Reflexivity, Sociology and the Rural-Urban Distinction in Marx, Tonnies and Weber*

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Reflexivity, sociology and the ruralurban distinction in Marx, Tonnies and WeberKieran BonnerThe Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology. 35.2 (May 1998): p165.Copyright: COPYRIGHT 1998 Canadian Sociological Associationhttp://www.csascs.ca/crshome/Abstract:

This paper assesses the relevance of various representations of ruralism/urbanism in Marx, Tonnies, and Weberas these pertain to the current literature on the issue of reflexivity in social science. Acknowledging the linguisticturn in human science inquiry, the reexamination of this discourse does not attempt to develop an "essentialist"definition of rurality. Rather the analysis is concerned with the meaning of the attempts by Marx, Tonnies, andWeber to develop a concept of rurality which involves teasing out the way negations and oppositions operate intheir texts. The paper argues that the rural/urban discourse is structured by a modernist interest in engagingotherness and questioning limits. It also shows the difficulty a modernist consciousness has with preserving asense of the very otherness it needs to engage. Several Canadian studies, which draw on the rural/urbandistinction are cited to illustrate the field's conceptual predicament. The paper argues that part of the problemwhich modernity has with otherness (in this case the otherness of the rural) lies in the scientific requirement that,by virtue of a commitment to objectivity, reflexivity be excluded from the process of inquiry. Reflexivity, as intrinsicand necessary to the process of human science inquiry, is therefore both a topic and a resource for the paper.

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a . . . disquieting quality of modernism: its taste for appropriating or redeeming otherness, for constituting nonWestern arts in its own image, for discovering universal, ahistorical "human" capacities. (Clifford, 1988: 193)

As we readily recognize from media coverage, the urbanrural distinction is alive in popular imagination.Television programs such as North of 60, Picket Fences, NYPD Blue and E.R. display a contrast in ways of livingwhich rural and urban settings are said to represent. The debate in the Canadian parliament on the gunregistration bill (1995) was said to have been organized on ruralurban lines. Surveys (e.g., Yerxa, 1992) andpopular radio programs (such the CBC's Morningside) claim that a rural setting is often preferred for the superior"quality of life" it offers and for being a good place to raise children.(1)

The urbanrural debate has long been addressed in sociology. Yet, despite its place in popular culture, as aconcept, the distinction is said to be sociologically irrelevant, at least according to Pahl (1968) and Gans (1968).The globalization (Giddens, 1991) and the mediatization (Meyrowitz, 1985) of modern society seem to havemade the distinctions developed by the sociologists in the late nineteenth century irrelevant for the late twentiethcentury. Is the urbanrural distinction a modernist conceptualization which now has no relevance in these socalled postmodern times?

In this paper I will show that by making use of contemporary developments in sociology (phenomenology,hermeneutics, poststructuralism and dialectical analysis), the classic contributions of Marx, Tonnies and Webercan be analysed to show the way they participate in and foreshadow the modern and postmodern debate. Thepaper also argues that the most important contribution of contemporary theoretical developments to sociology isthe recognition of the importance of the need to include reflexivity in the process of inquiry. This article, therefore,demonstrates how contemporary theoretical developments can be used to help understand the meaning that theurbanrural distinction had for Marx, Tonnies and Weber. Though written from a standpoint of familiarity withinterpretive sociology (a familiarity shared by many Canadian sociologists), the subject matter (the classicaltradition and the urbanrural debate) and the point (the need for reflexive sociology) are of concern for the wholetradition.(2)

While distinctions between city and country are almost as old as Western culture itself (Williams, 1973), it is therise of modernity in general and of the Industrial Revolution in particular which generated the sociological debateabout the positive and/or negative consequences of this new development. As Sennett remarks, "up to the timeof the Industrial Revolution, the city was taken by most social thinkers to be the image of society itself, and notsome special, unique form of society" (1969: 3). The country, whether in its pastoral (Theocritus) or agricultural(Hesiod) representation, was synonymous with nature, i.e., the fertility of spring and summer in contrast to thebarrenness and accident of winter (Williams, 1973: 1334). The rapid changes in society brought on by theIndustrial Revolution focussed and organized the theorizing and research concerning urbanrural differences. Inparticular, the drastic shift in population from rural to urban centres meant that within a period of 100 years, manysocieties, that had been demographically rural for centuries, became demographically urban.(3) In turn, this



change challenged social theorists to reflect on the meaning and influence of urban and rural social organization.For social theorists who sought to understand the transformation in urban and rural life initiated by the industrialrevolution, the urbanrural distinction no longer referenced the difference between corruptness of society and thepurity of nature (Rousseau) but rather presented social theorists with two different kinds of social organization.

This development in the understanding of the rural from what is Other to human society (nature, beauty, thebrutish, the mysterious) to another kind of society, itself demonstrates what Clifford, in the essay cited above(1988: 193), ironically calls "the healthy capacity of modernist consciousness to question its limits and engageotherness." At the end of this century, we are very much aware of the practical consequences of this modernistimpulse. Otherness is more often "appropriated or redeemed" rather than truly engaged. And whether one looksto Arendt (1958) or Foucault (1977), or Grant (1969), it seems that the disappearance of any strong conception ofotherness mirrors the disappearance of any relevant sociological conception of rurality. The history of thesociological literature on the urbanrural difference is a story which begins with a conception of its decisivenessfor understanding ways of living (Wirth, 1938) to its irrelevance as a sociological conception (Gans, 1968; Pahl,1968). This history begins with the opportunity the distinction raises for comparing two different ways of living (theurban, the rural), and concludes that "any attempt to tie particular patterns of social relationships to specificgeographical milieux is a singularly fruitful exercise" (Pahl, 1969: 293).(4) While the reason given to account forthe discrepancy between the earlier (Chicago School) and later sociologists is the antiurban ideological bias ofthe former (e.g., Hutter, 1988: 41; Pahl, 1969: 85), I will argue that this story reflects both "the capacity of themodernist consciousness to question its limits and engage otherness" and the difficulty a modernistconsciousness has with preserving a sense of the very otherness it needs to engage. Because I am also dealingwith the inception of modern sociology, I will argue that the sociological project, particularly in its more positivisticexpression, is bound up with this modernist problem; part of the problem which modernity has with otherness (inthis case the otherness of the rural) lies in the scientific requirement that, by virtue of its commitment to objectivity(Taylor, 1977: 10331), reflexivity be excluded from the process of inquiry. For the purposes of space, I willconcentrate on the work of three seminal nineteenthcentury sociologists, Marx, Tonnies, and Weber in order totease out the tensions built into their influentially formative conceptions of the urbanrural distinction (seeAppendix for a more detailed description of the theoretic orientation of this article).

Initially the urbanrural discourse in sociology was organized on the basis of seeking to understand two types ofsociety, the urban society and the rural society. Otherness is now understood to represent not what is other tohuman understanding/society but rather an alternative way of living. The implications of this discursive strategymeans that the engagement of otherness now raises the issues of freedom, evaluation, and change. Modernsocial science discourse, by casting Other as another social organization, rests on and asserts the claim thatsociety represents a particular way of living and that this way of living has to be understood, evaluated andcompared with another way of living. The sociological distinction now has an implicit normative element which isbetter? As we will see, Marx and Tonnies are explicit in their answer to this question while Weber recognizes thedifficulty a scientific sociology has in addressing this question of value in the first place.

Marx and Engels: The City/Country Progressive/Regressive Distinction

One of the earliest sociologists to address the differences between the city and the country is Marx. He andEngels interpreted the rise of capitalism as a simultaneous subjection

... of the country to the rule of the town. It has created enormous cities, has greatly increased the urbanpopulations as compared with the rural, and has thus rescued a considerable part of the population from theidiocy of rural life (1965: 38).

Here and in The German Ideology (1970: 3995), they argue that rural life nurtured a subservience to nature (68).They see this subservience as a primitive form of society because it is a primitive mode of production. That is,rural life is not an other to the mode of production of capitalism but rather an early stage in its development. Thecountry is organized by the relation between humans and nature, the labour of the farmer for the product of thelatter. At this stage of the mode of production, humans have not yet grasped the productive possibilities inherentwithin their own labour. They have not, according to Marx and Engels, because "physical activity is as yet notseparated from mental activity." Thus "[a]verage human common sense is adequate" in relation to what lifedemands. Moreover, "[t]he antagonism between town and country begins with the transition from barbarism tocivilization, from tribe to state, from locality to nation, and runs through the whole history of civilization to thepresent day" (1970: 69). That is, the very tension between town and country is itself an instance of the rise ofcivilization as exemplified in the form of the development of nation or state. The existence of the town requiresthe ability to think independently of the natural task at hand, because exchange and labour as modes of



production are liberated from, as against being dominated by, subservience to the land. The town makes human

independence recognizable as a possibility and actuality where the country makes domination (of humans by

nature, of humans by each other, e.g., landlord/serf) seem natural and necessary.

Marx and Engels argue that the feudal system of ownership prominent in the Middle Ages "started out from the

country" (1970: 45). In this feudal system, people were tied to each other in a hierarchical and patriarchal manner

in a way which fettered the productive possibilities inherent in human action (1965: 3248). Rural life leads to

idiocy because the nascent productive vitality inherent to all social organization is overwhelmed by the ideology

of a deference to tradition which is antithetical to the material and productive possibilities in social organization.

Therefore, according to this formulation, rural life is idiotic because it endlessly and unimaginatively repeats the

social patterns of previous generations under the guise of a feudal ideology which legitimates patriarchy,

hierarchy, and the domination of people in general.

From this perspective, the ideology of family, community, and tradition associated with rurality is a mere

"sentimental veil" that bound the majority of people, particularly women and children, to a subordinate,

impoverished life, and encouraged a "slothful indolence." By virtue of its ideological antipathy to the novel

possibilities in human action, rural life therefore is antipathetic to the resources that the new, who in any society

are the young, could bring to the community. Arendt (1958) says that an openness to the novel (inherent in the

condition of natality) is the requirement for developing the possibility of human action. The possibility of beginning

something new is fundamental to the human condition. Humans are active agents who have the possibility of

reacting in ways that are unpredictable, making the unanticipated consequences of action a fundamental topic for

sociology (Merton, 1976). However, not every social organization is receptive to and encouraging of this capacity,

though there is no social organization which can eliminate it. Rural life, and the feudal society it nurtured,

according to Marx and Engels, came to stand for a social organization which was explicitly organized around

excluding an openness to the possibilities of human action.

Marx and Reflexivity as SingleMinded Development

Marx and Engels interpreted the urbanrural difference within a frame which celebrated the development of a

society (in this case capitalist but eventually communist) that would release the productive forces (and not merely

its economy as is often erroneously thought) inherent within the relation between humans and the world. This

development, in turn, was to enhance the human liberation of all. We can see from Marx that the concern with

quality of life (e.g., which is a better place to live), can not be resolved by an opinion poll; rather, the real issue is

which place best helps us recognize our potential for freedom and the kind of social organization that produces

the wealth which, according to Marx,(5) free human action requires. Thus, what for many city dwellers appears to

be the easygoing life of a rural setting, is for Marx "a slothful indolence" that is socially constructed by the way

rural society excludes the novel (the enterprising, the beginning of something new) in its midst.

What this formulation does is question the adequacy of empirical and positivistic approaches to understanding

the otherness of rurality. Marx and Engels provide us with a paradigm which problematizes the self

understanding of the rural actor as the true or best understanding of the situation. The selfunderstanding of the

rural actor, in this case, would more than likely reflect a false consciousness as the very possibilities inherent in

human action are automatically excluded from the understanding of the situation. For example, and to put it

crudely, if rural respondents claim their quality of life is better, or that raising a family is easier, is this a knowledge

claim which is grounded in a life of "slothful indolence" or "rural idiocy?" That is, in formulating rural life in this

way, they simultaneously raise the issue of the standard we use to measure the "truth value" of various claims of

the other and suggest the limitations built into positivistic science (see Blum and McHugh, 1984: 1330). Rather,

the claims of the rural actor (the other) require what has come to be called a "hermeneutics of suspicion;" what is

said to be an easygoing lifestyle rooted in the past may merely be an ideological gloss for the preservation of

static social relations (feudal society) which maintain domination of peasants by landlords, of women by men,

and children by parents, and has the real consequence of slothful indolence.(6) Rural life, according to this

formulation, represents another social organization but one which is exemplary only in a negative sense; rurality

encourages rather than discourages the indisposition to exertion: it does not encourage true human enjoyment

but rather the easy pleasure of avoiding the pain of exertion.

It is often said that the phrase "rural idiocy" is part of the polemic which pervades The Communist Manifesto. As

a phrase, it is then excused or downplayed rather than taken as a genuine conception of rurality. Yet, if we give

the formulation a strong reading it can be shown that the idea of rural idiocy fits well with the overall Marxian

framework. For Marx and Engels, the fully aware experience of rurality would, of necessity, be an experience of

deprivation. The countryside is formulated in terms of a lack (of civilization, state, nation). It is known in terms of



what humans could have but do not have (freedom, wealth, the power of the general, the abstract, the universal).

As not wanting what could be developed is unimaginable (who would not want freedom, not want to develop their

human potential, not want to be civilized?), the lack of commitment to development (of society) can only be seen

as idiocy. Thus the Marxian conception of the rural connotes an image of regressiveness, going back in

time/development/capacities, an image which is still part of the meaning associated with rurality. Rural life,

according to the Marxian formulation, represents an empirical but not an analytic possibility.(7) As an empirical

possibility it is either not fully experienced for what it is (because of, for example, a false consciousness) or it is

experienced precisely as a regression (because of the condition of, for example, exile). Rurality means either

being stuck in a deprived situation or it means not realizing that one is deprived. In either case it is not a

"chooseable" alternative.(8) Rurality is not a real other (in the sense of one who challenges selfunderstanding),

rather it is a reminder of what we, as humans committed to development of human potential, must not be.

Rurality, therefore, connotes a blindness or an indifference to individual and collective possibility. The charms of

its claims have to be resisted because rurality exists only because of imposition (oppression) or ignorance

(idiocy).

In terms of the modernist/postmodernist distinction, the perspective of Marx and Engels personify (Clifford's

understanding of) a modernist orientation "the healthy capacity of modernist consciousness to question its

limits"; at each stage of societal development the collective (that is, the relevant class) is required to come to

terms with, and transcend, the limits inhibiting the mode of production. All other forms of otherness are subsumed

under the dominant concern with the mode of production. The otherness of rurality is a limit which is to be

overcome as the collective develops a true consciousness of its situation. The polyphony of voices and

experiences celebrated by postmodernism (Clifford, 1988; Baumann, 1994) are absent in this analysis. In

particular, rural or urban experiences, as unique and particular experiences, are not recognized as phenomena in

their own right, separate from the development of the productive forces of society (Sennett, 1969: 319).

Baumann's (1994: 356) statement that "modern designs of global perfection drew their animus from the horror of

difference and impatience with otherness" is mirrored in the Marxian understanding of rurality. This understanding

represents the confidence modernity has in its own development and the certainty it has in its own

understanding. Marx's optimism concerning the future is based on this confidence in his theoretic orientation. As

Arendt (Canovan, 1992: 6398) has argued, the capacity of human agents to react in unpredictable ways does

not have a strong place in his theoretic focus.

Marx and Engels did not seek to understand the rural or urban experience in its own right. The significant

collective for them was the one which sought to develop the productive forces of society: the various stages

through which society was transformed (ancient, feudal, capitalist, communist) all reflect an analysis of a

collective committed to developing its productive forces which, in turn, makes human liberation from the pain of

endless labor and poverty possible. The standard by which a society is to be judged is the social organization

which has developed its productive forces to their highest realization, which, in turn, maximizes the possibilities of

human liberation. Reflexivity is an intrinsic part of praxis but only in regard to the singleminded interest in

developing the productive forces of society.

This formulation, in turn, has generated the criticism that the focus on historical materialism led to a onesided

(Weber, 1958) and "nomological" (Habermas, 1988) understanding of history and society. Marx's perspective, by

itself, does not make room for the complexity of experience as it privileges a singular theoretical development

over an understanding of the particularity of experience. As stated above, there is no real need for the Marxian

actor to consider the interpretive possibilities in his/her situation, because, analytically speaking there is no real

choice. Rather the actor now has to do what s/he knows needs to be done, that is, in Marx's own terminology, not

interpret but change the world. Yet, for Weber, it is precisely by virtue of the subjective orientation of humans that

action is social; this means theory has to make a place for meaning and experience. Weber developed the

concept of ideal type (Weber, 1947) as his method to account for social action/organization in a way which

preserves the particularity of historical experience and in doing this he was influenced by the

Gemeinschaft/Gesellschaft concepts of Ferdinand Tonnies.

Ferdinand Tonnies: The Urban/Rural Gemeinschaft/Gesellschaft Distinction

Ferdinand Tonnies is a sociologist who was influenced by Marx and who, in turn, influenced Weber (1947: 88). In

1888, Tonnies published his classic text Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft, terms which have now become

standard in the discipline of sociology. While Marx addressed the urbanrural difference in terms of a collective

committed to actualizing the potential for human liberation, Tonnies, (influenced by Nietzsche's

Apollonian/Dionysiac polarity) through the terms gemeinschaft (community) and gesellschaft (association),

recasts the difference in terms of a more fundamental dichotomy and opposition.



With Tonnies, we have neither evolutionary (Darwin) nor revolutionary (Marx) development, but two sharplyopposed social systems based on sharply opposing ways of life. The city, by virtue of the primacy given tocommerce, encourages gesellschaftlich relations; the country, the village, and the town, by virtue of the primacygiven to family and history, give rise to gemeinschaftlich relations. For Tonnies, the town is not an example of therise of the division of labour (Marx), but an example of a community where the social and the natural are kept inbalance. With Tonnies, therefore, the rural begins to take on the character of other, an other whose relationship tomodernity is fundamental and oppositional. This rural other finds its highest expression in the town and thusbegins the association of rurality with town life. Many Canadian sociologists (e.g. Sim, 1988) now argue that thisconception of rurality is more viable than that sustained by Statistics Canada. Yet, what is the nature of this othernamed as gemeinschaft?

By gemeinschaft Tonnies means a "social order bounded together by a unity of wills. Family and socialinstitutions naturally created cooperation in a gemeinschaft prior to its members voluntary choice" (Liebersohn,1988: 7). Gemeinschaft is prevoluntary but nonetheless cooperative, a community which is built on a familialorientation, i.e., one does not choose one's parents (social background, gender, etc.) but one cooperates withthat "givenness."

The basic unit of the traditional community was the house. . . . Bonds of blood relation, place and friendship tiedindividuals to one another and drew houses into larger units of clan, ethnic groups and people, of village, countryand province. The traditional town, no less than the countryside, was organized on communal lines, its guildsregulating production in harmony with the general needs of collective life (Liebersohn, 1988: 2829; see Tonnice:15169).

Although in the literature gemeinschaft is often associated with a rural setting, Tonnies was not using it todescribe the influence of place per se; rather, gemeinschaft references a social order "which being based on aconsensus of wills rests on harmony and is developed and enabled by pathways, mores, and religion" (Tonnies,1960: 223). In this community, parents and children were not seen to be separate actors with individualisticinterests but rather were a unity (family) with a shared interest, as this interest has been articulated by figures ofauthority? These relations were invested with a sense of sacredness which made reason subordinate to theactivities of the whole and the common good to which they were directed. The otherness of gemeinschaftreferenced a community where rationality was subordinate rather than superordinate, similar to the recognition ofthe essential limitedness of reason which, according to Nietzsche (1956), is crucial to the discovery of tragedy.

Tonnies' conception of gesellschaft, on the other hand, was strongly influenced by his readings of both Marx andHobbee (Liebersohn, 1988: 139). It refers as much to modern capitalist society as it does to city life, though (aswe already know from Marx) modernity, capitalism, and urbanization are greatly intertwined. However, unlikeMarx (and perhaps because of Tonnies' own isolated rural town upbringing), gesellschaft was not celebrated asan important step on the way to liberation (communism). Rather, with Tonnies, we have the beginning of therecognition of the dark side of modernity (a recognition which Weber was to later name as the "iron cage").Gesellschaft, as a social order, is constituted by commodity exchange and rests "on a union of rational wills."Whereas the gemeinschaft has "its roots in family life," gesellschaft "derives from the conventional order of trade"(Tonnies, 1960: 223; Loomis, 1960: 311). Here, the relations between people are regulated by contracts andexchange which, in turn, are governed by the rational meansend attitude, i.e., in terms of an evaluation "of theadvantages that people expect to get from others" (Hale, 1990: 107). Because of this orientation, people aremobile, both socially and geographically, and competition rather than cooperation is the dominant ethos. On atheme later developed by Weber and Habermas, Tonnies saw that the dominance of the rational will wouldultimately lead to undermining a genuine attachment between people and to community.

Tonnies was ambiguous as to whether gemeinschaft referred to historical precedent or ideal type (Liebersohn,1988: 7). Using Nietzsche's Apollonian/Dionysian polarity (Liebersohn, 1988: 2331), he wanted to present thetwo kinds of social organization in not merely an evolutionary fashion (where one evolves out of the other) but associal organizations rooted in different orientations toward the world and life. His "method was supposed to behermeneutic, describing each type from its own perspective" (Liebersohn, 1988: 30). What this famous distinctionactually initiates is the association of rurality with community. On the whole, rural life was seen to sustaingemeinschaftlich relations between people because of its focus on establishing and nurturing common bonds,while the city tended to nurture gesellschaftlich relations because of its emphasis on competition and individualadvantage (Tonnies, 1960: 22359).

Sociologically, historically, and in terms of our narrative, the referent for the sign "rural" has changed from Marx'simage of "backwardness," an obstacle to progress which must be overcome, to a competing social organization



and way of life. For Tonnies what is significant about rural life is not its landscape, nor its comparative

primitiveness, but the kind of social organization it nurtures. Gemeinschaftlich relations received their highest

social expression not on the farm but in the town: the "town is the highest . . . form of social life" (Tonnies, 1960:

227). This means that rural comes to reference a particular way of relating to people rather than being a way of

relating to nature. Thus, under Tonnies' influence (and despite his explicit critique of capitalism), rural came to

reference a community which was an extension of the "natural" source of community, the family (Tonnies, 1960:

17677). "Marriage was organized not around individuals, as in modern society, but around the house whose

members received a fixed place within their own house and related to outsiders as members of other houses"

(Liebersohn, 1988: 32). Tonnies was convinced

"that all true morality was rooted in the settled folkways of gemeinschaft, [and] he did not restrain his disgust

toward the liberties permitted in a gesellschaft. Women, delicate creatures of feeling, belonged in the home; a

society that let them leave it and diminished the differences between the sexes could only be a decadent society.

Intellectuals tended to deny the pious beliefs of their fathers and to replace them with the arbitrary products of

their own reason.... The merchant, the most complete embodiment of gesellschaft, was an enemy of the people:

homeless, a traveller versed in foreign ways without piety toward his own, adept at using any means to achieve

his goals, in all these respects the opposite of the farmer and the artisan" (Liebersohn, 1988: 3233; see Tonnies,

1960: 15169).

Tonnies, Science and the Need for Reflexive Inquiry

As already noted, Tonnies' categories were ambiguous with regard to their status as ideal types or historical

experiences. His own aim was to write in a spirit of scientific objectivity, to show the same dispassion toward

society as toward any other object of study (Liebersohn, 1988: 27). Thus the fact that the town was destined to

be taken over by commercial interests and thus evolve into a gesellschaft was a fated event which Tonnies, the

sociologist in pursuit of the objective truth, had to acknowledge, in the way the laws of physics force the physicist

to recognize that the earth is not the centre of the universe. Yet, as Liebersohn argues, Tonnies was

"unable to resist the opportunity to describe gesellschaft from the point of view of gemeinschaft, as if the

communal world of the past, defeated by history, at last had a champion to accuse the modern way of life that

had vanquished it. . . . In the form he presented them, the book's categories were not neutral instruments of

empirical analysis. Instead, they embodied a denunciation of one way of life, defence of another" (3031).

Gemeinschaft is a concept meant to reference not just another kind of society but rather reference what is other

to modernity itself. While the otherness is constructed in a defensively binary fashion, it is clear that there is a

reflexive accusation built into its construction.

Because Tonnies' description lacks neutrality it left him vulnerable to the charge of idealism because

gemeinschaft represents as much the romantic dream of a conflictfree community rather than the faithful

depiction of an actual community. More importantly, the concept of gemeinschaft is flawed because of

psychological reductionism;gesellschaft (according to Durkheim, 1972: 14647) is no less natural or no more

artificial than is gemeinschaft, just because it is apparently organized on rational grounds. Gemeinschaft and

gesellschaft constitute a conceptual opposition, organized by the opposition between organism and machine

(Liebersohn, 1988: 136), rather than an opposition of world views emerging from the basis of different lived

experiences. Thus, from the scientific perspective, Tonnies' conceptualization does not easily translate into

empirical research and does not adequately measure up to standards of neutral objectivity. In Weber's terms, the

conceptualization is valueladen rather than valuefree. Yet, with the issue of the relation between reflexivity and

science in mind, this scientific critique can itself be criticized.

A significant aspect of the distinction between gemeinschaftlich and gesellschaftlich relations is the different wills

(i.e., natural will as opposed to rational will) which each social organization (i.e., community as opposed to

association) strengthens. In the move from gemeinschaft to gesellschaft (a move which Tonnies saw happening

with the increasing dominance of modernity), "a complete reversal of intellectual life takes place . . . the

intellectual attitude of the individual becomes gradually less and less influenced by religion and more and more

influenced by science" (Tonnies, 1960: 226). This means, according to Tonnies, that usefulness, efficiency, and

the learning derived from the impersonal observation of the laws of social life, become the dominant way of

relating to others and to the world. In gesellschaft, modern calculating reason is not subordinate to, but is

independent of, community spirit. In everyday action, the rational selfinterest of the merchant now comes to

predominate: in intellectual life, science and impersonal learning predominate. As noted above, Tonnies

undertook a scientific analysis of the nature of human society. Yet, according to Tonnies, scientific thinking



predominates in a society where personal human relations have deteriorated.(10)

This brings us to a paradoxical dilemma in Tonnies' analysis. While Tonnies' conceptualization of gemeinschaft

and gesellschaft failed in its attempt to be an objective and empirically verifiable analysis of the way human

society works, he still "aspired to make his book scientific in the strongest nineteenthcentury sense of the word"

(Liebersohn, 1988: 27). The very categories of gemeinschaft and gesellschaft are categories generated by an

intellectual orientation grounded in the purpose of scientific objectivity, itself a modern orientation. That is, they

are the categories of a gesellschaft rather than gemeinschaft worldview. Thus, if as Liebersohn says, Tonnies'

analysis defended gemeinschaft by condemning gesellschaft, this is understood as a failure to realize the aim of

scientific objectivity rather than as a challenge and critique of scientific objectivity as an aim in itself. His defence

of gemeinschaft is a defence which emerges from one who sought to understand the world from the intellectual

orientation of gesellschaft. While condemning "modernity" and defending "tradition," he simultaneously shows, to

recall Clifford's quotation, the "disquieting quality of modernism: its taste... for discovering universal, ahistorical

"human" capacities" (e.g., natural will/rational will). This raises important theoretical and methodological issues,

not the least of which is the question of the way one's presuppositions about the nature of adequate inquiry

necessarily influence what we are able to recognize. Scientific objectivity is merely one solution to this problem.

Perhaps Tonnies' reflexive inconsistency points to a fundamental flaw in the scientific orientation itself. Is the

enterprise of science, despite its celebrated procedures for verification, a solipsistic enterprise? If science is

modernity's preeminent mode of selfunderstanding, then perhaps the victory of modern societies over traditional

societies (e.g., Arendt, 1958; Foucault, 1977; Grant, 1969) is not only a practical issue but also an

epistemological and ontological issue.

The very categories of gemeinschaft/gesellschaft are grounded in the assumption that an adequate inquiry aims

for scientific objectivity, itself according to Tonnies, an assumption of a gesellschaft frame of mind. That is, the

distinction itself is subject to the very same critique as Tonnies' critique of gesellschaft; it is mechanical and

impersonal. The question that emerges from this is whether the objectivity claimed by the human sciences can

adequately understand and analyse the community that privileges emotions, sees attachments to people as

being infused with a moral and sacred character, and is organized on the principle of time rather than space

(Tonnies, 1960: 23223), if that objectivity takes modern science as its model. If science is a mode of inquiry

which itself privileges space rather than time, detachment rather than attachment, and instrumental rationality

rather than understanding, is there a mode of inquiry which privileges time in such a way that the social

organization based on the principle of time (gemeinschaft) can be more adequately taken into account?

(Gadamer developed his hermeneutic approach to social inquiry in response to this principle of temporality.) In

seeking to describe human society and history as though he were outside of it, Tonnies ended up unquestioningly

speaking from gesellschaft principles precisely at the moment he was condemning those selfsame principles. In

other words, Tonnies uses scientific reason to condemn the social organization which allows scientific reason to

dominate community spirit.

This issue (of theoretical orientation), as we shall see, is of critical decisiveness not only for the way the urban

rural discourse is conceptualized, but also for the way much of the very enterprise of sociology is grounded in an

understanding of the traditionmodern divide. Tonnies understands from within the parameters of a modernist

consciousness (Berger et. al., 1974) and simultaneously struggles against the tendencies of that consciousness;

he condemns the intellectual's tendency to rely on reason alone and proceeds to be rational in a universalist way;

he displays the modernist tendency to develop ahistorical concepts and condemns the decadence inherent in

that very inclination.

While Weber is much more consistent in his theoretical orientation, these paradoxes need also to be understood

as expressions of the modernist consciousness ("to question its limits and engage otherness"). The otherness of

gemeinschaft is both oppositional and competitive. It represents the selfcondemnation of modernity without

acknowledgement of the modern orientation that makes the articulation of such a condemnation possible. At the

weakest level of interpretation, Tonnies' work is an early representative of the kind of inconsistent self

condemnation seen in more recent postmodernist studies; a stronger reading of Tonnies also recognizes the

inclination, inherent in modernity, to develop a positive relation to resistance. That is, the

gemeinschaft/gesellschaft distinction is a solution to the problem of the need to develop selfresistance. Is the

issue of engaging otherness not merely an interest of a modernist consciousness but now, more importantly, a

need? Does modern society need to develop a way of resisting its own modernist tendencies?

My argument here is that the need to develop the capacity to be open to resistance (otherness) is a problem for a

society and a world in which calculation and impersonality are increasingly dominant and a problem for

sociological inquiry in which a positivist epistemology is dominant. If this argument is persuasive, then it needs to



be engaged (and resisted) by Canadian sociologists in general and not just those interested in theory. Thegemeinschaft/gesellschaft distinction can now be understood both as instancing the need to "question limits andengage otherness" and as a display of the difficulty modern social science has in realizing this need. Is modernsocial science, despite and perhaps because of its selfunderstanding as objective, tied to the historicalcharacteristic of modernity, that is, tied to "its taste for appropriating or redeeming otherness" (Clifford, 1988:193). When we turn to a more reflexively consistent colleague of Tonnies, Max Weber, we see that consistencydeepens rather than resolves the problem.

Max Weber: The Urban/Rural Modern/Traditional Distinction

Max Weber, like his colleagues and acquaintances Simmel and Tonnies, studied the connection betweenmodernity, capitalism, and urbanization. Like Simmel, but unlike Tonnies, he is more influential in urban ratherthan rural sociology. He is credited by Wirth as coming closest to developing a systematic theory of urbanism inhis "penetrating essay" The City (Wirth, 1938: 8). Yet, in an early essay Capitalism and Rural Society in Germany(Weber, 1946a: 36385), Weber is the first of the classical sociologists to acknowledge the difference between aEuropean and an American rural society(11) and, in the process, the first to recognize the disappearance of thesociological relevance of the urbanrural distinction. The growth of the nationstate, the development of capitalismas an international order, and the bureaucratic rationalization of more and more areas of social life all mean thatthe distinctiveness of "urban" and "rural," as referencing different communities is gradually disappearing(Martindale and Neuwirth, 1958: 5667). In the essay concerned, Weber noted that "a rural society separate fromthe urban social community does not exist at the present time in a great part of the modern civilized world."(1946a: 363) This situation is particularly true of the United States because the American farmer is really an"entrepreneur like any other" and not an "agriculturist" who seeks to conserve a tradition.(12) In an analysiswhich foreshadows the recent dispute over subsidies between the E.U. and the United States, Weber, in 1904,argued that "if anything is characteristic of the rural conditions of the great wheatproducing states of America, itis . . . the absolute economic individualism of the farmer, the quality of the farmer as a mere businessman" (364).This situation is seen to be in contrast to Europe in general, and Germany in particular, where the "power oftradition inevitably predominates in agriculture." This tradition rested on an old economic order which, in Weber'sterms (1946a: 367) took the view:

How can I give, on this piece of land, work and sustenance to the greatest possible number of men? Capitalismasks: From this given piece of land, how can I produce as many crops as possible for the market with as few menas possible?

Weber knew that the old economic order, even in Europe at that time, was under siege. In this essay he saw ruralsociety as possibly providing an alternative to capitalism because, through the monopolization of the land andhereditary preservation of possession, a nobility (not in form but in fact) would arise. This nobility in turn wouldprovide a political alternative to the professional politician (who must live off politics) by nurturing people who areable to live for politics and the state. This rural society could bring a more permanent sense of what is valuable(i.e., a sense of value that is not dependent on the shifts of the market) and a sense of authority which respectstradition. Such a rural society could resist, in a practical way, the capitalistic pursuit of "heedless gain." Weber,like Tonnies, saw the otherness of the rural as a need, but unlike Tonnies, he saw that modernity itself wasmaking this need increasingly impossible to fulfill. He thus foreshadows the claims by Gans (1968) and Pahl(1968) that, empirically speaking, the ruralurban difference does not make any difference; it exists only"in thethoughts of dreamers" (Weber, 1946a: 363).

As would be expected, Weber is more selfconsciously sociological when he addresses the urban/ruraldistinction. What makes the country or the city relevant sociologically speaking, is neither geography nordemography, but rather their capacity to socialize a unique character and community. Thus, even though theindustrial cities were where most people had come to live, for Weber, this was understood as a decline of thespecial mark of the city because the people who lived there could not be said to have a special character as citypeople (Sennett, 1969: 18). City dwellers are more likely to get their identity from more general social forces likeclass, occupation, status, even religious conviction (forces which are societal, national, and international) thanforces tied to living in a specific city.(13) Similarly, the sociological significance of a rural society for Weber lies inits ability to sustain an alternative culture to a capitalism, which found a home in the city. Thus, the existence offarmers, towns, and villages does not necessarily lead to a distinct way of life which challenges the capitalisticethos of modern urban life. On this basis, he says "rural society" does not exist in the western United States:there is no meaningful social difference between the farmer and the businessman, or the farm labourer and theproletariat. The disappearance of a "genuine rural society" means the disappearance of a resistance to thedominance of capitalism. If farming is driven by the profit motif, if people identify with their class or occupation



rather than a traditional way of living, then there is no sociological relevance to the referent of rural.

Weber's sociological conception of rurality addresses a common conflation in sociology. Many texts often confuse

sociological and demographic conceptions of rurality. For example, Dasgupt acknowledges that contemporary

Canadian rural society

"increasingly resembles the urban population in sex and dependency ratios, rate of divorce, level of educational

attainment, and ethnic composition. . . . The contemporary rural life in Canada thus has attained many features

which are typical of an urban society. Its structure is increasingly gesellschaft with the use in the number of

secondary groups" (1988: 18990; 19293).

Yet he goes on to say that rural society is not in the process of extinction because the population is no longer

declining, thus (from Weber's perspective) confusing a technical point (demographic trends) with a sociological

point (social action).

Weber helps us recognize that the urban/rural difference might now need to be understood within the context of

modernity. In contemporary society, rural may no longer reference either backwardness (Marx) or community

(Tonnies). Rather the underlying phenomenon which needs to be understood is modernity's need for and,

simultaneously, its difficulty with otherness. It is the argument of this essay that the depth of the difficulty is tied to

the modernity's preeminent mode of selfunderstanding, scientific inquiry.

Weber, Modernity, and the Possibility of a Reflexive Sociology

Weber's later work set out to show the tight grip that capitalism had on modern life (The Protestant Ethic and the

Spirit of Capitalism) and the interconnection between modernity and the calculating rationality of science

("Science as a Vocation"). While he was certainly not happy with these developments, the acknowledgement of

the truth, an acknowledgement required of him by virtue of his scientific perspective and commitment, demanded

that the force of modern life be recognized. The potential of an alternative rural life was no longer seen to be

realistic. Yet, his initial conception of the term rural was motivated by his lifelong interest in coming to terms with

the reality ("the iron cage") of the modern socioeconomic order and the possibilities of realistic resistance to this

force (Liebersohn, 1988: 78125). His work, whether early or late, always had that particular combination of

qualities stating ("calling") that we (as scholars and politicians) must "bear the fate of the times" (1946b: 155)

while, at the same time, acknowledging (sometimes sympathetically, sometimes impatiently) the "unrealistic"

impulse to resist such a fate (1946b: 77156).

I noted above the inconsistencies in the way Tonnies formulated the problem, because of a limited relation to

reflexivity: he used the scientific approach to condemn the kind of social organization (gesellschaft) which

privileges the scientific mode of inquiry. Weber too recognized the "disenchantment of the world" which

accompanies the rise of modern science but, in distinction from Tonnies, he also reflectively acknowledged

(1946b) that the scientific orientation to the study of social life is part of the same development. As Dreyfus and

Rabinow (1982: 165) state,

"Weber saw that rationality, in the form of bureaucratization and calculative thinking, was becoming the dominant

way of understanding reality in our time, and he set out to give a rational objective account of how this form of

thinking had come to dominate our practices and selfunderstanding. He was led, through this scientific analysis,

to see that the "disenchantment of the world" that calculative thinking brings about had enormous costs. He even

saw that his own theorizing was part of the same development he deplored, but, as so many commentators have

pointed out, there was absolutely no way his scientific method could justify his sense that the cost of rationality

was greater than any possible benefit it could bring. Given Weber's starting point, all he could do was point out

the paradoxical results of his analysis and the increasing perils to our culture" (Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1982: 165).

(14)

What have been the consequences of the intertwining of these intellectual and socioeconomic developments?

According to the Canadian sociologist R. Alex Sim (1988: 1346), the rural community is "battered" and the

concept of rurality has disappeared.

The disappearance or misuse of the word "rural" deprives a large and important element of the country of a

name. Ingenious efforts have been made to avoid the world rural for example, nonmetropolitan, nonurban,

regional city, and even micropolis. Statistics Canada still uses rural as a category with two subgroupings, farm

and nonfarm, and the absurd cutoff point of 1000, or a density of 400 persons per square kilometre. Thus, about

one out of three Canadians are nonfarm, nonmetropolitan residents" (1988: 22).



Sim goes on to say (22) that "the disappearance of the word "rural" is a case of urban imperialism."

Esoteric intellectual concerns (regarding the meaning of the concept of rurality) and broad sociocultural

developments are, it seems, intrinsically interconnected. The "battered rural community" of Canada and the

difficulty sociologists have in reflexively recognizing the embeddedness of a mode of inquiry in a culture

(modernity) are very much intertwined.

With the acknowledgement of the hegemony of the modern/scientific "lifeworld," we are now beginning to

recognize the difficulty modernity has in preserving a sense of otherness (in this case, rurality) which would truly

allow it to question its limits. Modern scientific methods are not culturally neutral instruments of social inquiry. As

Foucault (1977; Dreyfus and Rabinow, 1982) shows in unescapable detail, the rise of the social sciences is tied

to the very modernity they claim to study. The problem is therefore, that the social sciences, by the very

constitution of their epistemological orientation, are so tied to the modern lifeworld that they are in danger of

seeing in the other (gemeinschaft/rural/town/community) a failed version of itself. Modern consciousness thus

may only appear to be engaging otherness and questioning its limits; what it ends up actually doing is affirming

its own orientation and is thus blind to its limits: in the process a strong sense of alteritas is rendered invisible.

The urban/rural discourse in the sociological tradition can now be understood to be struggling with this very

problem of the need for, but difficulty of, achieving a good relation to resistance. The disappearance of a viable

conception of rurality, noted by Pahl above, is not just a mere empirical fact but an expression of this modern

problem.

The problem which animates both Tonnies and Weber is some inarticulate awareness of the potential for self

destructiveness inherent within the modern project. Without "questioning otherness and engaging resistance," it

may be that the selfdestructive potential of modernity will go unchecked. From the perspective of our

contemporary awareness of the environmental crisis, not to mention the twentiethcentury experience of fascism

and Stalinism, it now seems that this inarticulate worry (on the part of Weber and Tonnies in particular) is

prophetic. The point of the paper, however, is that this problem is not just an empirical fact (of the environment,

the economy, or even of urbanization), but is first and foremost epistemological and ontological. Questioning

limits and engaging otherness requires that reflexivity be truly integrated into the process of inquiry. Weber's

reflexivity is merely consistent, where what is needed is an openness to the finite nature of human understanding

(Gadamer, 1975) and an awareness of the way all inquiry is a process of recommending "principles for

acceptance" (Blum and McHugh, 1984), not as external acknowledgements but as intrinsic to very process of

inquiry.

Conclusion

If the interest which structures the urbanrural discourse in sociology is the evaluation of different kinds of

communities with their attendant ways of thinking and ways of living, then, in so far as this is the interest of a

modernist consciousness, we need to be aware of the ways this discourse could end up leading to the silencing

of the sense of otherness which could really challenge that interest. For Marx, the otherness of the rural

referenced a limit which could be overcome through selfconsciousness. Reflexivity, at this stage of the narrative,

is needed in order for the actor/collective to recognize the necessity to develop the means of production. What is

not reflected on, what is not made subject to dialogue, is the commitment to developing the means of production

as the principle and the enlightenment rationality built into this principle. The value of the principle and the

procedure used to make the principle recognizable (rationality) are taken for granted. Thus, he is optimistic about

the possibility of an alternative society (communism) emerging in the future because of the theoretical single

minded nature of his analysis. Though this is still a matter of debate, Arendt (Canovan, 1992: 6398) has shown

the way Marx's theorizing participates in (rather than reflects on) the totalitarian tendency of modernity.(15)

Tonnies and Weber are more sensitive to the totalitarian element in the modern moment and thus more

apprehensive about modernity. They both acknowledge that the dominance of instrumental reasoning is

dangerous. While Weber saw this dominance operating in science as well as capitalism and thus operating in his

own analysis as well as in the society his work addressed, Tonnies only saw the latter. Though both were strongly

influenced by Marx, both were also more reflective about the modernity which Marx's analysis expresses.

For Tonnies, the other for a society that privileges relations based on calculation (capitalism, gesellschaft) is

community, a community that finds its highest expression in the town. Though rural life in modern society no

longer resembles a gemeinschaft, pockets of traditional communities (e.g., the Hutterites in Western Canada,

closelyknit working class or ethnic neighbourhoods in the city) give us lifeworld images of an alternative to

gesellschaft. Yet the problem of the superiority of community over association is not just a problem for social



relations, it is also a problem of the way we analyze and study these relations. Instrumental reasoning is not just

central to capitalism, it is also central to scientific inquiry.

In Tonnies' view, reflexivity requires an other (gemeinschaft) that is qualitively different which, in turn, enables a

more radical evaluation of self (gesellschaft). In this case, the principle of instrumental rationality has been

revealed and its potential for destructiveness of community is highlighted. In Tonnies' work this condemnation is

selfcontradictory because it relies on the same kind of reasoning it condemns. Weber is more reflectively

consistent in so far as he recognizes the interrelation between science, rationality and modernity and thus the

way his own work not only addresses but is part of the problem. Yet all that his consistency enables him to do is

acknowledge the problem (disenchantment) and its depth. For Weber (1946b), otherness is acknowledged but

only as an "irrational alternative," the engaging of which requires an "intellectual sacrifice." This otherness cannot

challenge modernity itself. There is no rural alternative: all one can do is retreat from modernity (into the arms of

the "old churches"), a retreat which, if it is to have dignity, requires the explicit acknowledgement that one is

renouncing intellectual and political involvement in the world. Weber's work forces us to acknowledge that the

theoretical problem and the way we recognize the problem in the world are intertwined. It is my argument

throughout that a more reflexive sociology is the solution to this intellectual problem.

In this paper, I have argued that the difficulty in engaging otherness lies in the way that modernity privileges a

certain kind of rationality. The Hegelianism of Marx confidently expresses this rationality, the Nietzscheism of

Tonnies displays a contradictory selfcondemnation of it, and the consistency of Weber acknowledges its power.

In order for modernity to develop a strong selfresistance, on the other hand, reflexivity is required in order to limit

the claims to understanding made on behalf of a modern rationality. The point of the paper is that this self

resistance needs first of all to be embodied in the process of inquiry itself. The paper makes the claim that

reflexivity is a substantive concern and, simultaneously, the paper seeks to be an exemplification of what a

reflexive inquiry looks like. Reflexivity says and shows that truly engaging otherness necessarily involves self

questioning (in this case, questioning of the standards of rationality used to generate knowledge). In the work of

the early seminal sociologists, this need for reflexivity is both acknowledged and denied. As sociology develops

in the twentieth century, the dominance of scientific rationality attains a hegemonic status until the

phenomenological, hermeneutic and dialectical analytic developments in the 1970s. Simultaneously, as the

urbanrural discourse develops, the otherness of rurality disappears and the recognition of a sense of modernity's

need for otherness becomes more repressed.

With the aid of contemporary developments in sociological theory and research, it is now possible to address and

resist the dominance of the instrumental lifeworld (both in practice and in theory). Such an address and

examination requires, first of all, an acknowledgement of the problem. This is the task I set myself in this paper.

As any strong recognition of the problem also points to ways that the problem can and needs to be responded to,

the irrelevance of rurality (as a sociological conception) no longer needs to be accepted or lamented; rurality as a

concept and as a distinct experience can be rehabilitated. This is the task of another work (Bonner, 1997).

Appendix

Acknowledging the poststructuralist critique of modern thinking (Scott, 1990: 13448), this reexamination of the

ruralurban discourse in sociology will not attempt to develop an "essentialist" definition of rurality. Rather my

analysis is concerned with the meaning of the attempts to develop a unitary concept of rurality which involves

teasing out the way the negations and oppositions, suppressed in the concept, operate in the texts of Marx,

Tonnies, and Weber. Using a configuration of phenomenology (Berger et. al., 1974; Garfinkel, 1967),

hermeneutics (Gadamer, 1975), and dialectical analysis (Blum and McHugh, 1974; 1984), my approach draws on

the theories and methods which acknowledge "the linguistic turn" (Dallmayer and McCarthy, 1977) in human

science inquiry; this is to say that the materials (language, beliefs, reasons, statements, evidence, etc.) used to

understand and represent conceptions of the rural/urban are linguistic, public and shared by both the inquirer and

the subject of inquiry (Habermas, 1988: 89170). This interpretive orientation is radical in the sense that it

explicitly acknowledges the "rootedness" of all inquiry in interpretation. Because of this "rootedness," self

reflection is understood to be an essential component of this process of inquiry (Blum and McHugh, 1984). That

is, reflexivity is not just an everyday capacity; it also needs to be intrinsic to the process of inquiry in the human

sciences. Procedurally speaking, reflexivity means that as the inquirer takes into account reflections on the issue

of the urbanrural difference, he or she must also be able to take into account the inquirer's own reflections on

these reflections. For example, as I take into account Weber's reflections on the ruralurban difference, I also

need to take into account Weber's relation to reflexivity. In Gadamer's terms, the inquiry must be able to

comprehend the way it comprehends its subject matter (1975: 33341). This paper therefore seeks to show that

these recent developments in human science inquiry (configured by the name of radical interpretive sociology),



can show the way a particular historical and cultural interest (engaging otherness and questioning limits)structures the ruralurban discourse, thus demonstrating the way the principle of "effective history" (Gadamer,1975: 26774) operates in all understanding.

1 Peter Gzowski's popular radio program, Morningside (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), broadcast aninterview (July, 1990) with three "urban refugees," three people who quit their "prestigious" and highpayingcareers in order to leave the city and live in the country. The tone of the interview was of people who had thecourage to "live the dream," who gave time to themselves and their personal fulfillment as against time given forthe necessity of professional activity. In a similar article in Mademoiselle (April, 1992), a reporter says that the"urban tide has turned, and it now seems like no one can escape their concrete jungle fast enough" (88).

2. This paper is part of a larger work which addresses more thoroughly the historical literature in the field(Bonner, 1997).

3. "The process of industrialization generated increasing urbanization the movement of the population intotowns and cities, away from the life on the land. In 1800, well under 20 percent of the British population lived intowns or cities having more than 10,000 inhabitants. By 1900, this proportion had become 74 percent. Thecapital city, London, held about 1.1 million people in 1800; it increased in size to a population of over sevenmillion by the beginning of the twentieth century. London was at that date by far the largest city ever seen in theworld; it was a vast manufacturing, commercial, and financial centre at the heart of a stillexpanding BritishEmpire."

"The urbanization of most other European countries, and the United States, took place somewhat later, but insome cases, once under way, accelerated even faster. In 1800, the United States was more of a rural societythan were the leading European countries at the same date. Less than 10 percent of the population lived incommunities with populations of more than 2,500 people. Today, well over threequarters of Americans are citydwellers. Between 1800 and 1900, as industrialization grew in the United States, the population of New Yorkleapt from 60,000 people to 4.8 million" (Giddens, 1990: 676).

4 For a summary of this literature as it pertains to Canada see Hale, (1990: 10636) and as it pertains to theUnited States and Britain see Hutter (1988: 28104). For global trends see Giddens (1990: 673704).

5. For Marx, freedom is understood in terms of emancipation from conditions which prevent humans fromrealizing their full potential. That is, freedom is essentially understood as a liberation. For a perspective whichsees significant differences between freedom and liberation in order to make room for the concept of action, seeHannah Arendt (1965, 2933).

6. It is interesting that the two words with the same connotation of laziness are used. Marx and Engels do not justsay sloth but slothful indolence, not just indolence but a slothful indolence. It is as though they wanted to conveythrough repetition, the dangerous nature of the ethos of rural life. The root meaning of sloth is slow O.E. slaeth and the root meaning of indolence is not to feel pain L. in, not; dolere, to feel pain.

7. This is a distinction developed within the "Analysis" tradition in sociology (a tradition called here dialecticalanalysis to distinguish this perspective from similarly named perspectives in science and philosophy). Thisdistinction appears throughout in the works of Blum and McHugh, but is most clearly developed in Self Reflectionin the Arts and Sciences (1984).

8. It is ironic to note that, as both the sociological literature and as modern society develop, the "rural" becomesless possible to conceptualize as even a mere empirical possibility.

9 Though Tonnies' perspective is closer to a political economy than a functionalist perspective (Hale, 1990: 135),it is not completely accurate, as this section goes on to show, to see him (as Hale does) as a spokesperson forliberation. As Liebersohn (1988: 32) remarks, Tonnies "did not restrain his disgust toward the liberties permittedin a gesellschaft."

10. Gesellschaft moves toward decadence and thus is itself ultimately doomed to collapse. Unlike Marx, Tonniessaw the potential for selfdestruction, rather than selftransformation, inherent in the modern moment.

11. He says this is necessary because, "of all communities, the social constitution of rural districts are the mostindividual and the most closely connected with particular historical developments." (363)



12. Dasgupta in his book, Rural Canada: Structure and Change (1988: 12), describes the modern farmer in thisway: "A farmer in an industrial society is a commercially oriented rural villager who produces food and otherarticles of consumption by his family but to make a profit. His productive activities respond to supply anddemand, and fluctuating prices in the marketplace." To Weber, this very definition itself means that the qualifier"rural villager" is not sociologically relevant as it does not indicate an alternative "society."

13. Conversely, an urban sociology which sought to resist this hegemonic development would need to focus anddevelop the specificity of the city, i.e., not just class, race, and gender in Toronto, but rather, what (if anything)makes the Torontonian (Edmontonian, New Yorker) a Torontonian.

14. Dreyfus and Rabinow (1982: 166) go on to argue that Foucault's "genealogical analytics" avoid suchparadoxical dilemmas by "taking the best" of the positions of Weber, Heidegger, Adorno, and MerleauPonty in a"way which enables him to overcome some of their difficulties."

15. "The tyranny of logicality" is "the compulsion with which we can compel ourselves," allowing our thoughts anddecisions to be dictated by what we have already accepted instead of exercising the human capacity to startafresh, to have new ideas, to look at things again, to learn from experience" (Arendt, as summarized byCanovan: 91).

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Kieran Bonner is Associate Professor of Sociology at Augustana University College in Alberta, Canada. He wasrecently Visiting Fellow in the Humanities at University College Galway, Ireland. He has completed a book forMacmillan Press Limited called Power and Parenting: A Hermeneutic of the Human Condition and a book forMcGillQueen's University Press (forthcoming) called "A Great Place to Raise Kids: Interpretation, Science andthe UrbanRural Debate. " This article is based on a section of the more extended discussion on the ruralurbandiscourse in the latter book. He is also editor of Dianoia: A Liberal Arts Interdisciplinary Journal. The manuscriptof this article was submitted in February 1996 and accepted in February 1997. The author gratefullyacknowledges the help of Scott Grills and senior sociology students at Augustana and the helpful suggestionsgiven on an earlier draft by Rosalind Sydie and the Review's anonymous reviewers.

Source Citation (MLA 7th Edition)Bonner, Kieran. "Reflexivity, sociology and the ruralurban distinction in Marx, Tonnies and Weber." The CanadianReview of Sociology and Anthropology 35.2 (1998): 165+. Canadian Periodicals Index Quarterly. Web. 10 May2016.

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Reflexivity, Sociology and the Rural-Urban Distinction in Marx, Tonnies and Weber*

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