Educational Resources Of Village And Rural Communities (1913)

The urban society that succeeds it, though with elements of community remaining, depends upon deliberative trade, calculation in business, and contractual agreement, industry based on the productive use of capital, and the self-evident validity of science. Though dispassionate in tone, Tonnies's writing -725- reveals an unmistakable sympathy for the rural communities disappearing around him. Moreover, Tonnies draws an important related distinction between two kinds of will. Natural will "is the psychological equivalent of the human body." It is inseparable from activity; inherited and organic in growth; sensuous and artistically creative; attributed to common people; and female in gender. Rational will, by contrast, "is the product of thinking itself" and possesses reality only with reference to the thinking subject. It is situated prior to activity for better control; conceptually dominated by an image of the future; tool-oriented and mechanical; attributed to the educated classes; and, finally, male in gender ...»