Globalization is an unavoidable process of interrelation between different regions of the globe. It's a process that makes no sense to oppose, and ultimately wouldn't even be useful, as it creates a mechanism of economic and technical exchange, and geopolitical relations that are fundamental to humanity.
The hidden ideology of globalization
However, this global process "hides" an ideological face that "erases" cultural, national, and traditional differences, which benefits an individualistic system that disintegrates the various social fabrics and conforms to essentially "Western" lifestyles. Are we truly convinced that the myth of progress , the new wonders of science and technology, the advancement of the capitalist economic system, which increasingly exposes its critical and irreformable aspects, are truly, in and of themselves, bearers of civilization ? Can humanity truly set aside a thousand-year-old cultural and traditional heritage, and every form of localized coexistence, for the benefit of a world that no longer possesses any of these characteristics? And from an anthropological point of view, what is happening before our eyes if not the triumph of the indistinct, of the same, that is, the individual without specific qualities who replicates himself in every part of the world, on the basis of the American way of life and a form of mystical devotion to technology, the English language and the metropolitan cosmopolitan lifestyle?
Tönnies between Gemeinschaft and Geselleschaft
Ferdinand Tönnies (1855 – 1936), a German sociologist and founder of the German Sociological Society , developed one of the most important distinctions aimed at cataloguing the type of relationship present in a human society: the difference between Gemeinschaft and Geselleschaft . The Gemeinschaft (Community), typical of primitive society, is an organic whole, constituted on some fundamental cornerstones, such as ties of blood (family and kinship ), place ( neighbourhood ) and spirit ( friendship ). The sum of these relationships is made up of intimacy, gratitude, sharing of languages, meanings, habits, spaces, memories and common experiences, while inequalities have space only within certain limits, beyond which relationships become rare and insignificant, going beyond “community” and “sharing”. It is therefore a “whole” whose scope exceeds that of its parts, and in which mutual assistance and solidarity develop starting from the common good.
La Society (Society), on the other hand, typical of modern industrial society, is “an artificial construct, an aggregate of human beings that only superficially resembles a community, where individuals remain essentially separate, despite the factors that unite them” (Tönnies F., Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft, 1887). In society, individuals live on their own perceiving any attempt to enter their private sphere as a threat. Relationships are based on the model market exchange and they do not relate individuals to each other as "wholes," but only by their "performances." It must be said that there is no clear separation between the two models, and therefore, in one of the two, the other is also present to varying degrees.
Community: a natural necessity
The need to create and "be a community" therefore comes from afar, and is inherent to human life itself on the planet and the need to connect and create bonds of various kinds within a specific territory. Moreover, even in advanced and "atomized" Western metropolises , increasingly emerging types of communities linked to particular worldviews, artistic and musical tastes, and even to a lifestyle or a place of social aggregation. Among these are the postmodern tribes , as expertly defined by the French sociologist Michel Maffesoli . For Maffesoli, the age of pure individualism is being surpassed by the "Dionysian" rebirth of the need for solidarity, proximity, and belonging, which is communal, sensitive, and emotional. Therefore, by separating the archaic foundation of Tönnies's Gemeinschaft, it is possible that these new forms of community can also emerge, which do not bind people exclusively on the basis of common origin and which impose it as a possible solution to the distortions of globalization.
Robert Siconolfi
