Community and the Critique of Technology: A Revisionist Account of an Essential Concept

ABSTRACT

Though the concept of community has been of central concern to the social sciences and social theory since the 19th century, it has also been a frequent target of criticism. Community is often accused of being a vague and sentimental concept. These criticisms are often accompanied by the claim that sociologists and social theorists have used the concept of community to cloak their political agendas. This article compares a range of radical, classical social theorists on three topics that intersect with discussions of community in the classical and contemporary periods: place, pace, and power. This comparison suggests that while the community concept in classical theory was sentimental in nature, it was also used to critique specific technological developments, from the rise of railways to the spread of industrial manufacturing. This revisionist reading of the concept of community achieves three things for contemporary radical theory: (1) it suggests that technological change should be at the center of social critique; (2) it demonstrates the interdependence of technology with other macro-historical social changes; and (3) it offers a model of how a sentimental concept can be used to develop critical and theoretical accounts of technological change.

KEYWORDS:

• Community
• progress
• disruption
• technology
• Facebook

Acknowledgements

An earlier version of this article was presented at the Southern Sociological Society’s 2019 meeting, where it was part of the “Contemporary Uses of Classical Sociological Theory” panel. The discussion did much to clarify my thinking on this article. A special thanks is owed to Bradley Nash, Rick Eckstein, Harry Dahms, Tim Arthur, Sarah Collins, and Caroline Reilly for their thoughts and encouragement.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 There is an interesting connection here between the conceptions of community in 19th century radical European thought and indigenous and postcolonial critiques of what has been called “settler colonialism.” While the radical European conception of community focuses on settlement, this should not be mistaken for an endorsement of colonial settlements. In fact, the emphasis on a rooted connection to the land, one which is fragile and hard-won, may lend itself to the indigenous and postcolonial critique of colonialism, wherein European powers use a host of technologies to displace the colonized. This is just one more way in which the old, radical use of community seems surprisingly relevant to contemporary concerns.