SOC308 - Community in Sociology: Concepts and Factors Analysis

This essay delves into the sociological concept of community, tracing its evolution through the perspectives of classical and contemporary sociologists. It begins by contrasting Ferdinand Tonnies' Gemeinschaft and Gesselschaft, and then connects these concepts to Durkheim's mechanical and organic solidarity. The essay then examines the contributions of Weber, Simmel, and Etzioni, highlighting their views on the changing nature of community in modern and globalized societies. Furthermore, the essay analyzes the factors affecting community, with a specific focus on social diversity in the Australian context, exploring the interplay of cultural identities and the impact of multiculturalism. The analysis uses Durkheim's concept of suicide to illustrate the coexistence of diverse communities and the importance of tolerance and inclusion, drawing upon the ideas of Will Kymlika. The essay emphasizes the dynamic nature of community in response to societal changes driven by technology, globalization, and evolving social structures.

Running head: COMMUNITY IN SOCIOLOGY
COMMUNITY IN SOCIOLOGY
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Answer 1
The sociological concept of community has been subject to change down the history
which have been a response to the changing nature of the social structure. The classical
sociologists have had a different perspective of community which are different from the
contemporary ones given the fact that the society has transformed over the period of time due to
the changes in the society as a result of change in the economy, mode of production and the
development of the technology. Naturally the changes in the social conditions have also led to a
change in the conceptualization of the community as provided by the sociologists.
Ferdinand Tonnies had explained community or Gemeinschaft, by means of contrasting it
with association or Gesselschaft. Gemeinschaft as per his conceptualization was bound by
traditional rules and customs which has been followed by generations and the membership to it is
an ascribed status since one cannot choose to be born in a particular community, and is also
based on the natural will of the people. Association or Gesselschaft on the other hand is based on
contractual relationships guided by well documented rules and is devoid of the personalization
that one finds in Gemeinschaft. Membership to Gesselschaft is not ascribed rather one can
subscribe to its membership and also unsubscribe oneself from it at one’s own personal will. One
is legally bound by the terms and conditions of a Gesselschaft while in a Gemeinschaft the
members are bound by an emotional attachment to it. This particular conception of community
being based on personalization and association being based on impersonalization was further
used by other thinkers to build their conception of community.
Durkheimian conception of organic solidarity and mechanical solidarity that prevails in a
society is directly relateable to the conceptions of Gemeinschaft and Gesselschaft respectively.
Gemeinschaft is based on organic solidarity and that emanates from the deeper exegencies of

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human beings by virtue of the fact that the element of emotional attachment lies in it and the
socialization enables a human being to consider community as natural. On the other hand,
Gesselschaft is based on mechanical solidarity in which the conditions of building togetherness
is supposed to be created by means of legal ways and the subscription to it is out of the free will
human beings and is totally devoid of any form of emotionality, rather the basis of solidarity lies
in creating a situation of interdependence for the purpose of reaching a goal. The Durkheimian
conception of mechanical solidarity find an echo in the Weberian conception of Bureucracy
which is the system that defines the functioning of an association being different from a
community. Bureaucracy is a system that is a characteristic feature of a modern society meant for
fulfilling the corporate goals of an industrialized economy. Bureaucracy embodies the element of
impersonalization and also the presence of a codified set of rules that guides the functioning of
an association and these features have been mentioned by Tonies and Durkheim in their worjkd
before as well.
The conception provided by George Simmel on the other hand had combined the ideas
provided by Tonnies, Durkheim and Weber and had reached at the conclusion that society is web
of several associations and not communities. This particular conception was considered by him
as the most befitting way of describing modern industrialized societies whereby the mode of
production and society in general had witnessed a paradigmatic shift from being a simple,
pastoral and undifferentiated one to being a complex, industrialized and highly differentiated one
based on specialization. The element of community was missing in his theorization as he
considered the greater form of unity to be present in associations and they were composed of
autonomous individuals which is why the importance of individuals was elevated in comparison
to that of the community (Everson 1988).

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The conceptions of Simmel, Tonnies, Durkheim and Weber were concerned about the
urban side of the modern society and much of their theorization was based on conceptualization
of the urban industrialized sector which was why their conceptualization had majorly
concentrated on the modern societies and thus they had tended to provide the idea that the
modern societies had grown out of the pre modern form of system and had thus had abandoned
the communitarian personalized attachments and associations with fellow human beings, which
is a misrepresentation of the greater realities of the modern world as with the development of
technology and the development of the wireless facilities, the communitarian spirit has been
made possible to be cherished even in the modern world marked by growing impersonalization
(Schochet 1967).
The digital world has managed to fill the emotional void that had been created by the
modern world and its mode of functioning that seeks to keep the personal and the public sphere
separate. Thus even in this modern world which is characterized by development of science,
technology and the associated characteristic features of impersonalization, secularism and
bureaucratization. This particular feature can be explained by means of providing the views of
community as provided by Amitai Etzioni who had opined that the existence of an individual is
never isolated and is always embedded in a social or communitarian set up. The existence of
culture and moral influences are always there that tend to govern the personal aspect of the lives
of individuals (McCloskey 1976).
The conceptualization of Tonnies, Durkheim and Weber had only into consideration the
public aspect of the lives of an individual thereby ignoring the private aspect of the lives of an
individual, which was addressed by Etzioni. The conception of Etzioni had tried to focus on the
fact that the rules which pervades in the public sphere are not applicable in the private sphere of

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an individual. The modern technological developments have been the cause behind the formation
of the online communities which connects human beings through the internet in the globalized
world and thus the world has been transformed into a global community, wherein the exchange
of commercial relationships and also personal relationships take place which makes the ideas of
Simmel, Tonnies, Durkheim, Etzioni and Weber relevant (Marks 1974).

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Answer 2
There are several factors that affect the community or the society of which the social
diversity is an important aspect which shall be analyzed in this particular answer. In the
globalized world with the free flow of human beings from one part of the world to another part
of world has been facilitated by the betterment of the communication facilities which have led to
people from, different ethnicities exchanging contacts with each other. The cities of the
developed western world are hubs of multiculturalism as a result of people belonging to various
cultural backgrounds have settled and they have been able to express themselves to the fullest.
For example, Australian society can be cited and shall be explained against the theoretical
backgrounds dealing with sociological discourses of community.
The Durkheimian concept of the organic solidarity and te mechanical solidarity that
generally prevails in a society can be directly relatable to the concepts of Gemeinschaft and
Gesselschaft respectively as provided by Tonnies. The functioning of the Gemeinschaft is based
on concept of organic solidarity and that particular thing emerges from the deep within the
exegencies of human beings as a result of the fact that the element of emotional attachment lies
in it and the socialization provided right from the outset through the various intstitutions that
enables a human being to consider community as natural. On the other hand, Gesselschaft is
based on mechanical solidarity in which the conditions of building togetherness is supposed to be
created by means of legal ways and the subscription to it is out of the free will human beings and
is totally devoid of any form of emotionality, rather the basis of solidarity lies in creating a
situation of interdependence for the purpose of reaching a goal. The Durkheimian conception of
mechanical solidarity find an echo in the Weberian conception of Bureucracy which is the
system that defines the functioning of an association being different from a community.

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Bureaucracy is a system that is a characteristic feature of a modern society meant for fulfilling
the corporate goals of an industrialized economy. Bureaucracy embodies the element of
impersonalization and also the presence of a codified set of rules that guides the functioning of
an association and these features have been mentioned by Tonies and Durkheim in their works
before as well (Marks 1974).
This dynamism of mechanical and organic solidarity is found in the Australian society as
well and can be juxtaposed by means of providing an account of the social diversity and
communitarianism that exists in the nation. Durkheim had mentioned of two kinds of solidarity,
mechanical and organic solidarity. Organic solidarity as per his view is representative of
primitive societies wherein the push for the formation of a community is but a matter of the
natural predisposition of the members who are guided by conventions and customs. This
particular feature is not very much of manifested in the general Australian context as Australia is
a modern statist society, but amongst the Aboriginal population this is found (Prescott, Colliver
& Nichols, 2016). Mechanical solidarity is as per the Durkheimian view rather a product of
modernity and that is manifested in form of a complex society characterized by the features of
bureaucratization, secularization and impersonalization whereby individualism has taken over
the spirit of communitarianism. People tend to enter into agreements with each other on a
contractual basis for the purpose of achieving the modernized goals of the corporatized world.
Thus the urge to enter into agreements for interdependence with fellow human beings is a result
of the market interests to be fulfilled. Economy of a modern society like Australia is guided by
mechanical solidarity is not pastoral but it is industrialized. Thus generally Australia might be
guided by mechanical solidarity but the organic solidarity also prevails in the nation, and that
adds to the communitarian diversity of the nation (Gale, 2019).

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The existence of another form of diversity can be explained through the concept of
suicide that is a form of deviance which has been explained as per Durkheim. The conception of
Altruistic suicide shall be employed to show the coexistence of several communities in the nation
and the concept is somewhat akin to the concept of Fatalistic Suicide which to imply that the
suicide is an obligation as a result of too much of integration in society. In the Australian context
which is a multicultural society and many ethnic communities reside in the nation but they
follow their own customs and practices that are quite different from the mainstream Australian
culture (Pope 1976). For example, the ethnic Indians and Pakistanis despite staying in Australia
for generations still practice honour killings something which is alien to the Australian culture
(Australian Crime Commission 2015). This however does not imply that multiculturalism in
Australia is wrong or the chance to allow the ethnic communities to express themselves and also
maintain their cultural practices. There are other forms of expression of the ethnic communal
identities which are in form of festivals of the various communities, their cuisines, their
languages, their art forms et cetera all add to the diversity of the nation which is a positive aspect
and thus the multiculturalism should be tolerated and allowed to proliferate instead of limiting it.
Will Kymlika had provided the idea of positive tolerance and negative tolerance. Positive
tolerance accounts for allowing the original expression of the ethnic and diverse communities
and not forcing them to mould their ways according to the lifestyle of the dominant members of
the society. Thus the negative form of inclusion is that of forcing the people belonging to
minority community to give up on their ethnic practices (Pope, 1976).

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References
Australian Crime Commission, (2015). Organised crime in Australia 2015.
Everson, S., (1988). Aristotle on the Foundations of the State. political studies, 36(1), pp.89-101.
Gale, F., (2019). The Circular Economy in (Corporate) Australia: a Preliminary Analysis. In 4th
Edition of the International Conference on Public Policy (ICPP4) (pp. 1-3).
Marks, S.R., (1974). Durkheim's theory of anomie. American Journal of Sociology, 80(2),
pp.329-363.
McCloskey, D., (1976). On Durkheim, anomie, and the modern crisis.
Pope, W.,( 1976). Durkheim's Suicide: A classic analyzed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Prescott, D., Colliver, A. & Nichols, S., (2016). The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines
Made Australia—ERRATUM. Australian Journal of Environmental Education, 32(1),
p.135.
Schochet, G.J., (1967). Thomas Hobbes on the Family and the State of Nature. Political Science
Quarterly, 82(3), pp.427-445.