The Gemeinschaft versus the Geselleschaft

According to Tonnies there are two different types of communities, the Gemeinschaft and the Gesellschaft. The Gemeinschaft is a small, tight knit community where everyone knows one another. Rural areas or small towns would best represent a gemeinschaft community. Resources are shared amongst each other and they are completely self-sufficient, supplying each other with food and clothes and shelter. There is no need to reach outside the community because all needs can be met within it. The people who live in gemeinschaft communities also have very similar mentalities, since they are all located in such a small area and are not exposed to outside influences than it is somewhat inevitable that this should happen. It is for this reason also that the people are wanted for work in factories. They are extremely interchangeable since they share all the same skills, values, and thoughts. They represent mechanical solidarity.

Those living in a Gesellschaft community represent organic solidarity. They are focused more on personal gain and private property than helping out the larger community. It is a more contract society, focusing on deals that can better ones personal wealth. The people living in a gesellschaft community are also much more individualistic, they do not all share the same values and opinions as the gemeinschaft people do. The people are also much more specialized, they have special skills in one area and because of that naturally have to depend on one another for resources. Since they are not skilled in many areas they cannot provide for themselves as well as those in gemeinschaft. They have to resort to trade and bartering to gain goods and resources. In essence they are all free from one another, yet still bound to each other.


Here there are further explanations of gemeinschaft and gesellschaft:

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/228066/Gemeinschaft-and-Gesellschaft

The Metropolis and Mental Life

Living in a urban setting can be very strenuous on a persons mental health. Constantly being surrounded by people, noise, commotion, and crowds can cause one to feel stifled, anxious, and useless. A person uses less mental energy to process lasting impressions, ones that happen more often and regularly. It takes more energy to process the rapid changes that occur during urban life. Even walking from block to block takes more mental energy than someone living in a small town walking down their street. A person in a small town knows all their neighbors and surrounding very well whereas a person in the city could have the same neighbor for ten years and not recognize them from a hole in the wall.

Since city dwellers have to process so much more and are consuming more mental energy they tend to react on a lesser emotional level than those who live in rurality. They are less sensitive and more removed from their personality. This removal from emotional reactions has given city dwellers a reputation for being cold hearted, rude, obnoxious, and even violent sometimes. In reality they are just adapting to city life, to the sensory overload and can no longer process stimuli in the same way as a small town person.

City dwellers and small town folk often share a mutual aversion to one another. This seems to have a lot to do with them not understanding each others reactions to situations. City dwellers have to have less emotional reactions in order to survive the constant stimuli from their environment whereas small town people can react emotionally becasue they are receiving less stimuli. They are all just surviving in their environments.