Short Abstract

Short abstract: "Commoning", "commons", and "community" have almost exclusively positive connotations in Social and Cultural Anthropology. This is so despite a long-standing and substantive critique of "community"

Long Abstract

"Commoning", "commons", and "community" have almost exclusively positive connotations in Social and Cultural Anthropology. This is so despite a long-standing and substantive critique of "community": exactly 100 years ago, here at the University of Cologne, before being expelled by the Nazis, Helmuth Plessner published his argument on The Limits of Community, subtitled A Critique of Social Radicalism. Today, this is considered a hallmark publication in philosophical anthropology, an almost prophetic warning against the totalitarianisms to come, and it can be read like a cautionary tale against the current community-enthusiasm in German politics.

This roundtable is not intended as an exegesis of Plessner’s work and its reception, but discusses the role of Plessner’s century-old caution for current anthropological research and practice. There is agreement today (with the exception of the renewed radicalisms) that society and community are not an either-or choice and that there is no unilinear development from one to the other. There are practices of "Vergemeinschaftung" that respond to the longing for community and those of "Vergesellschaftung" that seek to ensure personal dignity and associated rights. But how to best combine these practices is an open and contested question. What are the potentially problematic aspects of "community" and its cognates such as "commoning" today? How much of the critical analysis of the situation in the 1920s still holds today, and what has changed since? What are the opposites of "commons" and "community" and are they necessarily all negatively connoted?