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| Fall of Berlin Wall 1989 |
The transcendental significance of the general distinction between differentiated and undifferentiated societal relationships for the historical examination of human society
by Herman Dooyeweerd.
We have to add some further general systematic distinctions to those introduced and explained above. They will also appear to be indispensable if we wish to do justice to the element of truth in TÖNNIES' conception.
In the first place the difference between differentiated and undifferentiated societal relationships appears to be foundational for every examination of the historical development of human society (usually styled: "social dynamics", in contradistinction to "social statics").
That this distinction is really of transcendental significance has been shown in detail in the analysis of the opening-process of the modal structure of history in the second Volume. Though the distinction as such is generally accepted in sociology, there is a great divergence in its interpretation, elaboration and historical-philosophical appreciation. In this respect the view of TÖNNIES, for example, is diametrically opposed to that of SPENCER or DURKHEIM. The main defect of the current views is their pseudo-biological or -mechanistic foundation. Nowhere is the distinction oriented to the societal structures of individuality founded in the plastic dimension of the temporal world-order.
Institutional communities and voluntary associations.
Secondly we have to introduce the systematic distinction between institutional and non- institutional communities. As the terms "institute" or "institution" lack a univocal meaning in sociology (especially since DURKHEIM'S extremely broad interpretation of the words), it is again necessary to give a sharp definition of the sense in which I shall use them.
By "institutional communities" I understand both natural and organized communities (in the sense defined above) which by their inner nature are destined to encompass their members to an intensive degree, continuously or at least for a considerable part of their life, and such in a way independent of their will. According to the Christian view their differentiated basic types are founded in a special divine institution.
The natural familistic community (both in its broader and in its narrower sense) is one into which man is born. The same holds good with respect to the State; although one can get citizenship also in other ways, no citizen is able to change his nationality at will. The institutional community of the Church receives the children of Christian parents as its members by baptism and as such they continue to belong to this community through a bond independent of their will, until they reach their years of discretion. This institutional trait is lacking in the sects which reject infant-baptism and are sometimes even without any institutional organization.
Similarly the institutional conjugal community embraces husband and wife by a bond independent of their will. According to its inner structural principle it is a bond which is destined to unite them for life. When there are particular circumstances which make it necessary to dissolve it, it is the institutional character of the conjugal community which requires supra-individual rules for divorce. In any case the inner nature of this institution is independent of the subjective conceptions of the matrimonial bond, which in course of time may strongly vary.
A scientific examination of the development of such conceptions and their influence upon the formation of the positive norms regulating this institution presupposes the supra-arbitrary structural principle of the latter. By eliminating this principle scientific research lacks any point of reference which alone makes it possible to relate the different conceptions to the same institution [1].
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[1] It is in vain to seek for some common characteristics in the different subjective conceptions which science might combine to a so-called "empirical" concept of the marriage bond. The so-called "common traits" are, as such, quite arbitrary and can never determine the inner nature of the institution.
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The institutional character of the conjugal bond precludes any possibility of transforming the latter into a voluntary association.
In a secondary sense the institutional character must also be ascribed to the undifferentiated organized communities which also embrace their members by a bond independent of their will. The reason is, as we shall explain in a later context, that in their undifferentiated societal form, in which different structural principles are interlaced, an institutional structural principle always has the leading role, either that of kinship or that of a political community.
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Among the differentiated organized communities only the State and the Church have an institutional character in the sense defined above. All the others display the nature of voluntary associations, though we shall see that some of them may be realized in forms impeding the full disclosure of this voluntary character. They originate from the free differentiated inter-personal and inter-communal relationships, though with respect to their inner structure they are not reducible to the latter. They are, consequently, based on the principle of freedom to join and leave. A compulsory membership, whereby they become compulsory organizations can never be derived from their inner nature. It may be the consequence of a specific kind of enkaptic interlacement with the State, exceeding their internal structural sphere, whereby they assume a public law function and are endowed with a public authority delegated by the State. It stands to reason that this can only occur with associations of a very important societal character, such as, for example trade-unions, which can be used in a so-called functional decentralization of the public administration.
As long as this is only a question of an enkaptic binding in the structure of the State, the compulsory character will not extend beyond the public law sphere, whereas the joining and leaving of the members of the association as such remains free. The compulsion then only has an indirect character and means that in the event of his not joining, a man lacks any influence upon public legal regulations or decisions affecting his interests, and will perhaps also be deprived of other advantages. Should, however, the compulsion to join assume a direct character and the organization as such consequently be transformed into a compulsory association, it would at the same moment lose its original inner nature and become a part of the State. Its qualifying or leading function is then modified in principle; it has assumed a radically different structure. And we have seen that the structural principles of societal relationships are not created by man but are founded in the divine order of creation.
Associatory and authoritarian forms of association. Indirectly compulsory organizations.
The non-institutional organizations which in modern differentiated society show an immense diversity in nature and formation, have either an associatory [2] ("genossenschaftliche") or an authoritarian ("herrschaftliche") form of government.
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[2] I intentionally avoid the adjective "democratic" since this term pertains to the governmental form of the State only, and its extension to radically different organized communities implies the danger of levelling out the structural principles of the societal relationships.
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In the first case the highest authority is vested in all the members together. In the second case authority does not derive from the latter but is imposed upon them. Consider, for example, the relation between employer, manager and labourers in a modern factory. As an organized community with its essential structural subject-object relation to the buildings and machines, a factory is not to be viewed as an organization with an associatory form of government. This might only be justified in the exceptional case that the labourers themselves have founded the factory and instituted the authoritative organs. But, as a rule, the organization intended shows an authoritarian form.
In addition it must be observed that the formal freedom of the labourers to join and to leave such an industrial organization is often frustrated by the situation of the "labour-market", by their factual economic position and one-sided skill and training. This is why the authoritarian economically qualified labour organization in the modern Western forms of industrial life can hardly be considered as completely voluntary associations. They rather show some resemblance to institutional communities. Nevertheless it would lead to a fundamental confusion if we should bracket them with the latter. For it is not the structural principle of an economically qualified authoritarian labour organization which as such precludes a complete realization of the freedom to join and to leave. Much rather it is the positive social form in which it is realized on the historical basis of the modern capitalistic forms of production, which has given rise to a factual societal situation hardly to be justified. Here we are confronted with another form of indirect compulsion, a form not originating from the enkaptic interlacement of the organization with the State. When we call them indirectly compulsory organizations one should remember that this term cannot have a transcendental sense as is the case with our former systematic distinctions, since its meaning does not pertain to the structural principles of human society.
The State is the only differentiated community to which belongs a compulsory organization in its proper sense in accordance with its inner nature. This will become clear from our analysis of its structural principle.
Associatory and authoritarian forms of voluntary and indirectly compulsory organizations may be enkaptically interwoven with one another in the genetic form of a free association. This will be the case when the established "purpose" of the latter embraces the foundation of an organized labour-community, an instructional community, etc. We shall examine such inter-weavings in a later context.
(Herman Dooyeweerd, New Critique of Theoretical Thought, Vol 3 pp 186-191)
