Against Unspoilt Authenticity: A Re-Appraisal of Helmuth Plessner's The Limits of Community (1924)

Abstract

Community rhetoric has made a strange comeback. More than half a century after Arensberg and Kimball's study Family and Community in Ireland (1940) hardly a day passes without a politician, social scientist or public intellectual referring or appealing to some sense of community. However, what appears to be a genuine search for meaning and an attempt to make sense of social life also has its downsides – as Helmuth Plessner's classic study The Limits of Community (1924) reveals. This article reconstructs Plessner's main argument and locates Plessner's reflections in the context of the relevant international debates. With explicit reference to recent debates in Ireland the article warns against some of the non-reflective use of community rhetoric.