Community of predeal - General descriptive elements -

• Author: Andreea Sava
• Position: Dept. of Communication and Social Assistance, Transilvania University of Brasov
• Pages: 52-60

Page 52

1. Introduction:

As the majority of the Romanian communities of our days, the community of Predeal likewise presents acute necessities of development. The census of the population from Predeal, performed during the summer of the year 2006, as well as the opinion poll about the inhabitants' perceptions with respect to the social problems of the town, performed during the same period, unveiled many of the problems that the inhabitants of this area are confronted with and, implicitly, part of the their solutions and the possible directions of development. An important aspect as regards the success in identifying and implementing a strategy of development is that the Townhall of Predeal has already been endeavouring to outline this strategy, and it may be a collaborator of great help in realizing and implementing this strategy.

2. Theoretical Aspects:

The Encyclopedia of Social Development (2007) defines community as ,an enduring social formation, gathering a relatively small number of individuals, with a similar cultural background and social statuses, who inhabit a little extended surface and among whom there are well defined and persistent relations of cooperation, there succeeding thereby the exercise of an efficient social control on the level of the respective group".

Sandu (2005) states the fact that this one (community) ,designates a human grouping characterized through an increased probability of their members' value unit. Operationally speaking, the community is acknowledged through at least one of the following three attributes: its members' cultural similarity; intense interaction among the members of the group; status similarity among the members of the group (occupation, education, age, localization etc.)".

Encyclopedia Universalis specifies the fact that this word, community, raises issues that have not been solved yet. It identifies two types of non-operational definitions: general definitions, among whom there is C.M. Arensberg's definition, for whom ,communities stand for structural units of organization and cultural and social transmission". A second definition of this type, inspired by the works of G.A. Hillery, who in 1955 gathered 94 definitions of the community from the Anglo-Saxon literature, takes intoPage 53account all types of possible communities: ,a community is a collectivity whose members are connected through a strong feeling of participation". In the category of the particular definitions, we find the definitions of rural communities.

International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences defines community as a ,population living within the legally set limits of a town". There is further specified that the term is very rarely used so as to describe a regular metropolitan area, a commercial area or an entity defined by other functions than the political ones. The issue of determining the borders of a community is unsolvable (excepting the arbitrary means) as it is acknowledged the fact that decisions taken externally may have a significant impact upon the allotment of the values and upon important private or public decisions within the community. The main preoccupation enhanced in the literature with respect to the community power consists in outlining and sharing these values and decisions.

Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft (Community and society)

Ferdinand Tönnies was the first to make explicit the nature and use of ideal types, or ,normal types", as he called them. Stimulated by Maine as well as by Marx and Hobbes, he developed two such types which gave their names to his book Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft (1887). Tönnies' theory and typology rest oh his view of the nature of human volition, of which he distinguished two types- Wesenwille (,natural will" or ,essential will") and Kurwille (,rational will"). The former refers to volition that springs from an individual's temperament, character, and habits. With rational will, however, the distinction between means and ends becomes important, and volition is dominated by thinking.

Gemeinschaft cannot be accurately translated. It refers to the ,community of feeling" (a kind of associative unity of ideas and emotions) that results from likeness and from shared life-experience. Natural will predominates in Gemeinschaft relationships, which are best illustrated by the links between mother and child, husband and wife, and brothers and sisters.

The predominance of rational will characterizes Gesellschaft. In Gesellschaft relationships, Tönnies says, ,everybody is by himself and isolated, and there exists a condition of tension against all others ... intrusions are regarded as hostile acts ... nobody wants to grant and produce anything for another individual ... all goods are conceived to be separate, as are their owners" (1887, p. 65). In such a society, rational will operates in terms of the logic of the market place. Relationships are contractual; values are monetary. Profit is the sole end of trade, and one man's gain is another's loss. As the merchant tries to free himself from all relationships that might conflict with commerce, he becomes, as Adam Smith pointed out, an individual who is not bound to any particular country; indeed, every man becomes, in some measure, a merchant.

In the history of the great systems of culture", Tönnies wrote, ,a period of Gesellschaft follows a period of Gemeinschaft". The latter period begins with social relations based on family life and on domestic economy; later, with the development of agriculture and rural village life, there is a shift to cooperative patterns based on locality. Then follows the growth of town life and the mental community of religious faith and artistry...