Gemeinschaft (German pronunciation:[ɡəˈmaɪnʃaft]ⓘ) andGesellschaft ([ɡəˈzɛlʃaft]ⓘ), generally translated as "community andsociety", are categories which were used by theGermansociologistFerdinand Tönnies in order to categorizesocial relationships into two types.[1] The Gesellschaft is associated with modern society and rational self-interest, which weakens the traditional bonds of family and local community that typify the Gemeinschaft.Max Weber, a founding figure in sociology, also wrote extensively about the relationship betweenGemeinschaft andGesellschaft. Weber wrote in direct response to Tönnies.[2][3]
According to the dichotomy, social ties can be categorized, on one hand, as belonging to personalsocial interactions, and the roles, values, and beliefs based on such interactions (Gemeinschaft, German, commonly translated as "community"), or on the other hand as belonging to indirect interactions, impersonal roles, formal values, and beliefs based on such interactions (Gesellschaft, German, commonly translated associety as in association, corporation, including company, modernstate and academia).[4] TheGemeinschaft–Gesellschaftdichotomy was proposed by Tönnies as a purely conceptual tool rather than as anideal type in the way it was used byMax Weber to accentuate the key elements of a historical social change.
Tönnies was aThomas Hobbes scholar—he edited the standard modern editions of Hobbes'sThe Elements of Law[5] andLeviathan.[6] It was his study of Hobbes that encouraged Tönnies to devote himself wholly to thephilosophy of history and thephilosophy of law. And it has been argued that he derived both categories from Hobbes's concepts of "concord" and "union".[7]
The second edition, published in 1912, of the work in which Tönnies further promoted the concepts turned out to be an unexpected but lasting success[8] after the first edition was published in 1887 with the subtitle "Treatise on Communism and Socialism as Empirical Patterns of Culture".[9] Seven more German editions followed, the last in 1935,[10] and it became part of the general stock of ideas with which pre-1933 German intellectuals were quite familiar. The book sparked a revival ofcorporatist thinking, including the rise ofneo-medievalism, the rise of support forguild socialism, and caused major changes in the field of sociology.[11] The distinction between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft was a large part of the discussion and debate about what constitutes community, among heavily influenced social theorists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century such asGeorg Simmel,Émile Durkheim andMax Weber.[12]
The conceptsGemeinschaft andGesellschaft were also used by Max Weber inEconomy and Society, which was first published in 1921. Weber wrote in direct response to Tönnies,[3] and argued thatGemeinschaft is rooted in a "subjective feeling" that may be "affectual or traditional".Gesellschaft-based relationships, according to Weber, are rooted in "rational agreement by mutual consent", the best example of which is a commercial contract. To emphasize the fluidity and amorphousness of the relationship betweenGemeinschaft andGesellschaft, Weber modified the terms in German toVergemeinschaftung, andVergesellschaftung, which are thegerund forms of the German words.[13] Weber's distinction betweenGemeinschaft andGesellschaft is highlighted in the essay "Classes, Stände, Parties",[14] which is the basis for Weber'sthree-component theory of stratification.
Having put forward his conception of theGemeinschaft–Gesellschaft dichotomy, Tönnies was drawn into a sharp polemic withÉmile Durkheim. In a review of Tönnies's book in 1889, Durkheim interpretedGemeinschaft as havingmechanical solidarity, andGesellschaft as havingorganic solidarity, reproaching Tönnies for considering the second type of social organisation artificial and not expanding on the transition from the one type to the other. Durkheim stated that Tönnies's approach to understandingGesellschaft was "completely ideological" but that "one cannot fail to recognize in this book truly forceful thinking and an uncommon power of organization."[15]: 1198–1199 Tönnies did not agree with Durkheim's interpretation of his views, and in turn, when reviewing Durkheim'sThe Division of Labour in Society (1896), wrote that Durkheim failed to deal critically enough with the division of labor and that Durkheim's whole sociology was a modification ofSpencer's (who had his own dichotomy between what he called the "militant society" and the "industrial society").[15]
InWorld War I propaganda self-sacrificing (virtuous) women were portrayed as the heart of theGemeinschaft by providing the model for the dutiful wartime home maker supporting the war effort by sending their men (husbands and sons) to serve in the war, and maintaining thehome in their absence. (In the wartime propaganda this "virtuous woman" was an ideal contrasted to less desirable archetypes that was presented as immoral or unethical women).[16]
Eric Hobsbawm argued that, asglobalization turns the entire planet into an increasingly remote kind ofGesellschaft, so too collectiveidentity politics seeks for a fictitious remaking of the qualities ofGemeinschaft by artificially reforging group bonds and identities.[1]
Fredric Jameson highlights the ambivalent envy felt by those constructed byGesellschaft for remaining enclaves ofGemeinschaft, even as they inevitably corrode their existence.[17]
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