Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 July 2009
The concept of modernization has its roots deep in nineteenth-century German sociology, reaching back to Toennies' distinction between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft, to Weber's discussion of the process of increasing rationalization in society, and to Durkheim's contrast between organic and mechanical solidarity in different communities. One of the best descriptions of the two kinds of society envisaged by this idea of modernization has been given by the American anthropologist Robert Redfield:
One may conceive of a society, the Gemeinschaft, characterized by absolute unity derived from the intimate contacts of communal personal association and participation in common values. Here the will of the individual is spontaneous and affective. On the other hand, one may conceive of a society, the Gesellschaft, in which unity is highly individualizing and differentiating.
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