on social relationships, based on
implications. This article discusses the contradictory and supple- natural right, to the modern thought based on rationalism
mentary views on the two concepts expressed by philosophers and positive law, and replacing Aristotles teleological view
like Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, Kant, Smith, Hume, Ferguson, with the functional idea of collective security. The emphasis
Fichte, Herder, Hegel, Durkheim, Marx, Engels, Tnnies, Weber, on collective security should be seen in the context of the
Simmel, Parsons, and Knig, and ends with a connection to the growing role of private property. This development, wherein
debate between the communitarians and the libertarians during political philosophy society had become the preferred concept,
the last decades of the twentieth century. did not mean that community disappeared. With the exception
Community and society are key concepts in sociology and for political economy, where community was narrowed down
political and historical philosophy. In antique Greece, commu- to trade company, the denition of society as community
nity and society were kept together in one concept: remained in everyday language until the end of the eighteenth
(Choin onia). The antique Greek political philosophy did not century. Immanuel Kant (17241804) viewed society, in its
distinguish between the institutions of community and society. context of being based on reason and conventions among indi-
was translated into Latin as sometimes societas, viduals, as a dynamic totality, the elements of which acted with
sometimes communitas without clear distinction. With Thomas and against one another. The construction of community for
Hobbes (15881679) and Baruch Spinoza (163277) in the social exclusion and protection meant both inclusion and
seventeenth century nature and natural rights disappear as exclusion, the identication of both with whom and against
explanation of human collectivity. With the exception of the whom. The unsocial sociability (ungesellige Geselligkeit) of
family all forms of socialization and communalization (colle- humans drove them to form societies. However, this drive
gium, corporation, craft, parish, municipality, partnership, toward convention-based collectivity provoked resistance,
trading company, etc.) were secondary formations within a state and the threat of the dissolution of the society was permanent.
federation (civitas, res publica) constituted through a social Kants view was in this respect close to the school of English-
convention. Hobbes talked about systems of people, numbers Scottish moral philosophers (Adam Smith (172390), David
of men joined in one interest, one business. Instead of the Hume (171176), and Adam Ferguson (17231816)).

International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edition, Volume 4 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.03073-7 337
338 Community and Society: History of the Concepts

Kants question about a perfect society based on the free directions. Modern society is henceforth understood in terms
interaction among individuals was taken up by Johann of industrialization, division of labor, and democratization,
Gottlieb Fichte (17621814) at the beginning of the nine- processes that only had just begun when Hegel reected on
teenth century and put into a historical and linguistic-critical society, but were much more evident for Durkheim. His key
context. Although Fichte often used society and community question dealt with social solidarity, and how to bridge the
as synonymous terms, he exposed the two concepts, and that distance between the state and the individual. The point of
of state, to linguisticalcritical scrutiny observing the prevailing departure for Durkheim when he posed this question was the
conceptual confusion. debate about the nature of the moral and political sciences.
As far as the German-speaking area is concerned, around He was unsatised with the speculative character of political
1800 Johann Gottfried Herder (17441803) suggested philosophy. He was convinced neither by the individualistic
a distinction between community and society. His point of and utilitarian approach developed by Kant or in the classical
departure was the statesociety connection, where state political economy, nor by Hegels holistic enlightenment
emphasized the unity and closure of the collectivity, while romantic and mystical view on community, where the societies
society had a focus on the multiple and open forms of collec- had goals, which were above and beyond those of the individ-
tivity including those based on the individual rights. In order uals. Durkheim looked in his positivist and empiricist
to describe the relationship between state and church, approach for a position between Kant and Hegel for a society
Herder used society, based on Enlightenment reection on that was rather different than theirs. This debate was the very
the contextuality and historicity of religious forms. In order foundational moment of the social sciences in the contempo-
to emancipate the spirit and the mind, the Geist, from its entan- rary sense.
glement with the state, and to rediscover the suprahistorical The motor of the new turn of the debate was what in the
core of Christianity, Herder required the separation of society 1830s was identied as the social question. The spread of
and community, Gesellschaft and Gemeinschaft, where the latter industrial capitalism, with contract-based property rights and
term was used to describe the community of spirits indepen- wage labor, provoked new forms not only of property but
dent of the state. Herders distinction, which again took up also of poverty and proletarianization, which went beyond
the old Greek and Biblical-Christian concept and the curing capacity of the conventional tools of philanthropy
infused it with new meaning, failed however to go beyond and Christian charity. A systemic problem inherent in indus-
a specic religious vocabulary. trial capitalism was identied and a debate on what was
Kants moral philosophy provoked criticism from G.W.F. labeled the social issue emerged. With the ever stronger class
Hegel (17701831), who rejected the idea of the autonomous language of the working class the social question was in the
individual. In Hegels view the individual is certainly rational, 1870s transformed into the class question.
although rationality is historical and transindividual. The Durkheim emphasizes the role of religion in premodern
normative and legal order of a society could not have its point societies, in which, beyond the family, no other functionally
of departure in the idea of its individuals as a priori free, equal, cohesive institution other than religion existed. Religion
and rational. Humans are free only within a morally strong provided mechanical solidarity, which functioned as a social
community. Society is not based on convention but on cement. This mechanical solidarity can be related to Hobbess
morality. Such is Hegels view. The human effort, to be recog- understanding of society (and nature) as clockwork divinely
nized at individual levels, results in the emergence of various created but then going by itself. Post-Renaissance rationalism
communities, which are kept together by morally strong and the imagery of mechanical solidarity through religious
virtues, Sittlichkeit. The social community was linked to an cohesion, in the shape of Hobbes and others takes on new
ethical dimension, which, according to Hegel, appeared in meaning when in the second half of the nineteenth century
various shapes through history, which was nothing but the it was faced with a truly mechanical universe, i.e., the
development toward higher forms of ethical realization. The advances of physics, the division of labor, automated produc-
highest stage in this historical development was the state, tion, etc. In modern societies the division of labor changed the
which gave all its citizens true freedom through the conrma- preconditions for social cohesion. A need for coordination of
tion and recognition of them in a meaningful totality. The indi- functional relationships emerged. The societies had become
vidual is emancipated through subordination in the collective ever more complex with growing divergence among individ-
realization of Sittlichkeit. uals in their social orientation. Their interpretations of the
From this condensed rationalromantic version of commu- world did not necessarily converge toward one collective
nity, inspiration could be picked up a century later in Germany will. The state was the key instrument for collective action
for extreme versions of the concept, where it was linked to the when societies had developed a certain degree of complexity.
Volk (people) concept and political action orientation. The The ction of the state as the tool of social security emerged
difference between the individualistically oriented Kant and with a capacity to promote social integration through political
the collectivistic view of Hegel is not restricted to German and social reforms suggested by the social and political
history but is however more general and has been discernible sciences. This was the social state much more differentiated
in two alternative world views on community and society and with more tasks than the earlier state which basically
ever since. In the years around 2000 these alternatives were still was a war machine and a Hobbesian instrument for domestic
being expressed in the debate between liberals and social peace. The state as the instrumentalrational forms of
communitarians. belonging was connected to the imagery of the nation unied
Emile Durkheim (18581917) developed Hegels key ques- by organic, cultural, and social bonds integrating both civic
tion about the moral basis of modern societies in new and ethnic dimensions. With this kind of reection in the
Community and Society: History of the Concepts 339

wake of the growing social division of labor organic solidarity Karl Marx (181883) and Friedrich Engels (182095) fol-
arose alongside mechanical solidarity. lowed a different route. In their historical materialism, and in
A growing emphasis on ethnicity and a stronger demarca- their emphasis on the political role of the proletariat, they
tion to other nations accompanied the increasing social dimen- depreciated the concept of society (bourgeois). They reeval-
sion of nationalism. It was not by coincidence that Bismarcks uated the community concept with its derivative communism,
imagery of state socialism (below) went hand in hand with where socialism, with the same etymological origin as society,
the martial German unication, welfare with warfare. The was seen as a transitional phase toward communism, the nal
social conservatively oriented nationalism from the 1870s/ stage, where history ceased. Marx and Engels criticized the view
1880s onwards was different from the earlier liberal nation- of society in earlier French and British social history, where
alism with an emphasis on the civic dimension and with society was seen as a set of mutual interactions. They criticized
less interest in the demarcation between nations. Giuseppe this view of society as being a society of exchange in which
Mazzini (180572), a protagonist of liberal nationalism and every member was a merchant. The society Marx and Engels
the founder of both Young Italy and Young Europe, did not discerned was societies in plural, where each of them was deter-
see any problem in coexisting national projects peacefully mined by the specic ways in which the production was orga-
united in an international order. Nationalism and cosmopol- nized. In each type of society specic power relationships
itan internationalism constituted one another. prevailed. They followed one another in historical phases: the
The state as the functional answer to social differentiation original society (Urgesellschaft), slave society, feudal society,
and the problem of social disintegration in the wake of bourgeois or capitalist society, socialist society, and communist
economic integration, and the imagery of the nation as the community, where the merger into the old Greek
locus of social cohesion and community reinforced potenti- was fullled in a new action- and future-oriented utopia.
ating one another, although the nal merger between state Hegels problematization of the leading idea in moral
and nation in the modern nation states occurred only after philosophy and political economy, that society was based on
1945. Tensions emerged in multiethnic empires. One way to the individuals and their agreement on conventions, consti-
solve such tensions was reinforced nationalism at the imperial tuted in the German-speaking area a step in the development
level under demarcation to other empires and underpinning from the traditional to the critical theory of society (cf Ruda
the colonial extension of empires. The empires in struggle for (2011) and Honneth (2011)). The critical thought was a core
survival (Charles Darwin (180982) and Herbert Spencer dimension of the enlightenment philosophy (Koselleck, 1989
(18201903)) with other empires promoted social cohesion, [1959]). It became more pronounced through the debate on
and social imperialism. The nineteenth-century location of the social question and from the 1870s onwards to the class
nation varied under more or less tension between a specic question. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were protagonists in
state and within a multinational empire which accommodated the development of critical thought. Also positivism in the
several nationalities. wake of Auguste Comte (17981857) and French cultural radi-
Durkheim problematizes the mediation between the indi- calism in the 1880s promoted the attention to criticism. These
vidual and the society in different directions and from different developments culminated in the critical theory established in
points of departure. The political philosophy of Enlightenment the 1930s by Max Horkheimer (18951973), Theodor Adorno
focused on concepts like peoples sovereignty and political (190369) and their circle with a Marxist subtext but inu-
representation and on the issue of the institutional distribution enced also by Hegel and Freud (the Frankfurt school). Their
of power. With intensied industrialization, capital concentra- long chain of critical thought introduced new basic concepts
tion, the rise of the labor movement, and ideas of universal and distinguished between society and community, between
suffrage, the theoretical framework provided by the Enlighten- society and state, and between brgerliche (the German term
ment philosophers had become insufcient. New forms of rela- connotes in English translation both bourgeois and civil)
tionships between the individual and the state levels had to be society and society. This critical social theory must be seen in
developed. In this context Durkheim evokes the notion of the context of the social revolutionary movement, which
secondary institutions and develops ideas about what kind of emerged in the nineteenth century. This movement could be
organizational forms would t an industrial society. seen as a response to the crisis, which since the French Revolu-
Taking his theoretical point of departure in his idea of divi- tion, and with the industrial revolution, marked the everyday
sion of labor as the basic principle of modern societies, he experiences in Europe and gradually also beyond Europe. Crit-
suggests interest-based representation through corporations ical theory was an alternative reection on society and commu-
rather than territory-based political representation. The corpo- nity with respect to Durkheims, based on ideas of functional
rations would reect modern professions rather than tradi- differentiation and division of labor.
tional crafts and estates. In his functionalist approach Politically the most long-term important element of the
Durkheim developed a moral theory in which he paid relatively tradition of critical thought was the conceptualization of
little attention to questions of power and authority structures a social history, or history of society, Gesellschaftsgeschichte,
and social inequality. However his view on morality based with explicit connection of historical processes to social theo-
on corporate representation and related to his idea of solidarity ries, in particular those designed by Max Weber but partly
indicated the social question. The political function of the also Karl Marx. Long before the French revolution German
secondary institutions was both to keep the state sufciently scholars had propagated a historical approach to political,
free from inuences from the masses, so that the state could constitutional, and legal questions under demarcation to the
fulll its role as the shaper of the society, and to protect the unhistorical rationalism of the French philosophes. Legal
individuals from oppression by the state. scholars insisted on the value of empirical positive law. The
340 Community and Society: History of the Concepts

historical school argued that economic performance and social economy, Nationalkonomie, met to discuss how to promote
organization could not be conceptualized in universal cate- state intervention in social issues on the basis of historical
gories but had to be understood in the framework of customs, economic investigations. In 1873, they founded the Verein fr
legal norms, political institutions and practices, culture and the Sozialpolitik, the Association for Social Politics. The establish-
economic organization and practices of the production of ment of the professors association for social politics stood in
subsistence and wealth, which all had emerged and grown close connection to the foundation of the German Reich
historically, specic for each people. An academic key disci- in 1871.
pline in this development was law. Friedrich Carl von Savigny Supported by this academic trend, German Chancellor Otto
(17791861) and Carl Friedrich Eichhorn (17811854) devel- von Bismarcks great political achievement was the appropria-
oped the historical school where they emphasized the histor- tion of the national question from the liberals and the social
ical tradition as opposed to speculation in natural right question from the socialists making nationalism and ideas of
philosophy. The focus was on the sources of law as they had a social state (Sozialstaat) conservative virtues.
emerged from the spirit of the people. The efforts of the histor- The political intention of the association of economists was
ical school aimed at the reconstruction of a national past paral- fully focusing on the state. Despite all socialist reproaches from
leling and reinforcing the movement toward political and legal classical laissez-faire-oriented economists, who referred to the
unity of a unied German state. members of the association as Kathedersozialisten, alluding
The historicists put the classical economic theory in to their academic chairs, a label which soon broke through in
economics in the wake of Adam Smith under pressure. the public debate in Germany and abroad, the members
Already the older historical school (Gustav Schmoller) with of the association saw themselves in a mediating position
names like Wilhelm Roscher (181794), Bruno Hildebrand between socialists and market apologetics. The task of the asso-
(181278), and Karl Knies (182198) had begun to under- ciation was to become a forum in which academic, economic
mine the classical theory with arguments about the historicity and politicaladministrative elites could communicate about
and contextuality of economic and social processes. Not necessary measures to be undertaken on the basis of social
abstract models or universal laws of how the economies func- scientic research results. An urgent requirement was the estab-
tioned, but the historical experiences laid down in political, lishment of a public debate, a brgerliche ffentlichkiet. The idea
social and economic institutions, and widely varying from of social politics was based on the conscious insight that state
country to country, explained the functioning and the devel- and society necessarily had to be activated in order to establish
opment of the economy in each specic case. This was the a balance between the social interests drifting apart.
view that Friedrich Carl von Savigny had applied to legal In France the development was similar although there the
interpretations, and which from there evolved a methodology academic discipline was sociology, in particular in the version
in other academic disciplines, not the least political economy. developed by mile Durkheim. The development was some-
The center of this academic movement against universalism what later in the framework of the Third Republic. However,
was Germany. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels tried to develop also in political theory there was a movement from the
a historical universalism with a certain degree of openness emphasis on neoclassical theory toward historically-cum-
toward historical variety. analytically derived theories for state intervention. In the
The younger historical school with Gustav Schmoller sciences morales et politiques, too, efforts emerged to develop
(18381917) as uncontested protagonist gave the historicist a political science aiming at supporting national action capacity
approach greater cohesion and more punch. He confronted in the social eld, not least in the teaching for the cadres of the
the axiomaticdeductive approach of classical economics. He administrative elite.
was critical to what the economists in the classical tradition A few years after the death of Karl Marx and after ever
argued to be regularities and conformity to law in economic stronger experiences of industrial change and economic
life. Their theory about rationally acting economic individuals concentration, Ferdinand Tnnies (18551936), analyzed
led astray. Only the historical view on society and humans quite differently, but still with a utopian embedding of the
could provide interpretative power to developments and community concept, the connection between Gemeinschaft
behavior. and Gesellschaft. In his view community took on a social
The economists did not accept the criticism of Schmoller romantic meaning connoting an archaic past based on the
and the other historicists, but hit back. They were later to go family and providing feelings of holism. His utopia was pro-
under the label of the neoclassical school with their neoclassi- jected toward the past instead of the future. Society was the
cal theory. Schmoller called them the Austrian school to term used to describe the breaking-up of this past through
suggest provincialism in a disliking review of a book by Carl industrialization, social disintegration, and experiences of
Menger (18401921) which attacked the methods of the atomism. Tnnies saw communism as a cultural system of
historical school. The debate that followed came to become community and socialism as the cultural system of society,
known as the Methodenstreit. i.e., communism was rather referred to as a historical or even
In the 1870s social sciences and social politics had become archaic category, a kind of prototype, while socialism reected
ever more intertwined in Germany, social political and social the industrial society.
scientic intentions merged. After the violent unication of Tnnies subordination of society to community had long-
a German nation through Bismarcks wars with the neigh- term political impact. Community was, in his view, in all socio-
boring countries the turn came to domestic national integra- logical conceptualizations the superior and in all historical
tion. Social sciences and social politics were effective analyses the anterior concept. Community was the dialectical
instruments here. In 1872, a group of professors of political womb from which society arose in historical processes. The
Community and Society: History of the Concepts 341

concept of society described the law-bound normal process of Scheler (18741928) identied community as a person sui
the decline of all community: the same process that Marx and generis, a person of persons as opposed to society, which
Engels in accordance with Hegels idealistic philosophy and was nothing but the sum of its individuals. He thus reinforced
their criticalnormative prognosis, where society had become Tnnies distinction. Community was based on blood, tradi-
community described as emancipation and a development tion, and historicity, while society was the waste product of
toward higher stages of social organization, Tnnies analyzed internal disintegrative processes in the community. Society
as decay, as inexorable as the coming communism in the was synonymous with public, which continuously removed
view of Marx and Engels. The only future hope that Tnnies Marx would have said alienated the individual. Community
could discern was weak: that the force of the community also was synonymous with personal solidarity, which reintegrated
within the era of society would remain although it was the individual. In Durkheimian terms this was a move from
declining. The community could in his view be promoted organic toward mechanical solidarity.
through the cooperative movement and through the trade Already before World War II, Talcott Parsons (190279)
union and solidarity idea in the labor movement. developed a view where community and society were seen as
Although Tnnies concept of society includes the totality of key concepts in structuralfunctional alternatives of value orien-
the relationships among the individuals mediated through tation, pattern variables: affectivity versus affective neutrality,
exchange, and in this respect can be historically situated, this particularity versus universalism, ascription versus achievement,
historical location involves conceptual distinctions which diffuseness versus specicity. His approach was one, where, like
cannot be justied either in genetic or in linguisticcritical in the German debate, the two concepts were separated, but for
terms. Both Max Weber (18641920) and Georg Simmel the rest his contribution was very different from the German
(18581918) observed this inconsistency and tried to solve it debate.
through a paradigmatic change of the sociological terminology. In the 1950s Ren Knig (190692) was one of the
To consider social institutions like state, church, the coopera- leading gures in the reconstruction of German sociology.
tive (Genossenschaft) as independent entities preceding the indi- He argued vehemently against Tnnies dichotomy and use
vidual and attach them to a general society concept was in of the Gemeinschaft concept. He argued from his basically
Webers view a metaphysic residual, which needed to be over- Durkheimian perspective for an empirically oriented sociology
come. He replaced society as a basic sociological concept with with bridges to the American functionalism, where Talcott
the term Vergesellschaftung, societalization, an extremely Parsons was a leading gure, as a source of inspiration, and
general concept containing all forms of rationally motivated warned against any attempt to conceptualize society as
interest relationships under one umbrella concept. The general- a totality, which only would lead to speculation and dogma-
ization of the sociological conceptual framework around the tism. Community in the German form of Gemeinschaft was in
term Vergesellschaftung certainly described processes and social the 1950s rejected from the political and sociological vocabu-
change, but was basically ahistorical, where the analysis of lary and society emerged instead in the 1960s as the key
the development was deprived of historical contextualization. concept to describe and analyze the social organization.
Ahistorical here does not mean a lack of a chronological dimen- At the same time as Knig in Germany warned against the
sion but refers to the fact that the social dynamics was deeply Gemeinschaft, concept community had become the name of
teleological losing the openness and contingency of historical the European integration project in the 1950s. One of the key
processes out of sight. Historical contexts were understood as problems when this project was formulated was how to make
cultural tragedy (Simmel) or destiny of the rationalization Germany a strong ally in the Cold War and at the same time
of society through science with total disenchantment as the guarantee that the strength was controllable for its allies. The
nal outcome of the Vergesellschaftung (Weber). The process main architects of this design came, in particular, from the
of dehistorization of the concept of society that Tnnies began USA, the victor, but also from France, where the concern about
with his outline of a universal process, and Weber continued the key problem for historical reasons was particularly great.
with his criticism of Tnnies, had the effect of drawing growing There, communaut, for historical reasons, in the 1950s had
attention to the community concept. Gemeinschaft, which can a much more positive value charge than Gemeinschaft in
be seen as a kind of pseudohistorization, had become topical. Germany integrating Durkheims organic solidarity based on
With the introduction of the concept of community in this way functional division of labor. Moreover, the Communaut
the sociological theory in Germany unintentionally opened up Europenne was a concept that bypassed the conceptual bias
for the reactionary, opposition against the industrial society. on state and state sovereignty in international relations theory
While in other European languages society and community and international law. In the form of the European Community
remained synonymous concepts in the wake of the historical in German translation, Gemeinschaft came back in as a political
school and Durkheim, who had narrowed down the gap concept and an intellectual tool to promote the German incor-
between these two concepts that the enlightenment philoso- poration in the West European Alliance in the Cold War, and
phers had opened up Gemeinschaft had become in Germany which, therefore, was disconnected from its historical heritage
an ideological key concept connected to another highly ideol- in the German speech area. When European integration in
ogized crucial concept: the Volk. The ideological entanglement the 1970s was exposed to strains, the idea of a European iden-
of the two concepts had become a nationalconservative tity emerged connected to ideas of a supranational Europe. This
instrument to mobilize the vlkische movement after World intensication of the European Community concept was
War I against socialism, capitalism, and industrialism. emphasized in the 1990s when community was changed for
The cult and the dogmatization of the Gemeinschaft concept union. This European development can be understood as
were also conrmed in German philosophy at this time. Max part of a modernization theory which was resurfacing with
342 Community and Society: History of the Concepts

a communitarian twist in the 1990s as the reverse side of the In the debate, communitarianism has been dismissed both as
liberal post-Soviet coin: the economist globalization rhetoric little more than a corrective to the excesses of liberalism and as
about prot-maximizing individuals on global markets untied a form of old-fashioned collectivism. In the framework of the
from suffocating social ties. The imagery of social individuals former view approaches have emerged, which can be described
freed from social bounds created its counterimagery of individ- as a merger between liberalism and communitarianism. Michael
uals tied together in a European Union with a European identity. Walzer (b. 1935) sees communitarian thought as a permanently
The homogenizing discourse on a European identity attempted recurring corrective to liberalism (1983). Charles Taylor
to provide the glue to bind a European community together. (b. 1931) is another leading name in this approach. Taylor
Such a theory of social integration, which took for granted that and Walzer are often referred to as liberal communitarians.
cultural cohesion existed for national societies, and then simply The theoretical debate moved from the thick communitarian
transferred the idea of state formation onto a supranational critique of thin liberalism to positions that combine elements
European level, built around the concept of European identity, of both. This trend was nurtured not the least from legal theory
missed the point that the nineteenth-century construction of where a strong recent republican turn aspires to hold both
the nations in Europe did not start from preexisting units but communitarian ideals and democratic participation together.
emerged slowly in a tough and often violent conict around The law was seen as sustaining community and promoting the
the social and the class issues. The nations were the outcomes common good to be negotiated through participation in a polity
of these conicts, not the point of departure. The nal compro- where liberal rights guaranteed that bargaining is uncoerced.
mise around the social conict was the merger of the state and Also, the globalization discourse on the emergence of a globally
the nation in the nation-states after 1945. The problem in trans- rather than nationally organized economic order promoted the
lating the national experiences since the 1830s into a European trend of closure between liberalism and communitarianism.
future, revealed in todays European crisis, is the lack of a social The attempts to reestablish community, experienced as being
dimension in the European construct. A process of renationaliza- lost to transnational globally operating forces, resulted in liberal
tion accompanies the nancial crisis. The general theoretical politics of recognition of cultural alternatives in the name of
framework of the problem of the tension between economic multiculturalism, which, in turn, has become a concept with
integration and social disintegration is the debate between liber- negative connotation in the wake of the expanding global
tarians and communitarians in social sciences since the 1970s, migration, in addition to the originally positive value charge.
which debate, in turn, in a long historical view could be seen Multiculturalism does not only mean respect of cultural differ-
as continuity under transformation of the bicentenary debate ence, but also acceptance of social inequalities. The historical
between Kantians and Hegelians. A point of departure for this search for a concept that unies individual freedom and social
theoretical debate was John Rawlss (19212002) A Theory of solidarity continues.
Justice (1971). Erected in the tradition of contract theories and
Kantian liberalism his theory bypassed the questions of political See also: Communitarianism, Sociology of; Community
obligation and the welfare state through the idea of distributive Sociology; Community Studies: Anthropological; Community,
rights in individualist terms. Utilitarian philosophers objected Social Context of: The US Case; Durkheim, Emile (18581917);
but in the long term the most substantive opposition to the Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (17701831); Individualism
neo-Kantian approach emerged from the communitarians. versus Collectivism: Philosophical Aspects; Individuals in
The debate between the liberals and the communitarians had Society: History of the Concept; Kant, Immanuel (17241804);
become one of the most important issues in political philosophy Law and Society; Libertarianism; Society and People: History of
in the 1980s. Methodologically the communitarians argued that the Concept; State and Society: History of the Concept.
the premise of individualism such as the idea of free and rational
choice is wrong or biased and neglects the social, cultural, and
historical contexts in which individuals act. In order to under-
stand individuals one must look at their communities and
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