EVELINA BARBASHINA TÖNNIES, FERDINAND (1855–1936)

EVELINA BARBASHINA TÖNNIES, FERDINAND (1855–1936)

Ferdinand Julius Tönnies, the erstwhile Professor of Economics and Political Science in Kiel, Germany, is also regarded as the ‘first German sociologist’. Tönnies, who was born in the small farming community of Riep near Oldenswort on 26 July 1855, ranks with thinkers like AUGUSTE COMTE, HERBERT SPENCER, EMILE DURKHEIM, MAX WEBER and GEORG SIMMEL among the ‘founding fathers’ of modern sociology. His writings offer a wide-ranging perspective on the social, cultural and philosophical concerns that characterized the final third of the nineteenth as well as the first three decades of the twentieth century. But many of his theoretical concerns, which cover an exceptionally broad thematic spectrum, have lost nothing of their validity today. Particularly his writings on Thomas Hobbes (Tönnies was president of the British Thomas Hobbes Society and one of the foremost Hobbes scholars of his times) are exceptionally fruitful scholarly expositions, but so are many of his smaller writings, like his famous book on the Kritik der öffentlichen Meinung (1922) or his numerous writings on education.

For various reasons though, Tönnies is mostly identified with his distinction between the antagonistic pair of Gemeinschaft (‘community’) and Gesellschaft (‘society’), which

he most famously developed in his book Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft: Abhandlung des Komunismus and des Sozialismus als empirischer Kulturformen (1887), as well as in several smaller articles and expositions published in consecutive years.

In his book Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft Tönnies argued that the socio-cultural development of ‘modernity’ (Tönnies actually never uses this term, as he clearly preferred to use the term Neuzeit, which seemed more ‘neutral’ to him) can be explained by the historically traceable differences in the ways and common features of human social life, which characterize pre-modern organic ‘communities’ and modern mechanistic ‘societies’ respectively. In short, therefore, Tönnies’s distinction relies on a conception of ‘modernity’ (i.e. industrial ‘societies’, capitalism, democracy, etc.) as simply being something distinctly different from what is taken to precede it (i.e. pre- modern agricultural ‘communities’, bartering, feudalism, etc.) or to coexist with it outside Europe and in the Europeanized societies of North America.

In his study Tönnies primarily summarizes the relationship between the individuals who make up a Gemeinschaft and a Gesellschaft respectively, as well as their

Entries A-Z 679

corresponding ‘social’ (and to some degrees at least also ‘cultural’) identities by stressing that they can either be grasped as ‘organic’ and ‘real’, which he regards as the quintessential ‘essence’ of Gemeinschaft, or they can be grasped as an ‘ideational’ and ‘mechanical’ construct, which Tönnies regards as the quintessential ‘essence’ of Gesellschaft . Consequently Tönnies refers to Gesellschaft as the realm of the ‘public sphere’ or Öffentlichkeit, and in distinction argues that one finds oneself in the realm of Gemeinschaft from the beginning of one’s life onwards, and that one is, therefore, also bound to this realm with all possible consequences—negative or positive. Yet in contrast one enters the realm of Gesellschaft, as if one entered ‘unknown territories’ or, as Tönnies calls it, die Fremde. Gemeinschaft, therefore, represents a ‘lasting’ and ‘authentic’ form of ‘social life’ (Zusammenleben), while Gesellschaft only represents a ‘passing’ and ‘superficially structured’ form of ‘social life’. In consequence, Tönnies defines Gemeinschaft as a ‘living organism’, while he defines Gesellschaft as a ‘mechanical aggregate and inorganic artefact’.

In the social realm of Gemeinschaft, people are, therefore, ‘essentially connected’ (wesentlich verbunden) with each other, while they are ‘essentially separated’ (wesentlich getrennt) from each other in the social realm of Gesellschaft. The result of this is, that while people are ‘essentially connected’ with each other in the social realm of Gemeinschaft, despite what might separate them individually, they are ‘essentially separated’ from each other in the social realm of Gesellschaft, despite what might connect them individually.

This decisive difference in the relationship between the individuals who make up a ‘community’ and a ‘society’ respectively, as well as their different corresponding social identities, are also reflected in the two forms of ‘will’. Tönnies associates with the terms Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft respectively. Tönnies argues that on a ‘psychological level’ the antagonistic pair of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft coincides with the chasm between what he calls Wesenwille and Kürwille, where Wesenwille is the form of ‘will’ characteristic of ‘community’, and where Kürwille is the form of ‘will’ characteristic of ‘society’. The theory of ‘community’, therefore, asserts a total and organic ‘unity’ of collective communal ‘wills’, while the theory of ‘society’ asserts a total and inorganic (or even mechanistic) ‘separation’ of individual ‘wills’. In his book Philosophische Terminologie in psychologisch-soziologischer Ansicht, first published in 1906, Tonnies explains the nature of the two different forms of will as ‘natural’ on the one hand, and as ‘artificial’ on the other: ‘We refer to a form of will as “natural”, if it mainly consists of emotions (Gefühle), while we refer to a form of will as “artificial”, if it mainly consists of thoughts (Gedanken).’

Wesenwille is consequently understood as a real and natural unity of emotions, drives and desires that influence the thoughts and actions of the individuals who comprise a Gemeinschaft (qualitatively their actions are, therefore, characterized by virtue, honesty, kindness and loyalty). Wesenwille is thus best described as a ‘unity of life’. Consequently Wesenwille is the psychological equivalent of the human body or the principle of the ‘unity of life’, particularly if this principle is thought of as a vital part of that form of reality which involves the process of thinking, as Tönnies argues. As a result, Wesenwille clearly involves this process of thinking for Tönnies, and it also means that the strong desire to will one’s own Ursprung or ‘origin’ determines the social identities of the individuals who make up a ‘community’. It is a vital part of their social identities to will

Encyclopedia of nineteenth-century thought 680

this origin, and to be aware of and know this origin at the same time. In clear contrast to the animal (and plant) world, the continued preservation of mankind, therefore, clearly depends on knowledge, but as far as Tönnies is concerned this knowledge is mainly related to the knowledge and awareness of one’s own Ursprung or ‘origin’.

Kürwille, however, is defined as an artificial construct of the process of thinking, which is originally conditioned by the communal features of Wesenwille, but is mainly shaped by an egoistic element of ‘striving’ or Bestreben as well as by an egoistic element of ‘cunning’ or Berechnung, which outweigh the communal and altruistic features of the original condition. Kürwille is thus best defined as an artificial construct of the process of thinking as such, which only gains an independent reality with reference and relation to its originator or the subject of thought, even if this independent reality can also be both realized and acknowledged by other subjects as well. In consequence Kürwille, therefore, essentially means that a definite degree of Willkür (Tönnies actually used this term to describe the form of ‘will’ characteristic of society until the third edition of his book when he changed it to Kürwille) or a ‘will at random’, i.e. an ‘arbitrary will’, determines the social identities of the individuals who make up a ‘society’, which thus gives rise to a meaningless ‘uniformity of life’. Thus Kürwille results from the abstraction of everything real, concrete and original, and constantly looks for their transformation into the meaningless ‘uniformity of life’, which basically consists of everything that has become similar and is, therefore, no longer individually differentiable.

Tönnies’s book and the various perspectives it offered gained a considerable influence on mainstream sociology. Even though the convinced social democrat Tönnies just wanted to define fundamental sociological categories and explicitly warned of ‘false interpretations and seemingly clever attempts at their concrete utilisation’ his critical analysis of Gesellschaft and his seemingly implicit preference for and appraisal of Gemeinschaft gained a strong ideological momentum in openly nationalist movements in Germany, which were keen to show the dangers of modern ‘society’ and wanted to re- establish the values inherent in and associated with the concept of ‘community’. Against his own will, Tonnies’s concept of Gemeinschaft was misinterpreted by the national socialist ideologues, who applied a v őlkisch reading to it and coined the dangerous phrase of a Volksgemeinschaft. How mistaken, yet fateful this interpretation actually was, is well known, but many of the ambiguities of Tönnies’s book are at least in part due to the fundamental flaws inherent in oversimplifying binary antitheses like Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft . Banned from teaching and stripped of his state pension by the National Socialist government, Tonnies died increasingly isolated and impoverished on 9 April 1936 in Kiel.