ancient cities

296 Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft
Ge m e i n s c h a f t a n d
Ge s e l l s c h a f t
Gemeinschaft and Gesselschaft are two abstract
concepts developed by Ferdinand Tönnies to
encapsulate the characteristics of society as it
shifted from a rural base and reliance on agriculture
to dependence on commerce within an urban
setting. Gemeinschaft highlights community relations
based on kinship in a preindustrial, agrarian
society; many of these associations are extolled.
Conversely, Gesellschaft is presented on the whole
as a critique to modernity, with relationships
based on economic transactions.
The concept is highly significant to urban studies
as it warns against some of the threats of
modernity that are more typically found in an
urban setting. Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft
denote relations between individuals within social
structures while paying attention to the importance
of human will. The ascent of Gesellschafttype
relations denotes an enhanced role for the
state in representing the interests of society. Social
entities and norms and the shifting role of the
nation-state are therefore embedded within the
analysis. This entry begins with a discussion of
Tönnies and then provides a more extended analysis
of his influential ideas.
Biographical Background
Ferdinand Tönnies, along with Max Weber and
Georg Simmel, is described as one of the fathers of
classical German sociology. Like them, he sought
to learn from the past in order to understand the
future, and in so doing, he considered the characteristics
of societies both traditional and modern.
In his works he was heavily influenced by Hobbes
and his theory of the human will. Today, and
together with Simmel, he is credited with providing
a leading contribution to urban sociology.
Tönnies grew up on a farm in Germany and
witnessed the impact of both commercialization
and mechanization on daily life. The historical
context for ideas has relevance because they were
promoted at a time when European society was
experiencing a transition from an agrarian base to
one that was increasingly reliant on commerce and
trade. There was a fascination across the continent
with the implications of modernity for traditional
society; as evidenced in the works of Émile
Durkheim and Weber.
At the end of the nineteenth century, Tönnies
published the book Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft.
This first edition (1887) gained a very limited readership,
allegedly because of the old Germanic style
of writing. Tönnies was ultimately a prolific writer
in his native language, but it is often claimed that
his work has been somewhat neglected. While
seven German language editions were published
between 1912 and 1940, an English language publication
of the original book did not appear until
the latter half of the twentieth century.
Tönnies had no advocate within Europe and
beyond Germany. The impact of his work is therefore
much less apparent. But closer scrutiny of
twentieth-century sociology reveals a less than
wholesale disregard of his work within a European
context. Clearly, we see evidence of Tönnies’s central
ideas within theories of urbanization and associated
dichotomies of urban and rural ways of life.
His thinking is further implied in many of the community
studies debates that emanated from the
United Kingdom during the 1970s. Indeed, his
influence is sometimes considered so hidden and
inferred so that while the basic theory is well
known, it is not widely read and as a result it is not
fully understood.
The book was written in the positivist tradition,
meaning that it is descriptive. But it also offers opinion
and ultimately seeks to provide an archetype
for the ideal society. Broadly, Gemeinschaft and
Gesellschaft provide a mechanism for understanding
relations of community and society. Even
though Tönnies was a progressive, the book provides
an explanation of the major elements of the
conservative style of thought that represented the
German intellectual thought of the time. He tapped
into a European fascination with modernity: Just as
Durkheim expressed concern for the emergent modern
society with the loss of social integration and the
rise in suicide, Tönnies sought to understand the
perils of modernity using social relationships.
Although the theory is often approximated to
relations within rural (Gemeinschaft) and urban
(Gesellschaft) societies, the two are not mutually
exclusive. In other words, the dual concept intermingles
within many social relations and a steady
progression from one to the other is not necessarily