Constitutive Communities - Essay Example

In the first column below, identify the characteristics of constitutive communities. For each characteristic, provide a short supporting quote from the text. In the second column, identify how this characteristic helps to identify one of your constitutive communities.

Characteristic of Constitutive Communities

How does this apply to me?

Traditional and archaic

      Bell shows this through Philips’ conversation in which he postulates that Constitutive communism formed the basis upon which Nazism was propelled in the old times. He posits that it is an idea that cannot thrive in the modern society where people have continually integrated into one universal community (Bell 95).

      He postulates that due to the unrealizable ideal of Gemeinschaft there has been a deliberate and continuous movement of the societal ties to the new and modern world of Gesellschaft. He buys the idea that communitarianism is a barbaric venture that is both dangerous and archaic (Bell 99).

Rigid in its context and form

      He further potent that the Gemeinschaft ideals are simply unrealizable in the contemporary societies where the growth and concentration of capitalism have led to the breaking up of traditional small-scale societal ties so much so that the implementation of communitarianism is simply impossible (Bell 100). He postulates that Gemeinschaft ideals have become static as people of today do not just assume and fulfill socially given obligations as before.

Unified and Undifferentiated

       The dichotomy as presented by Philip is challenged by Anne who thinks that in contemporary society, people think of themselves neither as undifferentiated communitarians existing in self-sufficient and small villages nor as self-secluded and modern people.

Highly social

       It is shown by Anne that even in modern society, people still have communal attachments and peoples’ loyalties do stretch to more than one community but to families, hometowns and nations (Bell 99).

Highly dependent

        It is important for contemporary people to appreciate the fact that we do identify with not only our communities but with many communities in our lives. She brings out a clear knowledge that communitarians due to place special interests in communal life. The justification for the communitarian ideal emphasizes the experience that people bound up with our lives in particular communities in which we live (Bell 101).