Community structures in world perspective: Decline and transfiguration

Abstract

Despite the relatively uniform images evoked by the word “community,” in the past several centuries the community structures within which persons live have been anything but stable. The penetration of industrialization, bureaucratization and urbanization into all areas of the world has resulted in the inexorable erosion not only of traditional values, but also of all older forms of traditional andGemeinschaft community structures. From the ruins of the past, however, entirely new community formations and ideologies have emerged. It is not entirely unexpected that these newer formations and ideologies are based on both mummified images of past traditions and on entirely new values and institutions provided by industrial civilization. We argue that the destruction of communities defined by past traditions and the emergence of new formations constitute a fundamental transformation in communal and community relationships.