bonner, k. reflexity, sociology and the rural-urban

8/22/2019 BONNER, K. Reflexity, Sociology and the Rural-urban

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/bonner-k-reflexity-sociology-and-the-rural-urban 1/26

Reflexivity, Sociologyin Marx, Tonnies and

and theWeber”

Rura -U ban Distinction

KIERAN BONNERAugustana University College

Dans cet article, on evalue la pertinence de diverses representations

du ruralisme et de l‘urbanisme chez Marx, Tonnies e t Weber, dansla mesure ou elles se rapportent B la documentation actuelle su r la

question de l a reflexivite e n sciences sociales. Etan t donne

l’influence linguistique dans l a recherche en sciences humaines , lenouvel examen de ce discours n’est pas fait dans le but de definir la

ruralite de faGon *essentialistes. L‘analyse porte plut8t sur lasignification des tentatives que font Marx, Tonnies et Weber pourelaborer un concept de ruralite qui permet de d6m6ler la faGon dont

fonctionnent les negations e t les oppositions dans leurs textes. Onpretend que le discours ruraYurbain est structur e autour d‘une

modernite qui cherche a etablir un dialogue avec l’alterite e t aquestionner les limites. On montre aussi la difficulte qu’eprouvel’esprit de l a modernite devant la necessit6 de preserver un sens al’alterite tout e n l’engageant dans un processus relationnel sans

pour au tant se l’approprier. Plusieurs etudes canadiennes, qui fontappel B la distinction rurauurbain, sont citees pour illustrer ladifi culte conceptuelle du domaine. L’auteur affirme qu’un aspect de

cette difficulte face B l’alterite, dans ce cas-ci l’alterite du rura l,

tient de l’objectivite scientifique, laquelle exclut la reflexivite du

processus de recherche. La reflexivite, inherente e t necessaire auprocessus de recherche en sciences humaines, est donc ici a la fois

sujet e t ressource.

This paper assesses the relevance of various representations ofrur ali sdu rba nis m in Marx, Tonnies, and Weber as these pertain t othe cur rent lite ratu re on the issue of reflexivity in social science.

Acknowledging the linguistic tur n in human science inquiry, th e re-examination of this discourse does not at tempt t o develop an

* Kieran Bonner is Associate Professor of Sociology at Augustana Univer sity College in Alberta,

Canada . He was recently Visiting Fellow in t he Humanities at University College Galway, Ireland.

He has completed a book for Macmillan Pre ss Limited called Power an d Parenting: A Herrneneuticof the Human Condition and a book for McGill-Queen’s University Press (forthcoming) called “AGreat Place to Raise Kids: Interpretation, Science and the Urba n-Rural Deba te.”Th isarticle is based

on a section of the more extended discussion on the rural -urba n discourse in the lat ter book. He is

also edito r of Dianoia: A Liberal Arts Interdisciplinary Journal. The manuscript of this article was

submitted in Februa ry 1996and accepted in Februar y 1997.The author gratefully acknowledges he

help of Scott Grills and senior sociology stude nts a t Augustana and th e helpful suggestions given on

an earlier draft by Rosalind Sydie and the Review’s anonymous reviewers.



166 CRSNRCSA, 3 5 . 2 1998

“essentialist” definition of rurality. Rather the analysis is concerned

with the meaning of the attempts by Marx, Tonnies, and Weber todevelop a concept of rurali ty which involves teasing out t he way

negations and oppositions operate in thei r texts. The paper arguestha t the rurallurban discourse is structured by a modernist interestin engaging otherness and questioning limits. I t also shows thedifficulty a modernist consciousness has with preserving a sense ofthe very otherness it needs t o engage. Several Canadian s tudies,which draw on the rurallurban distinction are cited to illustra te the

field’s conceptual predicament. The paper argues t ha t pa rt of theproblem which modernity has with otherness ( in this case theotherness of the rura l) lies in the scientific requirement tha t, by

virtue of a commitment to objectivity, reflexivity be excluded from

the process of inquiry. Reflexivity, as intrinsic and necessary to theprocess of human science inquiry, is therefore both a topic and aresource for the paper.

a . . .disquieting quality of modernism: its tas te for appropriat ing or

redeeming otherness, for constituting non-Western arts in its ownimage, for discovering universal, ahistorical “human” capacities.(Clifford,1988: 193)

AS WE READILY RECOGNIZE from media coverage, the urban-ruraldistinction is alive in popular imagination. Television programs such asNorth of 60,Picket Fences, NYP D Blue and E.R. display a contrast in waysof living which rural and urban settings are said t o represent. The debatein the Canadian parliament on the gun registration bill (1995) was said tohave been organized on rural-urban lines. Surveys (e.g.,Yerxa, 1992) andpopular radio programs (such the CBC’s Morningside)claim that a ruralsetting is often preferred for the superior “qualityof life” it offers and fo rbeing a good place t o raise children.’

The urban-rural debate has long been addressed in sociology. Yet,

despite its place in popular culture, as a concept, the distinction is said tobe sociologically irrelevant, at least according t o Pahl (1968) and Gans(1968).The globalization (Giddens, 1991)and the mediatization (Meyrowitz,1985) of modern society seem t o have made the distinctions developed bythe sociologists in the late nineteenth century irrelevant for the latetwentieth century. Is the urban-rural distinction a modernistconceptualization whichnowhas no relevance in these so-called postmoderntimes?

In this paper I will show tha t by making use of contemporary develop-ments in sociology (phenomenology,hermeneutics, poststructuralism and

1. Peter Gzowski’s popular radio program,Morningside (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation),broad-

cast an interview (July, 1990) with three “urban refugees,” hree people wh o quit their “prestigious”

and high-paying careers in order to leave the city and live in the country. The tone of the interview

was of people who had the courage to “live the dream,” who gave time to themselves and their

personal fulfillment as against time given for the necessity of professional activity. In a similar

article in Mademoiselle (April, 1992), a reporter says that the “urban tide has turned, and it now

seems ike no one can escape their concrete jungle fast enough”(88).



Reflexivity, Sociology and the R u ra I-U ban Distinct ion 167

dialectical analysis), he classic contributions of Marx, Tonnies and Webercan be analysed to show the way they participate in and foreshadow themodern and post-modern debate. The paper also argues that the mostimportant contribution of contemporary theoretical developments o soci-ology is the recognitionof the importance of the need t o include reflexivityin the process of inquiry. This article, therefore, demonstrates howcontemporary theoretical developments can be used to help understandthe meaning tha t the urban-rural distinction had for Marx, Tonnies andWeber. Though written from a standpoint of familiarity with interpretivesociology (a familiarity shared by many Canadian sociologists), he subjectmatter (the classical tradition and the urban-rural debate) and the point(the need for reflexive sociology) are of concern for the whole tradition.2

While distinctions between city and country are almost as old asWestern culture itself (Williams, 19731, it is the rise of modernity ingeneral and of the Industrial Revolution in particular which generated thesociological debate about the positive and/or negative consequences of this

new development.As Sennett remarks, “up t o the time of the IndustrialRevolution, the city was taken by most social thinkers to be the image ofsociety itself, and not some special, unique form of society” (1969: 3). Thecountry, whether in its pastoral (Theocritus) o r agricultural (Hesiod)representation, was synonymous with nature, i.e., the fertility of springand summer in contrast o he barrenness and accident ofwinter (Williams,1973: 13-34). The rapid changes in society brought on by the IndustrialRevolution focussed and organized the theorizing and research concerningurban-rural differences. In particular, the drastic shift in population fromrural t o urban centres meant tha t within a period of 100 years, manysocieties, that had been demographically rural for centuries, becamedemographically urban.3In turn, this change challenged social theoristst o reflect on the meaning and influence of urban and rural social organi-zation. For social theorists who sought to understand the transformation

in urban and rural life initiated by the industrial revolution, the urban-rural distinction no longer referenced the difference between corruptnessof society and the purity of nature (Rousseau) but rather presented socialtheorists with two different kinds of social organization.

2. This paper is part of a larger work which addresses more thoroughly the historical lit era ture in thefield (Bonner, 1997).

3. “The process of industrializat ion generated increasing urbani zat ion -th e movement of the popu-lation into towns and cities, away from the life on the land. In 1800,well under 20percent of theBritish population lived in towns or cities having more than 10.000 nhabitants. By 1900, hisproportion had become 74 percent. The capital ci ty, London, held about 1.1million people in 1800;it increased in size to a population of over seven million by the beginning of the twentieth century.London was at t hat date by far the largest city ever seen in the world; it was a vast manufacturing,commercial, and financial centre at the heart of a still-expanding British Empire.”

“The urbanization of most other European countries, and the United States, took placesomewhat later, but in some cases, once under way, accelerated even faster. In 1800, he United

Stat es was more of a rura l society than were the leading European countries at the same date . Lessthan 10percent of the population lived in communities with populations of more than 2,500 people.Today, well over three-quarters of Americans are city dwellers. Between 1800 and 1900, asindustria lizat ion grew in the United States, he population of New York leapt from 60,000people to4.8million” (Giddens, 1990: 76).



168 CRSNRCSA, 35.2 1998

This development in the understanding of the rural from what isOther to human society (nature, beauty, the brutish, the mysterious) toanother kind of society, itself demonstrates what Clifford, in the essay

cited above (1988: 193), ronically calls “the healthy capacityof modernistconsciousnesst o question its limits and engage otherness.” A t the end ofthis century, we are very much aware of the practical consequences of thismodernist impulse. Otherness is more often “appropriated or redeemed”rather than truly engaged. And whether one looks to Arendt (1958) o rFoucault (1977),o r Grant (1969), i t seems that the disappearance of anystrong conception of otherness mirrors the disappearance of any relevantsociological conception of rurality. The history of the sociological i teratureon the urban-rural difference is a story which begins with a conception ofits decisiveness for understanding ways of living (Wirth, 1938) t o itsirrelevance as a sociological conception (Gans, 1968; Pahl, 1968). Thishistory begins with the opportunity the distinction raises for comparingtwo different ways of living (the urban, the ru ral), and concludes hat “anyattempt t o tie particular patterns of social relationships to specific geo-graphical milieux is a singularly fruitful exercise” (Pahl, 1969: 293).4While the reason given t o account for the discrepancy between the earlier(Chicago School)and later sociologists is the anti-urban ideological bias ofthe former (e.g., Hutter, 1988: 41; Pahl, 1969:85 ) , I will argue that thisstory reflects both “the capacity of the modernist consciousness o questionits limits and engage otherness” and the difficulty a modernist conscious-ness has with preserving a sense of the very otherness it needs t o engage.Because I am also dealing with the inception of modern sociology,I willargue t ha t the sociological project, particularly in its more positivisticexpression,is bound up with this modernist problem; part of the problemwhich modernity has with otherness (in this case the otherness of therural) lies in the scientific requirement th at , by virtue of its commitmentt o objectivity (Taylor, 1977: 103-311, reflexivity be excluded from the

process of inquiry. For the purposes of space,I will concentrate on the workof three seminal nineteenth-century sociologists, Marx, Tonnies, andWeber in order t o tease out the tensions built into their influentiallyformative conceptions of the urban-rural distinction (see Appendix for amore detailed description of the theoretic orientation of this article).

Initially the urban-rural discourse in sociology was organized on thebasis of seeking t o understand two types of society, the urban society andthe rural society. Otherness is now understood to represent not what isother t o human understanding/society but ra ther an alternative way ofliving. The implications of this discursive strategy means th at the engage-

ment of otherness now raises the issues of freedom, evaluation, andchange. Modern social science discourse, by casting Other as anothersocial organization, rests on and asserts the claim that society representsa particular way of living and tha t th is way of living has to be understood,

4. For a summaryof this literature as it pertains to Canada see Hale, (1990: 106-36) and as it pertains

to the United States and Britain see Hutter (1988:28-104). For global trends see Giddens (1990:673-

704).



Reflexivity, Sociology and the Rural-Urban D istinction 169

evaluated and compared with another way of living. The sociological

distinction now has an implicit normative element-which is better? As wewill see, Marx and Tonnies are explicit in their answer t o this question

while Weber recognizes the difficulty a scientific sociology has in address-

ing this question of value in the first place.

Marx and Engels:The City/Country Progressive/Regressive Distinction

One of the earl iest sociologists to address the differences between th e city

and t he country is Marx. He and Engels interpreted the rise of capitalismas a simultaneous subjection

. . .of the country o the rule ofthe town. It has created enormous cities,has greatly increased the urban populations as compared with therural, and has thus rescued a considerable part of the population from

the idiocy of rural life (1965:38).

Here and in Th e German Ideology (1970: 39-95), they argue that

rural life nurtured a subservience t o nature (68). They see this subservi-ence as a primitive form of society because it is a primitive mode ofproduction. Tha t is, rura l life is not an other to the mode of production of

capitalism but ra ther an early stage in its development. The country isorganized by the relation between humans and nature, the labour of the

farmer for the product ofthe latter . A t this stage of the mode of production,hum ans have not yet grasped the productive possibilities inheren t withinthe ir own labour. They have not, according t o Marx and Engels, because

“physical activity is as yet not separated from mental activity.” Thus“[alverage human common sense is adequate” in relation t o what lifedemands. Moreover, “[tlhe antagonism between town and country begins

with th e transition from barbarism t o civilization, from tribe to s tate , from

locality t o nation, and runs through the whole. history of civilization to thepresent day” (1970: 69). That is, the very tension between t n T r m and

country is itself a n instance of the rise of civilization a s exemplified in theform of the development of nation o r state. The existence of the town

requires the ability to think independently of the na tural ta sk at hand,

because exchange and labour as modes of production are liberated from,as against being dominated by, subservience t o the land. The town makes

human independence recognizable as a possibility and actuality where thecountry makes domination (ofhumans by nature , ofhumans by each other,e.g., landlordherf) seem natu ral and necessary.

Marx and Engels argue tha t the feudal system of ownership promi-

nent in the Middle Ages “started out from the country” (1970: 45). In thisfeudal system, people were tied t o each other in a hierarchical and

patriarchal manner in a way which fettered the productive possibilitiesinherent in human action (1965: 32-48). Rural life leads t o idiocy becausethe nascent productive vitality inherent to all social organization isoverwhelmed by the ideologyof a deference t o tradition which is antithet i-



170 CRSNRCSA, 3 5 . 2 1998

cal to the material and productive possibilities in social organization.Therefore, according t o this formulation, rural life is idiotic because itendlessly and unimaginatively repeats the social patterns of previous

generations under th e guise of a feudal ideology which legitimates patri-archy, hierarchy, and the domination of people in general.

From this perspective, the ideology of family, community, and tradi-tion associated with rurali ty is a mere “sentimental veil” that bound themajority of people, particularly women and children, to a subordinate,impoverished life, and encouraged a “slothful indolence.” By virtue of itsideological antipathy to the novel possibilities i n human action, rural life

therefore is antipathetic t o the resources that the new, who in any societyare the young, could bring to the community. Arendt (1958)says that anopenness t o the novel (inherent in the condition of natality) is therequirement for developing the possibility ofhuman action. The possibilityof beginning something new is fundamental t o the human condition.Humans a re active agents who have the possibility of reacting in ways th at

are unpredictable, making the unanticipated consequences of action afundamental topic for sociology (Merton, 1976).However, not every socialorganization is receptive t o and encouraging of this capacity, though thereis no social organization which can eliminate it. Rural life, and the feudalsociety it nurtured, according t o Marx and Engels, came to stand for asocial organization which was explicitly organized around excluding anopenness t o the possibilities of human action.

Marx and Reflexivity as Single-MindedDevelopment

Marx and Engels interpreted the urban-rural difference within a framewhich celebrated the development of a society (in this case capitalist buteventually communist) that would release the productive forces (and not

merely it s economy as is often erroneously thought) inherent within therelation between humans and the world. This development, in turn, wasto enhance the human liberation of all. We can see from Marx that t heconcern with quality of life (e.g., which is a better place to live), can not beresolved by an opinion poll; rather, t he real issue is which place best helpsus recognize our potential for freedom and the kind of social organizationth at produces the wealth which, according t o Marx,6 free human actionrequires. Thus, what for many city dwellers appears to be th e easy-goinglife of a rural setting, is for Marx “a slothful indolence” th at is socially

constructed by the way rural society excludes the novel (the enterprising,the beginning of something new) in its midst.

What this formulation does is question the adequacy of empirical andpositivistic approaches t o understanding the otherness of rurali ty. Marx

5 . For Marx, freedom is understood in t erms of emancipation from conditions which prevent hu man sfrom realizing th eir full potential. T hat is, freedom is essentially understood as a liberation. For aperspective which sees significant differencea between freedom and liberation in ord er to make roomfor the concept of action, see Hannah Arendt (1965, 29-33).



Reflexivity, Sociology and the Rural-Urban Distinction 171

and Engels provide us with a paradigm which problematizes the self-

understanding of the rural actor as the true or best understanding of thesituation. The self-understanding of the rural actor , in th is case, would

more than likely reflect a false consciousness-as the very possibilitiesinherent in human action are automatically excluded from the under-

standing of the situation. For example, and t o put it crudely, if ruralrespondents claim their quality of life is better, o r tha t raising a family iseasier, is this a knowledge claim which is grounded in a life of “slothfulindolence”o r urural idiocy”? That is, in formulating rural life in th is way,they simultaneously raise the issue of the standard we use to measure the

“truth value” of various claims of the other and suggest the limitationsbuilt into positivistic science (see Blum and McHugh, 1984: 13-30).

Rather, th e claims of the rural actor (the other) require what ha s come tobe called a “hermeneutics of suspicion;’’ what is said t o be an easy-goinglifestyle rooted in the past may merely be an ideological gloss for thepreservation of static social relations (feudal society) which maintaindomination of peasants by landlords, of women by men, and children byparents, and has the real consequence of slothful indolence.6 Rural life,according to this formulation, represents another social organization but

one which is exemplary only in a negative sense; rurality encouragesrather than discourages the indisposition to exertion: it does not encour-age true human enjoyment but rather the easy pleasure of avoiding th epain of exertion.

It is often said tha t th e phrase “rural idiocy”is part of the polemicwhich pervades TheCom mun ist Manifes to. As a phrase, it is then excusedor downplayed rather than taken as a genuine conception of rura lity . Yet,if we give the formulation a strong reading it can be shown that the ideaof rura l idiocyfits well with the overall Marxian framework. For Marx andEngels, the fully aware experience of rurality would, of necessity, be anexperience of deprivation. The countryside is formulated in terms of a lack

(of civilization, state, nation). It is known in terms of what humans couldhave but do not have (freedom, wealth, th e power of the general, the ab-stract,the universal).As not wanting what could be developedis unimagi-nable (who would not want freedom, not want to develop their humanpotential, not want to be civilized?), the lack of commitment to develop-

ment (of society) can only be seen as idiocy. Thus the Marxian conceptionof the ru ral connotes an image of regressiveness, going back in time/devel-opmentlcapacities, an image which is still part of the meaning associatedwith rurality. Rural life, according t o the Marxian formulation, representsan empirical but not an analytic p~ ss ib il it y. ~s an empirical possibility it

6. It is interestin g that the two words with the sam e connotation of laziness are used. Marx and Engelsdo not just say sloth but slothful indolence, not just indolence but a slothful indolence. It is as thoughthey wanted to convey through repetition, the dangerous nature of the ethos of rural life. The rootmeaning of sloth is slow-O.E. slaeth-and the root meaning of indolence is not to feel pain

-L. in-, not; dolere, to feel pain .7 . This is a distinction developed within the “Analysis” tradition in sociology (a tradition called heredialectical analysis to d istinguish th is perspective from similarly named perspectives in science andphilosophy). This distinction appears throughout in the works of Blum and McHugh, but is mostclearly developed in S el fRef lec t ion in the Arts an d Sciences (1984).



172 CRSNRCSA, 3 5 . 2 1998

is either not fully experienced for what it is (because of,fo r example, a falseconsciousness) or it is experienced precisely as a regression (because of thecondition of, for example, exile). Rurality means either being stuck in a

deprived situat ion o r it means not realizing tha t one is deprived. In eithercase it is not a “chooseable”alternative.8Rurality is not a real other (in thesense of one who challenges self-understanding), ather it is a reminder ofwhat we, as humans committed t o development of human potential, mustnot be. Rurality, therefore, connotes a blindness or an indifference t oindividual and collective possibility. The charms of its claims have to beresisted because rurality exists only because of imposition (oppression) or

ignorance (idiocy).

In terms of the modernist/postmodernist distinction, the perspectiveof Marx and Engels personify (Clifford’s understanding of) a modernistorientation-“the healthy capacity of modernist consciousness to questionits limits”; at each stage of societal development th e collective (tha t s, the

relevant class) is required t o come to terms with, and transcend, the limits

inhibiting the mode of production. All other forms of otherness aresubsumed under the dominant concern with the mode of production. Theotherness of rurality is a limit which is t o be overcome as th e collectivedevelops a true consciousness of its situation. The polyphony of voices and

experiences celebrated by postmodernism (Clifford, 1988;Baumann, 1994)are absent in this analysis. In particular, rural or urban experiences, asunique and particular experiences, are not recognized as phenomena intheir own right, separate from the development of the productive forces ofsociety (Sennett , 1969: 3-19). Baumann’s (1994: 356) sta tement th at“modern designs of global perfection drew their animus from the horror ofdifference and impatience with otherness” is mirrored in the Marxianunderstanding of rurality. This understanding represents the confidencemodernity has in its own development and the certainty it ha s in its own

understanding. Marx’s optimism concerning the future is based on this

confidence in his theoretic orientation. As Arendt (Canovan, 1992: 63-98)has argued, the capacity of human agents t o react in unpredictable waysdoes not have a strong place in his theoretic focus.

Marx and Engels did not seek t o understand the rural o r urbanexperience in its own right. The significant collectivefo r them was the onewhich sought to develop the productive forcesof society: the various stagesthrough which society was transformed (ancient, feudal, capitalist, com-munist) all reflect an analysis of a collective committed t o developing itsproductive forces which, in turn, makes human liberation from the pain ofendless labor and poverty possible. The standard by which a society is t obe judged is the social organization which has developed its productiveforces t o their highest realization, which, in turn, maximizes the possibili-ties of human liberation. Reflexivityis an intrinsic part ofpraxis but onlyin regard to the single-minded interest in developing the productive forces

of society.

8. It is ironic to note that, as both the sociological literature and as modern society develop, the “rural”becomes less possible to conceptualize as even a mere empirical possibility.




This formulation, in turn , has generated the criticism th at the focus

on historical materialism led t o a one-sided (Weber, 1958)and “nomologi-cal” (Habermas, 1988) understanding of history and society. Marx’s

perspective, by itself, does not make room for the complexity of experienceas it privileges a singular theoretical development over an understandingof the particularity of experience. A s stated above, there is no real need forthe Marxian actor to consider the interpretive possibilities in hishersituat ion, because, analytically speaking there is no real choice. Ratherthe actor now has t o do what s h eknows needs t o be done, th at is, in Marx’sown terminology, not in terpret but change the world. Yet, for Weber, i t isprecisely by virtue of the subjective orientation of humans tha t action issocial; this means theory has t o make a place for meaning and experience.Weber developed the concept of ideal type (Weber, 1947)as his method t oaccount for social actiodorganization in a way which preserves theparticularity of historical experience and in doing this he was influencedby th e Gemeinschaft IGesellschaft concepts of Ferdinand Tonnies.

Ferdinand Tonnies:The UrbadRural GemeinschafZIGesellschafZDistinction

Ferdinand Tonnies is a sociologist who was influenced by Marx and who,in turn, influenced Weber (1947: 88). In 1888, Tonnies published hisclassic text Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft,terms which have now becomestandard in the discipline of sociology. While Marx addressed th e urban-rural difference in terms of a collective committed to actualizing thepotential for human liberation, Tonnies, (influenced by Nietzsche’sApolloniaflionysiac polarity) through the terms gemeinschaft (commu-nity) and gesellschaft (association), recasts th e difference in terms of amore fundamental dichotomy and opposition.

With Tonnies, we have neither evolutionary (Darwin)nor revolution-ary (Marx) development, but two sharply opposed social systems based onsharply opposing ways of life. The city, by virtue of th e primacy given tocommerce, encouragesgesellschaftlich relations; the country, the village,and t he town, by virtue of the primacy given to family and history, give riseto gemeinschaftlich relations. For Tonnies, the town is not a n example ofth e rise of the division of labour (Marx), but an example of a communitywhere the social and the natural are kept in balance. With Tonnies,therefore, the rura l begins t o take on the character of other, an other whoserelationship t o modernity is fundamental and oppositional. This ruralother finds its highest expression in the town and thus begins theassociation of rurality with town life. Many Canadian sociologists (e.g.Sim, 1988)now argue that this conception of rurality is more viable tha ntha t sustained by Statistics Canada. Yet, what is t he na ture of this other

named as gemeinschaft?By gemeinschuft Tonnies means a “social order bounded togeth-

er by a unity of wills. Family and social institutions naturally created



174 CRSNRCSA, 35.2 1998

co-operation in a gemeinschaft prior t o its members voluntary choice”(Liebersohn, 1988:7).Gemeinschaft is pre-voluntary bu t nonetheless co-operative, a community which is built on a familial orientation, i.e., one

does not choose one’s parents (social background, gender, etc.) but one co-operates with tha t “givenness.”

The basic unit of the traditional community was the house. . ..Bonds

of blood relation, place and friendship tied individuals to one another

and drew houses into larger units of clan, ethnic groups and people, of

village, country and province. The traditional town, no less than thecountryside, was organized on communal lines, its guilds regulating

production in harmony with the general needs of collective life

(Liebersohn, 1988: 28-29; see Tonnies: 151-69).

Although in the literature gemeinschaft is often associated with arura l setting, Tonnies was not using it t o describe the influence of place per

se; rather, gemeinschuft references a social order “which-being based on

a consensus of wills-rests on harmony and is developed and enabled bypathways, mores, and religion” (Tonnies, 1960: 223). In this community,parents and children were not seen t o be separate actors with individual-

istic interests but rather were a unity (family) with a shared interest, asthis interest has been articulated by figures of au t h ~ r i t y . ~hese relationswere invested with a sense of sacredness which made reason subordinatet o the activities of th e whole and th e common good t o which they weredirected. The otherness of gemeinschuft referenced a community where

rationality was subordinate rather than superordinate, similar to therecognition of the essential limitedness of reason which, according t oNietzsche (19561, is crucial t o the discovery of tragedy.

Tonnies’ conception of gesellschaft, on the other hand, was stronglyinfluenced by his readings of both Marx and Hobbes (Liebersohn, 1988:1-39). It refers as much t o modern capitalist society as it does to city life,

though (as we already know from Marx) modernity, capitalism, andurbanization are greatly intertwined. However, unlike Marx (and perhapsbecau’se of Tonnies’ own isolated rural town upbringing), gesellschaft wasnot celebrated as an important step on the wayt o liberation (communism).Rather, with Tonnies, we have the beginning of th e recognition of the darkside of modernity (a recognition which Weber was to late r name as the“iron cage”). Gesellschaft, as a social order, is constituted by commodityexchange and rests “on a union of rational wills.”Whereas thegerneinschufthas “its roots in family life,” gesellschaft “derives from the conventionalorder of trade’’ (Tonnies, 1960: 223; Loomis, 1960: 3-11). Here, therelations between people are regulated by contracts and exchange which,in turn, are governed by the rational means-end attitude, i.e., in terms ofan evaluation “of the advantages that people expect to get from others”

9. Though Tonnies’ perspective is closer to a political economy than a functionalist perspective (Hale ,1990: 136), t is n ot completely accurate, as thi s section goes on to show, to see him (a s Hale does) asa spokesperson for liberation. As Liebersohn (1988: 2) remarks, Tonnies “did not restrain hisdisgust toward the liberties permitted in a gesellschaft.”




(Hale, 1990: 107). Because of this orientation, people are mobile, bothsocially and geographically, and competition rather than co-operation isthe dominant ethos. On a theme later developed by Weber and Habermas,

Tonnies saw that the dominance of the rational will would ultimately leadt o undermining a genuine attachment between people and to community.

Tonnies was ambiguous as t o whether gemeinschuft referred t ohistorical precedent o r ideal type (Liebersohn, 1988: 7). Using Nietzsche’sApollonianDionysian polarity (Liebersohn, 1988: 23-31), he wanted topresent the two kinds of social organization in not merely an evolutionaryfashion (where one evolves out of th e other) but as social organizationsrootedin different orientations toward t he world and life. His “method wassupposed t o be hermeneutic, describing each type from its own perspec-tive” (Liebersohn, 1988: 30). What this famous distinction actually initi-ates is the associatign of rurality with community. On the whole, rural lifewas seen t o sustaingemeinschuftlich relations between people because ofits focus on establishing and nurturing common bonds, while the city

tended to nurture gesellschuftlich relations because of its emphasis oncompetition and individual advantage (Tonnies, 1960: 223-59).

Sociologically, historically, and in terms of our narrative, th e referentfor the sign “rural” has changed from Marx’s image of “backwardness,” anobstacle to progress which must be overcome, to a competing socialorganization and way of life. For Tonnies what is significant about rurallife is not i ts landscape, nor i ts comparative primitiveness, but the kind ofsocial organization i t nurtures. Gemeinschuftlich relations received theirhighest social expression not on the farm but in the town: th e “townis the

highest . . .form of social life” (Tonnies, 1960: 227). This means tha t ruralcomes t o reference a particular way of relating to people rather than beinga way of relating to nature. Thus, under Tonnies’influence (and despite hisexplicit critique of capitalism), rural came to reference a community which

was an extensionof the “natural”source of community, the family (Tonnies,1960: 176-77). “Marriage was organized not around individuals, as inmodern society, but around the house whose members received a fixedplace within their own house and related to outsiders as members of otherhouses” (Liebersohn, 1988: 32). Tonnies was convinced

“that all true morality was rooted in the settled folkways ofgemeinschaft,

[and] he did not restrain his disgust toward the liberties permitted in

a gesellschaft. Women, delicate creatures of feeling, belonged in thehome; a society th at l et them leave it and diminished t he differences

between the sexes could only be a decadent society. Intellectualstended to deny the pious beliefs of their father s and to replace them

with th e ar bitra ry products of their own reason. . . .The merchant, th e

most complete embodiment ofgesellschaft, was an enemy ofthe people:

homeless, a traveller versed i n foreign ways without piety toward his

own, adept at using any means to achieve his goals, in all theserespects the opposite ofthe farmer and the ar tisan” (Liebersohn, 1988:

32-33; see Tonnies, 1960: 151-69).



176 CRSNRCSA,3 5 . 2 1998

Tonnies, Science and the Need for Reflexive Inquiry

As already noted, Tonnies’ categories were ambiguous with regard t o theirstatus as ideal types o r historical experiences. His own aim was t o writein a spirit of scientific objectivity, to show the same dispassion towardsociety as toward any other object of study (Liebersohn,1988:27). Thus the

fact that t he town was destined t o be taken over by commercial interestsand thus evolve into a gesel lschaft was a fated event which Tonnies, thesociologist n pursuit of the objective ruth, had t o acknowledge, in t he waythe laws of physics force the physicist t o recognize tha t th e ea rth is not thecentre of the universe. Yet, as Liebersohn argues, Tonnies was

“unable to resist th e opportunity to describegesellschaft from the pointofview ofgemeinschaft, as if the communal world ofthe past, defeatedby history, at last had a champion to accuse the modern way oflife that

had vanquished it. . . . In the form he presented them, the book’scategories were not neutral instruments of empirical analysis. In-

stead, they embodied a denunciation of one way of life, defence ofanother” (30-3 1).

Gemeinschaft is a concept meant to reference not just another kind

of society but ra ther reference what is other t o modernity itself. While theotherness is constructed in a defensively binary fashion, it is clear thatthere is a reflexive accusation built into i ts construction.

Because Tonnies’ description lacks neutral ity it left him vulnerable

t o the charge of idealism because gemeinscha f t represents as much theromantic dream of a conflict-free community rather than the faithfuldepiction of an actual community. More importantly, the concept ofgemeinscha f t is flawed because of psychological reductionism;gesel lschaft(according t o Durkheim, 1972: 146-47) is no less natural or no more

artificial than i s gemeinscha f t ,ju st because it is apparently organized onrational grounds. Gemeinschaft and gesellschaft constitute a conceptualopposition, organized by the opposition between organism and machine(Liebersohn, 1988:1361, rather th an an opposition of world views emerg-ing from the basis of different lived experiences. Thus, rom the sc ienti f icperspective , Tonnies’ conceptualization does not easily translate intoempirical research and does not adequately measure up to standards ofneutral objectivity. In Weber’s terms, the concep-tualization is value-laden ra ther than value-free. Yet, with the issue of the relation betweenreflexivity and science in mind, this scientific critique can itself becriticized.

A significant aspect of the distinction be tweengemeinscha f t l ich andgesellschaftlich relations is the different wills 6e . ,natura l will as opposedto rational will) which each social organization (i.e.,communityas opposed

t o association) strengthens. In the move fromgemeinscha f t to gesel lschaft(a move which Tonnies saw happening with the increasing dominance ofmodernity), “a complete reversal of intellectual life takes place . . . the




intellectual attitude of the individual becomes gradually less and lessinfluenced by religion and more and more influenced by science” (Tonnies,1960: 226). This means, according t o Tonnies, th at usefulness, efficiency,

and t he learning derived from the impersonal observation of the laws ofsocial life, become the dominant way of relating t o others and to t he world.

In gesellschaft, modern calculating reason is not subordinate to, but isindependent of, community spirit. In everyday action, the rational self-

interest of the merchant now comes t o predominate: in intellectual life,science and impersonal learning predominate. As noted above, Tonniesundertook a scientific analysis of the nature of human society. Yet,

according to Tonnies, scientific thinking predominates in a society where

personal human relations have deteriorated.’O

This brings us t o a paradoxical dilemma in Tonnies’ analysis. While

Tonnies’ conceptualization of gemeinschaft and gesellschaft failed in itsattempt t o be an objective and empirically verifiable analysis of the way

human society works, he still “aspired t o make his book scientific in the

strongest nineteenth-century sense of th e w or d (Liebersohn, 1988: 27).The very categories ofgemeinschaft andgesellschaft are categories gener-

ated by an intellectual orientation grounded in the purpose of scientificobjectivity, itself a modern orientation. That is , they are the categories ofagesellschaft rather thangemeinschaft worldview. Thus, if as Liebersohn

says, Tonnies’ analysis defendedgemeinschaftby condemninggesellschaft,this i s understood a s a failure to realize the aim of scientific objectivityrather than as a challenge and critique of scientific objectivity as an aimin itself. His defence ofgemeinschaft is a defence which emerges from onewho sought to understand the world from the intellectual orientation of

gesellschaft. While condemning “modernity”and defending “tradition,” hesimultaneously shows, t o recall Clifford’s quotation, the “disquietingquality of modernism: its taste . . . for discovering universal, ahistorical

“human” capacities” (e.g., natura l wilVrationa1 will). This raises impor-

tant theoretical and methodological issues, not the least of which is thequestion of the way one’s presuppositions about the nature of adequateinquiry necessarily influence what we are able t o recognize. Scientificobjectivity is merely one solution to this problem. Perhaps Tonnies’

reflexive inconsistency points t o a fundamental flaw in the scientificorientation itself. Is the enterprise of science, despite its celebratedprocedures for verification, a solipsistic enterprise? If science is moderni-ty’s pre-eminent mode of self-understanding, then perhaps t he victory ofmodern societies over traditional societies (e.g., Arendt, 1958; Foucault,1977; Gran t, 1969) s not only a practical issue but also an epistemological

and ontological issue.

The very categories ofgemeinschaft lgesellschaft are grounded in theassumption th at an adequate inquiry aims for scientific objectivity, itself

10. Gesellschaft moves toward decadence and th us is itself ultimately doomed t o collapse. Unlike Marx,Tonnies saw the potential for self-destruction, rather than self-transformation, inherent in the

modem moment.



178 CRSNRCSA, 35.2 1998

according to Tonnies, an assumption of agesellschaft frame of mind. Thatis, th e distinction itself is subject to the very same critique a s Tonnies’critique ofgesellschaft; it is mechanical and impersonal. The question thatemerges from this is whether the objectivity claimed by the humansciences can adequately understand and analyse the community that

privileges emotions, sees attachments t o people as being infused with amoral and sacred character, and is organized on the principle of timerather t han space (Tonnies,1960:232-23), if th at objectivity takes modernscience as its model. If science is a mode of inquiry which itself privilegesspace rather than time, detachment rather th an attachment, and instru-mental rationality rather than understanding, is there a mode of inquirywhich privileges time in such a way tha t the social organization based onthe principle of time (gemeinschaft) can be more adequately taken intoaccount? (Gadamer developed his hermeneutic approach t o social inquiry

in response t o this principle of temporality.) In seeking to describe humansociety and history as though he were outside of it, Tonnies ended up

unquestioningly speaking from gesellschaft principles precisely at themoment he was condemning those self-same principles. In other words,Tonnies uses scientific reason t o condemn the social organization whichallows scientific reason t o dominate community spirit.

This issue (of theoretical orientation), as we shall see, is of criticaldecisiveness not only for the way th e urban-rural discourse is conceptual-ized, but also for the way much of the very enterprise of sociology isgrounded in an understanding of the tradition-modern divide. Tonniesunderstands from within the parameters of a modernist consciousness(Berger et. al., 1974) and simultaneously struggles against the tendencies

of that consciousness; he condemns the intellectual’s tendency t o rely onreason alone and proceeds t o be rational in a universalist way; he displaysthe modernist tendency to develop ahistorical concepts and condemns the

decadence inherent in th at very inclination.

While Weber is much more consistent in his theoretical orientation,these paradoxes need also t o be understood as expressionsof the modernist

consciousness(“toquestion its limits and engage otherness”).The othernessofgemeinschaft i s both oppositional and competitive. It represents the self-condemnation of modernity without acknowledgement of the modernorientation that makes the articulation of such a condemnation possible.A t the weakest level of interpretation, Tonnies’ work is an early repre-sentative of the kind of inconsistent self-condemnation seen in more recentpost-modernist studies; a stronger reading of Tonnies also recognizes theinclination, inherent in modernity, t o develop a positive relation toresistance. That is, thegemeinschaft lgesellschaft distinction is a solutionto theproblem of the need to develop self-resistance. Is the issue of engagingotherness not merely an interest of a modernist consciousness but now,

more importantly, a need? Does modern society need to develop a way ofresisting its own modernist tendencies?




My argument here is that the need t o develop the capacity to be opent o resistance (otherness) is a problem for a society and a world in whichcalculation and impersonality are increasingly dominant and a problemfor sociological inquiry in which a positivist epistemology is dominant. Ifthis argument is persuasive, then i t needs t o be engaged (and resisted) byCanadian sociologists in general and not just those interested in theory.The gemein schaft lgesel lschaft distinction can now be understood both asinstancing the need t o “question limits and engage otherness” and as adisplay of the difficulty modern social science has in realizing this need. Ismodern social science,despite and perhaps because of its self-understand-ing as objective, tied t o the historical characteristic of modernity, th at is,tied t o “its taste for appropriating or redeeming otherness”(Clifford,1988:193). When we turn t o a more reflexively consistent colleague of Tonnies,Max Weber, we see th at consistency deepens rather than resolves the

problem.

Max Weber: The UrbadR ural Moderml’raditional Distinction

Max Weber, like his colleagues and acquaintances Simmel and Tonnies,studied the connection between modernity, capitalism, and urbanization.Like Simmel, but unlike Tonnies, he is more influential in urban ratherthan rural sociology. He is credited by Wirth as coming closest t o develop-ing a systematic theory of urbanism in his “penetrating essay” T h e C i t y(Wirth, 1938:8).Yet, in an early essay Capi ta l i sm and Rura l Soc ie ty inG e r m a n y (Weber, 1946a: 363-85), Weber is the first of the classicalsociologists t o acknowledge the difference between a European and an

American rural society” and, in the process, the first to recognize thedisappearance of the sociological relevance of the urban-rural distinction.The growth of the nation-state, the development of capitalism as aninternational order, and the bureaucratic rationalization of more and

more areas of social life all mean tha t the distinctiveness of “urban” and“rural ,” as referencing different communities is gradually disappearing(Madindale and Neuwirth, 1958: 56-67). In the essay concerned, Webernoted that “a rural society separate from the urban social community doesnot exist a t the present time in a great part of the modern civilized world.”(1946a: 363) This situation is particularly t rue of the United Statesbecause the American farmer is really an “entrepreneur like any other”and not an “agriculturist” who seeks t o conserve a tradition.12 In ananalysis which foreshadows the recent dispute over subsidies between theE.U. and the United States , Weber, in 1904, argued that “if anything is

11.He says this is necessary because, “of all communities, t he social constitution of rural di stri cts arethe most individual and t he most closely connected with particular historical developments.” (363)

12. Dasgupta in his book, Rural Canada: Structure and Change (1988: 12), describes the moder n farme rin this way: “A farmer in an indu strial society is a commercially oriente d rur al villager who producesfood and othe r article s of consumption by his family but to ma ke a profit. His productive activitiesrespond to supply and demand, and fluctuating prices in the marketplace.” To Weber, this verydefinition itself means th at th e qualifier “rura l villager” is not sociologically relevant as it does notindicate an alternative “society.”



1a0 CRSAIRCSA, 35.2 1998

characteristic of the r ura l conditions of the great wheat-producing states

of America, it is . . . he absolute economic individualism of the farmer, thequality of the farmer as a mere businessman” (364).This situation is seen

t o be in contrast t o Europe in general, and Germany in particular, wherethe “power of tradition inevitably predominates in agriculture.” Thistradition rested on an old economic order which, in Weber’s terms (1946a:367) took the view:

Ho w can I give, on this piece of land, work and sustenance to the

greatest possible number of men? Capitalism asks: From this givenpiece of land, how can I produce as many crops as possible for the

market with as few men as possible?

Weber knew t ha t the old economic order, even in Europe at that time,

was under siege. In this essay he saw rura l society aspossibly providingan alternative to capitalism because, through the monopolization of theland and hereditary preservation of possession, a nobility (not in form but

in fact) would arise. This nobility in turn would provide a political a lter-native to the professional politician (who must live off politics) by nurtur-ing people who are able t o live for politics and the state. This rural societycould bring a more permanent sense of what is valuable (i.e., a sense ofvalue that is not dependent on the shifts of the market) and a sense ofauthority which respects tradition. Such a rural society could resist, in apractical way, the capitalistic pursuit of ‘%eedless gain.” Weber, likeTonnies, saw the otherness of the rural as a need, but unlike Tonnies, hesaw that modernity itself was making this need increasingly impossible tofulfill. He thus foreshadows the claims by Gans (1968) and Pahl (1968)tha t, empirically speaking, the rural-urban difference does not make any

difference; it exists only “in he thoughts of dreamers” (Weber, 1946a: 363).

As would be expected, Weber is more self-consciously sociological

when he addresses th e urb adrura l distinction. What makes the countryo r the city relevant sociologically speaking, is neither geography nordemography, but ra ther their capacity t o socialize a unique character andcommunity. Thus, even though the industrial cities were where mostpeople had come to live, for Weber, this was understood as a decline of thespecial mark of the city because the people who lived there could not be saidto have a special character as city people (Sennett, 1969:18).City dwellersare more likely to get their identity from more general social forces likeclass, occupation, status, even religious conviction (forces which aresocietal, national, and international) than forces tied to living in a specificcity.13 Similarly, the sociological significance of a rural society for Weberlies in its ability t o sustain an alternative culture t o a capitalism, whichfound a home in the city. Thus, the existence of farmers, towns, andvillages does not necessarily lead to a distinct way of life which challenges

13. Conversely, an urban sociology which sought to resist this hegemonic development would need to

focus and develop hespecificityofthecity. i .e.,notjust class, race, and gender inToronto, but rather,

what (if anything) makes the Torontonian (Edmontonian, New Yorker) a Torontonian.




the capitalistic ethos of modern urban life. On this basis, he says “ruralsociety”does not exist in the western United States: there is no meaningfulsocial difference between the farmer and t he businessman, or the farm

labourer and the proletariat. The disappearance of a “genuine ruralsociety” means the disappearance of a resistance t o the dominance ofcapitalism. If farming is driven by the profit motif, if people identify withtheir class or occupation rather than a traditional way of living, then thereis no sociological relevance t o the referent of rura l.

Weber’s sociological conception of rurality addresses a common

conflation in sociociology. Many texts often confuse sociological anddemographic conceptionsof rura lity. For example, Dasgupt acknowledgesthat contemporary Canadian rural society

“increasingly resembles the urban population in sex and dependency

ratios, rate of divorce, level of educational attainment, and ethnic

composition. . . . The contemporary rural life in Canada thus has

attained many features which are typical of an urban society. Its

structure is increasingly gesellschaft with the use in t he number of

secondary groups” (1988: 189-90; 192-93).

Yet he goes on to say tha t ru ral society is not in the process of ex-tinction

because t he population is no longer declining, thus (from Weber’s perspec-tive) confusing a technical point (demographic trends) with a sociological

point (social action).

Weber helps us recognize tha t the u rbad ru ra l difference might nowneed to be understood within the context of modernity. In contemporary

society, rural may no longer reference either backwardness (Marx) o rcommunity (Tonnies). Rather the underlying phenomenon which needs t obe understood is modernity’s need for and, simultaneously, its difficultywith otherness. It is the argument of this essay that the depth of the

difficulty is tied t o the modernity’s pre-eminent mode of self-understand-ing, scientific inquiry.

Weber, Modernity, and the Possibility of a Reflexive Sociology

Weber’s late r work se t out t o show the tight grip that capitalism had onmodern life (Th e Pro testan t E th ic and the Sp ir i t of Ca p i ta l i s m ) and the

interconnection between modernity and the calculating rationality ofscience (“Scienceas a Vocation”). While he was certainly not happy withthese developments, the acknowledgement of the tru th, an acknowledge-ment required of him by virtue of his scientific perspective and commit-ment, demanded th at the force of modern life be recognized. The potential

of an alternative rural life was no longer seen t o be realistic. Yet, his initial

conception of the term rural was motivated by his lifelong interest incoming t o terms with the reality (“the iron cage”) of the modern socio-economic order and the possibilities of realistic resistance t o this force(Liebersohn, 1988: 78-125). His work, whether early o r late, always had



that pa rt icul ar combination of qualities-stating (“calling”) that we (as

scholars and politicians) mus t “bear the fate of the times” (1946b: 155)while, at the same time, acknowledging (sometimes sympathetically,

sometimes impatiently) the “unrealistic” impulse to resist such a fate

I noted above the inconsistencies in the w ay Tonnies formulated the

problem, because of a limited relation to reflexivity: he u sed th e scientific

approach to condemn th e kind of social organization (gesel lschuft)which

privileges th e scientific mode of inquiry. Weber too recognized the “disen-

chant ment of th e w or ld which accompanies th e rise of modern science but ,

in distinction from Tonnies, h e also reflectively acknowledged (194613)thatth e scientific orien tation to t he stu dy of social life is part of the same

development. As Dreyfus and Rabinow (1982: 165 ) sta te,

(194613: 77-156).

“Weber saw th at rationality, in the form of bureaucratization andcalculative thinking, was becoming the dominant way of understand-

ing reality in our time, and he set out to give a rational objectiveaccount of how this form of thinking had come t o dominate ourpractices and self-understanding. He was led, through this scientificanalysis, to see tha t the “disenchantment ofthe world” hat calculativethinking brings about had enormous costs. He even saw that his owntheorizing was part of the same development he deplored, but, as somany commentatorshave pointed out, there was absolutelyno way hisscientific method could justify his sense that the cost of rationality wasgreater than any possible benefit it could bring. Given Weber’s start -ing point, all he could do was point out the paradoxical results of hisanalysis and the increasingperils t o ourculture” Dreyfusand Rabinow,1982: 165).14

What have been th e consequences of th e inte rtwi ning of these

intel lectu al an d socio-economic developments? According to th e Cana dia n

sociologist R. Alex Sim (1988: 13-46), the rur al community is “battered”and the concept of rurality has disappeared.

The disappearance or misuse of the word “rural”deprives a large andimportant element of the country of a name. Ingenious efforts havebeen made to avoid the world rural-for example, non-metropolitan,non-urban, regional city, and even micropolis. Statistics Canada stilluses rural as a category with tw o sub-groupings, arm and non-farm,and the absurd cut-off point of 1000, o r a density of 400 persons persquare kilometre. Thus, about one out of three Canadians are non-farm, non-metropolitan residents” (1988:22) .

Sim goes on to sa y (22)that “the disappe arance of the word “rur al” sa case of urb an imperialism.”

14.Dreyfus and Rabinow (1982: 66) go on to argu e tha t Foucault’s “genealogical analytics” avoid suchparadoxical dillemmas by “taking the best” of the positions of Weber, Heidegger, Adorno, andMerleau-P onty in a “way which en ables him to overcome some of their difficulties.”




Esoteric intellectual concerns (regarding the meaning of the concept

of rura lity ) and broad socio-cultural developments are, it seems, intrinsi-cally interconnected. The “battered ru ra l community’’ of Canada and th e

difficulty sociologists have in reflexively recognizing the embeddedness ofa mode of inquiry in a culture (modernity) are very much intertwined.

With the acknowledgement of the hegemony of the moderdscientific“life-world,”we are now beginning t o recognize the difficulty modernityhas in preserving a sense of otherness (in this case, rurality) which wouldtruly allow it t o question its limits. Modern scientific methods are not cul-

turally neutral instruments of social inquiry. A s Foucault (1977; Dreyfusand Rabinow, 1982) shows in unescapable detail, the rise of the socialsciences is tied t o the very modernity they claim t o study. The problem is

therefore, tha t the social sciences, by the very constitution of the ir episte-mological orientation, are so tied t o the modern life-world th at they a re in

danger of seeing in the other (gerneinschaft/ruraVtown/community) afailed version of itself. Modern consciousness thus may only appear to be

engaging otherness and questioning its limits; what it ends up actuallydoing is affirming its own orientation and is thus blind to its limits: in the

process a strong sense of al ter i tas is rendered invisible. The ur ba dr ur aldiscourse in the sociological tradition can now be understood to be strug-gling with thi s very problem of the need for, but difficulty of, achieving agood relation to resistance. The disappearance of a viable conception ofrurality, noted by Pahl above, is not jus t a mere empirical fact but an ex-pression of this modern problem.

The problem which animates both Tonnies and Weber is someinarticulate awareness of the potential for self-destructiveness inherent

within t he modern project. Without “questioning otherness and engagingresistance,”it may be that the self-destructive potential of modernity willgo unchecked. From the perspective of our contemporary awareness of the

environmental crisis, not t o mention the twentieth-century experience offascism and Stalinism, it now seems tha t this inarticulate worry (on the

part-of Weber and Tonnies in particular) is prophetic. The point of thepaper, however, is that this problem is not just an empirical fact (of theenvironment, the economy, or even of urbanization), but is first and

foremost epistemological and ontological. Questioning limits and engag-ing otherness requires t ha t reflexivity be truly integrated into t he process

of inquiry. Weber’s reflexivity is merely consis tent, where wha t is neededis an openness t o the finite nature of human understanding (Gadamer,1975) and an awareness of the way all inquiry is a process of recommend-ing “principles for acceptance’’ (Blum and McHugh, 1984),not as external

acknowledgements but as intrinsic to very process of inquiry .

Conclusion

If the interest which structures the urban-rural discourse in sociology isth e evaluation of different kinds of communities with their attendant ways



184 CRSNRCSA, 35.2 1998

of thinking and ways of living, then, in so far a s this is the interest of amodernist consciousness, we need t o be aware of the ways this discoursecould end up leading to the silencingof the sense of otherness which could

really challenge that interest. For Marx, the otherness of the ruralreferenced a limit which could be overcome through self-consciousness.Reflexivity,at this stage of the narrative, is needed in order for the actor/collective t o recognize the necessity to develop the means of production.What is not reflected on, what is not made subject t o dialogue, is thecommitment t o developing the means of production as the principle andthe enlightenment rationality built into this principle. The value of theprinciple and the procedure used t o make the principle recognizable(rationality) are taken for granted. Thus, he is optimistic about the possi-bility of an alternative society (communism) emerging in the futurebecause of the theoretical single-minded nature of his analysis. Thoughthis is still a matter of debate, Arendt (Canovan, 1992: 63-98) has shownthe way Marx’s theorizing participates in (rather than reflects on) thetotalitarian tendency of m~ de rn ity. ’~

Tonnies and Weber are more sensitive to the totalitarian element inthe modern moment and thus more apprehensive about modernity. Theyboth acknowledge that the dominance of instrumental reasoning is dan-gerous. While Weber saw this dominance operating in science as well ascapitalism and thus operating in his own analysis as well as in the societyhis work addressed, Tonnies only saw the latter. Though both werestrongly influenced by Marx, both were also more reflective about themodernity which Marx’s analysis expresses.

For Tonnies, the other for a society that privileges relations based oncalculation (capitalism, gesellschaft) is community, a community thatfinds its highest expression in the town. Though rural life in modernsociety no longer resembles agemeinschuft,pockets of traditional commu-

nities (e.g., the Hutterites in Western Canada, closely-knit working classor ethnic neighbourhoods in the city) give us life-world images of analternative t o gesellschaft. Yet the problem of the superiority of commu-nity over association is not just a problem for social relations, it is also aproblem of the way we analyze and study these relations. Instrumentalreasoning is not just central t o capitalism, it is also central t o scientificinquiry.

In Tonnies’view, reflexivity requires an other (gemeinschaft) ha t isqualitively different which, in turn, enables a more radical evaluation ofself (gesellschuft). In this case, the principle of instrumental rationalityhas been revealed and i ts potential for destructiveness of community ishighlighted. In Tonnies’ work this condemnation is self-contradictorybecause it relies on the same kind ofreasoning it condemns. Weber is more

15. ‘The tyranny of logicality” is “the compulsion with which we can compel ourselves ,“allowing ourthoug hts and decisions to be dictated by what we have already accepted instead of exercising thehuman capacity to start afresh, to have new ideas, to look at thing s again, to learn from experience”(Arendt, as summarized by Canovan: 91).




reflectively consistent in so far as he recognizes the inter relation betweenscience, rationality and modernity and thus the way his own work not only

addresses but is part of the problem. Yet all tha t his consistency enables

him t o do is acknowledge the problem (disenchantment) and i ts depth. ForWeber (1946b1, otherness is acknowledged but only as an “irrationalalternative,” the engaging of which requires an “intellectual sacrifice.”This otherness cannot challenge modernity itself. There is no rural

alternative: all one can do is retreat from modernity (into th e arms of the“old churches”),a retreat which, if it is t o have dignity, requires the explicit

acknowledgement that one is renouncing intellectual and political in-volvement in the world. Weber’s work forces us to acknowledge tha t th etheoretical problem and the way we recognize the problem in the world areintertwined. It is my argument throughout tha t a more reflexive sociologyis the solution to this intellectual problem.

In this paper, I have argued tha t the difficulty in engaging otherness

lies in the way t ha t modernity privileges a certain kind of rationality. The

Hegelianism of Marx confidently expresses this rationality, theNietzscheism of Tonnies displays a contradictory self-condemnation of it ,and th e consistency of Weber acknowledges its power. In order for moder-

nity t o develop a strong self-resistance, on the other hand, reflexivity isrequired in order to limit the claims to understanding made on behalf ofa modern rationality. The point of the paper is that this self-resistanceneeds first of all t o be embodied in the process of inquiry itself. The paper

makes th e claim that reflexivity is a substantive concern and, simultane-ously, the paper seeks t o be an exemplification of what a reflexive inquirylooks like. Reflexivity says and shows that truly engaging othernessnecessarily involves self-questioning (in this case, questioning of the

standards of rationality used to generate knowledge). In the work of theearly seminal sociologists, this need for reflexivity is both acknowledgedand denied. A s sociology develops in the twentieth century, t he dominance

of scientific rationali ty a tta ins a hegemonic s ta tus un til thephenomenological, hermeneutic and dialectical analytic developments in

the 1970s. Simultaneously, as the urban-rural discourse develops, theotherness of rura lity disappears and the recognition of a sense of moder-

nity’s need for otherness becomes more repressed.

With the aid of contemporary developments in sociological theoryand research, it is now possible t o address and resist th e dominance of the

instrumental life-world (both in practice and in theory). Such an addressand examination requires, firstof all, an acknowledgement of the problem.This is the ta sk I set myself in this paper. As any strong recognition of the

problem also points t o ways that the problem can and needs to beresponded to , the irrelevance of rurality (as a sociological conception) nolonger needs t o be accepted or lamented; rurality as a concept and as a

distinct experience can be rehabilitated. This is the task of another work(Bonner, 1997).



186 CRSNRCSA, 35.2 1998

Appendix

Acknowledging the poststructuralist critique of modern thinking (Scott,1990: 34-481, his re-examination of the rural-urban discourse in sociol-ogy will not attempt t o develop an “essentialist” definition of rurality.Rather my analysis is concerned with the meaning of the attempts t odevelop a unitary concept of rurality which involves teasing out the waythe negations and oppositions, suppressed in the concept, operate in thetexts of Marx, Tonnies, and Weber. Using a configuration of phenomenol-og y (Berger et. al., 1974;Garfinkel, 19671, ermeneutics (Gadamer,19751,and dialectical analysis (Blum and McHugh, 1974; 19841,my approachdraws on the theories and methods which acknowledge “the linguisticturn” (Dallmayer and McCarthy, 1977) n human science inquiry; this ist o say tha t the materials (language,beliefs, reasons, statements, evidence,etc.) used to understand and represent conceptionsof the ruraVurban are

linguistic, public and shared by both the inquirer and the subject ofinquiry(Habermas, 1988: 9-170).This interpretive orientation is radical in thesense tha t it explicitly acknowledges the “rootedness”of all inquiry ininterpretation. Because of this “rootedness,” elf-reflectionis understoodt o be an essential componentof this processof inquiry (Blum a n d McHugh,1984).That is, reflexivity is not just an everyday capacity;it also needs t obe intrinsic to the process of inquiry in the human sciences. Procedurallyspeaking, reflexivity means that as the inquirer takes into accountreflections on the issue of the urban-rural difference, he or she must alsobe able t o take into account the inquirer’s own reflections on thesereflections.For example, as I take into account Weber’s reflections on therural-urban difference, I also need t o take into account Weber’s relation toreflexivity. In Gadamer’s terms, the inquiry must be able to comprehendthe way it comprehends its subject matter (1975:333-41). This paper

therefore seeks t o show tha t these recent developments in human scienceinquiry (configured by the name of radical interpretive sociology), canshow the way a particular historical and cultural interest (engagingotherness and questioning limits) structures the rural-urban discourse,thus demonstrating the way the principle of “effectivehistory” (Gadamer,1975: 67-74)operates in all understanding.

References

Arendt,H. 1958. he Hum an Condition. Chicago: The Univ. of Chicago Pr.

Arendt, H. 1965.On Revolution. Middlesex: Penguin Books.

Baumann, Z. 1994. Modernity and ambivalence.” n The Polity Reader in

Social Theory. A . Giddens, D . Held, D. Hubert, D. Seymour andJ. Thompson (eds.). Cambridge: Polity Press, pp. 351-361.




Berger, P.L. 1963. nvita tion to Sociology:A Hu ma nistic Perspective. New

Berger, P.L., B. Berger and H. Kellner. 1974.The Homeless Mind: Mod -

Blum, A.F. 1974. Theorizing. London: Heinemann.

Blum, A.F. and P. McHugh. 1984.Self-Reflectionin the Ar ts a nd Sciences .New Jersey: Humanities Press.

Bonner,K. 997.A Great Place to Raise K ids: Interpretation, Science, andthe Urban-Rural Debate. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’sUniv. Pr.

Canovan, M. 1992. H a n n a h A r e n d t: A Reinterpretation of Her PoliticalThought . Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.

Clifford, J. 1988. The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethno -graphy, Literature. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Pr.

Dallmayr, F.R. and T.A. McCarthy (eds.). 1977.Unders tand ingand SocialInqu iry . Notre Dame: Univ. of Notre Dame Pr.

Dasgupta, S. 1988. Rural Canada: Structure and Change. Queenston,Ont.: The Edwin Mellen Press.

Dreyfus, H.L. and P. abinow. 1982.Michel Foucault: Beyond S truct ural -is m and Hermeneutics. Sussex: The Harvester Press.

Durkheim, E. 1972. Selected Writings. A. Giddens (ed.). Cambridge:Cambridge Univ. Pr.

Foucault, M. 1977.Discipline and Punish: The Birt h of the Prison. NewYork: Pantheon Books.

Gadamer, H.-G. 1975. Tr uth and Method. London: Sheed and Ward.

Gans,H.J.968. “Urbanism and suburbanism asways of life.”InReadingsin Ur ba n Sociology. R.E. Pahl (ed.). London: Pergamon Press.

Garfinkel, H. 1967. Stud ies in Ethnomethodology. Cambridge: PolityPress.

Grant, G. 1969. Technology and Empire: Perspectives on North Am erica .Toronto: House of Anansi.

Giddens, A. 1991.Introdu ction to Sociology. New York: W.W. Norton andCompany.

Giddens, A. 1991. The Consequences of Modernity. Stanford: StanfordUniv. Pr.

Habermas,J. 1988.O n he Logic of the Social Sciences. Cambridge: PolityPress.

Hale, S. 1990. “Lossof community? The rural-urban debate.” In Controver-sies in Sociology: A Cana dian Introduct ion. Sylvia Hale. Toronto:Copp Clark Pitman Ltd.

York: Anchor Books.

ernization and Consciousness. New York: Vintage Books.



188 CRSNRCSA, 3.5.2 1998

Hutter, M. 1988. The Changing Family: Comparative Perspectives NewYork: Macmillan Publishing Company.

Liebersohn, H. 1988.Fate and Utopia in Germ an Sociology, 1870-1923.Massachusetts: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press.

Littlejohn, S. 1989. Theor ies o f Human Communica t ion . Belmont:Wadsworth.

Loomis, C.P. 1960.“Introduction:Tonnies and his relation t o sociology.” nCom mun ity and Society . East Lansing: The Michigan State Univ.Pr., pp. 1-11.

Martindale, D. and G. Neunvirth. 1958.“Prefatory emarks: The theory ofthe city.” In The Ci ty . Max Weber. New York: Collier Books, pp. 9-70.

Marx, K. and F. Engels. [1848] 1965Manifesto of the Com mun ist Party.Peking: Foreign Languages Press.

Marx, K. and F. Engels. [18471 1970. The Ge rm an Ideology. New York:

International Publishers.McHugh, P., S. Raffel, D. Foss and A. Blum. 1974. O n the Beginn ing o f

Social Inqu iry. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Merton, R.K. 1976. “The unanticipated consequences of social action.” InSociological Ambivalence and Other Essays. New York: The FreePress.

Meyrowitz, T. 1985.N o Sense of Place: The Impa ct o f Electronic Media onSocial Behavior. New York: Oxford Univ. Pr.

Nietzsche, F. 1956. The Bir th of Tragedy and Th e Genealogy of Morals.Trans. F. Golfing. Garden City, New York: Doubleday Anchor Books.

Pahl, R.E. 1968. “The rural-urban continuum.” In Readings in U r b a nSociology. R.E. Pahl (ed.). London: Pergamon Press.

Pahl, R.E. 1969.Whose City ?A nd further essays on ur ban society. Middle-sex: Penguin Books Inc.

Palmer, R. 1969.Hermeneutics. Evanston: Northwestern Univ. Pr.

Sennett, R. (ed.). 1969.Classic Essays on The Culture of Ci t ies . New York:Appleton-Century-Crofts.

Scott,J.W. 1990. “Deconstructing quality-versus-difference: O r , the usesof poststructuralist theory for feminism.” In Conflicts in F e m i n i s m .M. Hirsch and E.F. Keller (eds.). New York: Routledge.

Sim, R.A. 1988.Land and Communi ty : Cr is is in Canada’s Countryside.Guelph: University of Guelph.

Taylor,C. 1977. “Interpretation and the sciences of man.”In Unders tand-ing and Social Inqu iry. F. Dallmayer and T. McCarthy (eds.). Notre

Dame: Notre Dame Press, pp. 101-31.Tonnies, F. 1960. Tonnies: Co mm uni ty and Society (Gemeinschaft und

Gesellschaft). East Lansing: The Michigan State Univ. Pr.




Weber, M. 1946a. “Capitalism & ru ral society in Germany.” In From MaxWeber:Essays in Sociology. Gerth an d Mills (eds.). New York: OxfordUniv. Pr., pp. 363-85.

Weber, M. 194613. “Science as a vocation.” In From M ax Weber: Essays inSociology. Gerth and Mills (eds.). New York: Oxford Univ. Pr.,

Weber, M. 1947.The Theory ofEconomic and Social Organization. Trans.

Weber, M . (1958) 1962. The Ci ty . Trans. D. Martindale and G. Neuwirth

Weber, M. 1958. The Protestant Ethic and The Spir i t of Capi ta l i sm. New

Williams, R . 1973. The Country and the City . Oxford: Oxford Univ. Pr.

Wirth,L. 1938.“Urbanismas away of l i fe.”AmericanJou rna l of Sociology.

J o h n Yerxa Research Inc. 1992. Images and Issues 1992:Assessing theQuality of Life i n Urb an and Rura l Comm unities . March, 1992.Edmonton.

pp. 129-56.

A.M. Henderson an d T. Parsons . New York: The Free Press .

(eds.). New York: Collier Books.

York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.

Vol. 44, NO. 1, pp. 1-24.

bonner, k. reflexity, sociology and the rural-urban

Documents