Joseph Cardinal Höffner CHRISTIAN SOCIAL ... - Ordo Socialis

those of spirit (friendship) grow up from the ‘natural will’ expressed in the conviction, feeling,
and conscience of man, whereas the ‘elective will’ oriented towards means-end relation
has created arbitrary structures (societies): „Community is understood as resting on the common
natural will, society as produced by the common elective will.“ 2 The natural will is operative
in communities as custom, belief, harmony, morals, and religion, whereas the elective
will produces the contract, the statute, and the convention.
5. As a criticism of the Tönniesian antinomy it must be noted that its fundamental idea (the
unconscious emotional forces of man are good, but the rational ordering spirit is somehow
suspect) is untenable. Tönnies also interprets the community only in terms of subjective experience,
whereas the ontological structure (the substantiality and personality) of man as the
presupposition and end of every community remain closed to him. ‘Natural will’ and ‘elective
will’ are biological and psychological, i.e. physical, not metaphysical principles. In addition,
the classification of social structures intended by the antinomy does not correspond to reality,
since all social structures - even those that rest on a personal bond - exhibit conscious formations.
To the essential characteristics of community there belong not only connectedness and
the common realization of values but also order and leadership (authority). This is not to deny
that - presupposing the philosophical foundations of community - a certain epistemological
value attaches to the distinction between communities with a more personal imprint and societies
with a predominantly purposive organization.
§ 2 Mass Society and the Loss of Individuality
1. Not a few are declaring today that population increase, urbanization, industrialization,
mechanization of labor, technicization of traffic, transportation, and communications, the
standardization and uniformity of the production of goods, in a word, the mass character of
modern ways of life have depersonalized man and deprived him of his individuality. Mass
man allegedly arises „technologically from mechanization, economically from standardization,
sociologically from overcrowding, and politically from democracy.“ Whither „the ever
more rapidly whirling movement of the spiral“ will finally lead to, no one can know; but „that
we are nearing its end of whatever kind“ is hardly subject to doubt. 3 Technological progress,
„especially in the area of food production,“ has for a long time been leading to sociological
overpopulation“ and has marred and spoiled life on this earth by „transforming it into a rabbit
hutch, even if the food suffices for the time being.“ 4
2. The Christian must have misgivings about this thesis, which Romano Guardini summarizes
in this question: „Do we ultimately have the right to put forward an argument against the
growth of the masses from the limitation that it will bring for all personal and cultural values?
Do we therefore have a right to say that a thousand should not be born, but only ten, because
the cultural standing of a thousand people must be lower than that of ten“? 5 According to
Christian thought, the mass character of living conditions is not to be equated with the depersonalization
of man. The environmental conditions of the modern industrial states do indeed
„make it difficult for a person to think independently of outside influences, to act on his own
initiative, exercise his responsibility and express and fulfill his own personality“ (Mater et
magistra, 62) Nevertheless, the opinion, that the close network of social ties necessarily leads
to self-alienation is to be rejected resolutely. Rather, in a spiritual, moral, and religious respect,
the following three traits are characteristic in the loss of individuality.
2 F. Tönnies, Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft (Leipzig 1935), 86f.
3 Hendrik de Man, Vermassung und Kulturverfall. München 19522, S. 48, 195.
4 Alexander Rüstow, in: Ordo, (1951), IV:389.
5 Romano Guardini, Das Ende der Neuzeit (Basel 1950), 73.
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