Relationships

Anyone for a Gemeinschaft? - Real Online Communities

The internet would have to be the largest organisation that our world has ever seen.  Actually it is one massive organisation made up of millions of smaller organisations.  Each of these organisations can be put into 1 of 2 categories if we look through the glasses of the German sociologist Ferdinand Tonnies.

In 1887, Tonnies wrote Gemeinschaft and Gesellshaft to describe two different types of organisations.  His theory divided organisations into 2 distinct flavours based on why individuals belong.  This has serious implications for each of us as we belong to, develop or initiate organisations whenever we want to interact effectively with others.  It is important to remember that an organisation exists whenever we purposefully interact with others.

Gemeinschaft is a word used to describe the sort of community that develops out of a mutual identity or set of values and mores.  The sort of organisation we are talking about here are sometimes families, religions, and even sporting clubs.  The members of these communities define themselves as a part of the group as much as they do as individuals.  Their identity and destiny becomes deeply entwined with the community.  The relationships that exist in a gemeinschaft community exist as much for their own sake as they do for any of the individuals’ agendas or ambitions.

On the other hand a Gesellschaft is a society based on a common agreement to pursue individual aims.  The most obvious example of a Gesellschaft society today would be a private sector business.  The players in this society all belong for their own different, but compatible, reasons.  The factory worker belongs for wages.  The manager works for a salary.  The executive is committed to achieve prestige, and the owners are motivated by profit.  Each of these players wants to take as much of their own goal away with them as they can.  The Gesellschaft societies continue for as long as all of the members are able to support their own objectives by membership to the society.

Is this not a useful way of looking at the two different types of online community emerging from our web 2.0 world?  Of course it is difficult to precisely distinguish between the 2 types, because all organisations tend to include some aspects of both at the same time.  In fact some organisations can’t seem to decide which side they sit on.  They claim to be a genuine community but they are actually a society that exists for a few, very different, personal and self focused reasons.

Think about Ebay.  It is a massive organisation.  The members are loosely grouped around two separate but complimentary goals of selling and buying things.  As well as this there are the objectives of Ebay as a business, that aims to take a commission from interactions on their turf.  Ebay is essentially a Gesellschaft society.  People belong for as long as they are able to pursue their own objectives by belonging.  There is no real long term loyalty.  If members find a better organisation tomorrow, they will leave.

Examples of convincing Gemeinschaft communities are harder to come by in the online world.  Perhaps think about the communities surrounding Wikipedia, or Linux, maybe Wordpress or various charities.  At this stage there seem to be very few fully blown Gemeinschaft communities online.  All of the examples that I come up with seem to be half Gemeinschaft and half Gesellschaft.  They exist because someone wanted to do something wonderful for the world, but they continue to exist because they serve a few discrete and self focused functions for users.  How many people do you know who define themselves by participation in the Wikipedia.  Sure these people exist but they are a small percentage of the users.  The rest, like you and me, use the service, but are not personally attached to it. 

What would it take to build a more compelling Gemeinschaft community online (or offline):

1. Throw out the profit motive - There is nothing wrong with profiting from a web community, but as long as your motivation is to turn a profit, then your organisation will be securely gesellschaft.  Making a healthy profit may certainly result from a healthy community, but it comes after, not before.
2. Foster and develop true and integrated relationships with the other members of the community.  For a real community to develop, it will take time.  For people to become permanent members of any online community will take longer than we would expect, because that is the time-line of real relationships.  Internet history is still very short.  We haven’t had a chance to develop long term relationships yet.  So far we haven’t seen a complete cycle or pattern of relationships on line.  In many ways we are still in the honeymoon.  Surely a Gemeinschaft community would have to be based on long term relationships.
3. Focus on a truly important human desire - A purpose that fulfills individual desires is a direct path to a Gesellschaft society.  Focusing on bigger issues has the potential to build a real community.  There is a real need for a place that people can learn about tennis or accounting or online publishing, but places like these won’t change the world.  Which issues are big enough to build a real community on?  I don’t know.  But I do know that it would be very difficult to build a true, long term community by blogging about blogs.
4. A true Gemeinschaft community is based on unity and mutuality.  This doesn’t mean homogeneity.  So long as differences don’t effect the purpose of the community then there need be no problem with diversity.  In fact quite the opposite

This throws a bit of light on one way of looking at organisations and it helps us to see the potential for forming and belonging to groups wherever we might be.  We can recognise that any group exists for reasons that are either Gemeinschaft or Gesellschaft in base.  While there is no really pure version of either type, most organisations belong securely in one camp rather than the other.  If I want to buy a camera, then there are thousands of Gesellschaft societies willing to sell me one.  If I want to do something important with my life that contributes to something greater than myself, then I have to look for the Gemeinschaft community that allows me to contribute.  If no such community exists, then I am left to build one and see if others want to join.

Does anyone know of any genuine Gemeinschaft communities online?  What is it that binds all of the members together?

Thanks

Tom