Caterina.net: Ferdinand Tonnies

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{ Thursday, August 24, 2006 }

Ferdinand Tonnies

Today Eric and Alex from Trustmojo came to talk to the TechDev team at Yahoo, and one of the many interesting things they brought up was the work of Ferdinand Tonnies, who I hadn't heard of before. His major work was Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft, or Community and Society, which can be distinguished, per Eric, like this:

Gemeinschaft (Community)	Gesellschaft (Society)
Village	City
Informal	Formal
Intimacy	Distance
Quality	Quantity
A lot of trust	Not much trust

And from the linked-to web site about Tonnies' work:

There is a contrast between a social order which--being based upon consensus of wills--rests on harmony and is developed and ennobled by folkways, mores, and religion, and an order which--being based upon a union of rational wills--rests on convention and agreement, is safeguarded by political legislation, and finds its ideological justification in public opinion.

LINK | 1:34 PM | TB

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{ COMMENTS }

Sure there is. The second is necessarily built upon the first, while the first is a necessity.

Paula | August 25, 2006 10:24 AM

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Ruchard Sennett's book 'The Fall of Public Man' is very good on this distinction.

Gabriel | August 25, 2006 11:48 AM

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I bet the internal sensation / consciousness is different in both as well. The first feels like choices made toward a desired outcome (connection). The second feels like one "has to" operate this way.

heather | August 25, 2006 2:27 PM

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