Authenticity, Community, and Modernity

Abstract

In spite of longstanding attention among philosophers, theorists, and researchers, the community concept lacks uniform meaning. The efforts of twentieth century writers to achieve a modicum of definitional consensus were thrown into significant question by pervasive socio-economic change processes such as urbanization, industrialization, and deterritorialization. These and other related transformations have led some researchers to abandon community as an outmoded concept, while others affirm its relevance, albeit in ever-changing forms. Both classical and contemporary authors have argued the importance of community by drawing on the notion of authenticity. And, although these two highly complex concepts have provoked extensive and somewhat distinct (i.e., disciplinary) debate, they share important analytical themes: common life, common will, and common good. In order to appreciate the dynamic interplay between authenticity and community, it is important to examine core aspects of the 'mass society' argument of the mid-1900s. However, the quest or search for community is made more transparent when interpreted in light of ideas proffered by Tonnies, Heidegger, Husserl, and Buber concerning the personal (subjective) and communal (intersubjective) bases of authenticity. Many authors have since commented on the shift toward increasingly subjective (existential) modes of authentic self-being and the implicit loss of traditional community life. In the midst of persistent change and contestation, the notion of authentic community continues to resurface in philosophical and social science discourse.