Prelude To Democracy—Part Two

Extract

Communitarian forms of life are the basic forms in which a people lives. Only in them does man realize to the fullest his being a person—in fact it is only in communitarian forms that he grows to the status of a person. Man's fundamental mode of being is comunio, namely of persons. Such comunio materializes in family life, in friendship, in neighborhood, in religious life, in certain forms of vocational collaboration. Beside these fundamental forms man builds himself free-willed associations which do not engage his personality to its deepest and fullest extent, as e.g. trade unions, corporations, societies and associations for cultural, scientific, recreational purposes. For want of a better term we call them in contradistinction to the other forms societarian forms, in following the terminology of F. Toennies in his book Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft (Community and Society). Both these forms develop in a people and aid in constituting a people. However, the communitarian forms are basic and therefore of greater importance for the totality of a people's life, its political institutions included.