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

Abstract

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.