The two German terms encapsulate this sense of a lost world based on the feeling of community and the rise of associations based on contractual relations.

These terms were coined by a German sociologist Ferdinand Tonnies (1855-1936) in 1887.

The example of the former is the village where people have an essential unity of purpose, work together for the common good, and are united by ties of family and neighbourhood.

Social life was characterized by ‘intimate, private, and exclusive living together and the members were bound by common language and traditions’. They carried within them a ‘we-ness’ or ‘our-ness’.

The anti-thesis of this bond was located in relations of competition, conflict, utility or contractual assent. The life in the city, which exemplifies gesellschaft relations are marked by disunity, rampant individualism, selfishness and hostility. The meaning of existence has shifted from the group to the individual.

gesellschaft entails rationality and calculation. In this context people are motivated by their own self-interest.