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Among the contributors to contemporary political philosophy, the sociologist Professor Robert Nisbet stands out in the American conversation, most notably in his 1953 work, The Quest for Community. Nisbet’s analysis centers around his argument that the modern state’s removal of the local community as an intermediary between the individual and their nation has had profound sociological consequences for American society. Nisbet contrasts the modern dynamic with the observations of the French writer and politician Alexis de Tocqueville, who, during his visit to America in 1831-32, appraised the nation’s community-oriented values, labeling the “township democracy” as a fundamental element of the individual’s relationship to democracy and wider society. Nisbet argues this “township democracy” has been eroded and removed, discussing how the modern state uses man’s inherent desire for community as a driving force to consolidate power in a connection exclusively comprising the state and the individual.

Faced with no alternative, Nisbet argues that citizens of the modern state are subjected to a federally oriented bureaucracy holding no accountability to a once vibrant, community-based society. This dramatic shift in power dynamics in many aspects parallels the centralized authority found in Hobbes’ Leviathan. Yet rather than this authority being created by one leader, modern authority is instead formed by fulfilling the individual’s inherent desire for community, upon the removal of traditional communities as the intermediary between the individual and the state. Nisbet’s findings present an important warning about the trajectory of modern democracy and political discourse. This article argues that the consequences of the communal breakdown shouldn’t merely be confined to Nisbet’s postwar vision of the individual and the state, though. Rather, his warnings against the erosion of community have evolved, taking on new life in today’s world with profound sociological impacts continuing to shape us. The rise of the internet and social media has formed new “digital Leviathans” that have focused the individual’s need for community into cyberspace, fostering dependency on the state whilst further diminishing the influence of Tocquevillian “township democracies.”

To fully understand the individual’s increasing dependency on these “digital Leviathans,” Nisbet’s argument surrounding the modern state’s encroachment on the individual and community must be examined. The Quest for Community is a sociological analysis of communities and their role in societal order, morphing into an analysis of the state and community relationship, and finally concluding with a direct appeal for a new political and cultural laissez-faire operating for the prosperity of groups, associations, and communities against the umbrella of centralization. It is not a lament of the past or a plea to “undo” the modern state. Nisbet praises the advancements of a unified society and the post-1648 world in which the modern state was created and developed. It is the modern state’s consequences, specifically surrounding the structures of authority and power, where Nisbet’s concerns are directed. Nisbet asserts that the individual will always hunger “for a clear sense of cultural purpose, membership, status, and continuity”. As the intermediary role of “township democracy” disappears, this hunger draws the individual into a synthesized whole that spatially unifies but removes one’s “meaningful proximity to the major ends and purposes of his culture.”

Cultural isolation is indirectly imposed, structurally breaking down community attachments. For Nisbet, these attachments can be generally found in a wide array of communal pursuits: neighborhood parties, local associations, or even something as simple as a bowling league. Communities, though present, were not always politically charged or motivated by a civic duty to cultivate Tocquevillian democracy. Nonetheless, even the smallest bowling leagues helped to reinforce cultural bonds present in long-established communities and indirectly contributed to the pre-existing intermediary role that communities held for the individual. Shared moral and cultural values, as well as routine opportunities for interaction, allowed civil and political discourse to be debated and interacted with on a small-scale perspective that gave individuals the chance to directly shape their lives with the local organizations and associations of which they were integral parts. In this way, the individual’s base need for continuity and fulfillment was met, and further participation in refining and promoting the everyday order in community life was encouraged. State insertion into the individual life wasn’t nonexistent but heavily regulated by a community presence. As Nisbet argues, a harmonious balance is developed between the individual, the community, and the state that draws similarities to branches of power in the governments of liberal democracies.

Considering the nuances of power and governance, it would be an oversimplification to describe the traditional community as “good” or “bad” when compared to the modern state. Neither can be considered perfect, and Nisbet doesn’t waste time defending the old or heaping praise on progression. His careful, thoughtful arguments are produced around an understanding of the complexities associated with each concept and their various benefits and consequences. Taking up this manner of analysis, the origins of the state and erosion of community can provide an outline of the conditions needed for the introduction of online communities as an extension of the state-individual relationship, a relatively recent transformation. The state is defined by Nisbet as “a complex of ideas, symbols, and relationships” that today has become “the greatest refuge from the insecurities and frustrations of other spheres of life”. It is the most dominant force of institution and authority in society and exists in varying degrees of prominence in the social spheres each of us inhabits, similar in manner to the all-encompassing authority of the Church during the medieval age. The state was born from war and conquest as an exclusively military organization, evolving across the centuries to dominate all aspects of life. To Nisbet, the modern state is “a process of permanent revolution,” devouring the functions and powers invested in the local community.

The state possesses, in a myriad of structures, an unfathomable amount of control that has made leadership of the state “the greatest prize in modern struggles for power”. The modern state’s aggressively individualist doctrine and devoted commitment to dismantling communities is seen by Nisbet to have been largely proliferated upon the emergence of the French Revolution and mass adoption of Enlightenment values. To Hobbes and Leviathan, Nisbet credits the creation of an individualist society wherein the community is a superfluous product of man and has no prominence, entrusting completely the responsibilities of community to the state. In Rousseau lies the true creation of the modern state, with a purview that gleefully abandons formality in favor of the steady march of progress that further expands the state’s powers and embraces individuality over community. This march remains ongoing. The restrictive ties of national borders are being politically and culturally dismantled as the postwar globalist economic order has settled into place, demanding productivity and efficiency that can only be achieved through greater unity. Localized communities have become an endangered species that no longer inhabit their intermediary roles; for many, a new form of community has emerged as the dominant sphere of interaction and influence in the world of the individual: the internet.

Elements of Nisbet’s definition of the state can be applied toward what we regard as the modern internet. When mentioning the digital Leviathan, I refer to the network of algorithms and online communities that function as quasi-authoritative structures organizing identity, attention, and cultivating belonging. More broadly, the internet is comprised of endless streams of content detailing our infinite sum of knowledge and creativity, and that it was produced in the modern world is made evident by the manner in which it is governed. There is no formal consolidation of internet law, practically speaking, and the individualistic anonymity provided in cyberspace is an unquestionably fundamental feature of online connectivity. Search engines provide unlimited possibilities of choice to users, and the most developed and popular social media platforms provide highly advanced algorithms designed to attract and maintain attention.

In this complex world, we can identify patterns that Nisbet presents to readers in The Quest for Community that solidify the internet as a continuation of the state’s march of progress. It is the excess of choice (and absence of community), says Nisbet, which incites people to “seek escape from the freedom of impersonality, secularism, and individualism.” In the same way that the individualist world of Hobbes and the anti-formality state of Rousseau have created a flat landscape of impersonality, cyberspace has been constructed upon the concepts of impersonality and anonymity. In each instance, society is left with the same hunger for community and connection it has always needed, and without the traditional community to ease that sensation, alternative means of fulfillment must be discovered. In our contemporary world, the internet has emerged as a strong arm for that fulfillment, made possible by the sheer power of connectivity that attaches the individual to a new variant of pseudo-community, built upon the globalized and hyperconnected masses. Attention garners profit, and so engagement becomes a priority for online platforms that generally use rapid, short-form content to generate a positive feedback loop that demands more engagement. As the individual becomes a disciplined consumer, their preferences and social identity are carefully examined and codified to produce consistency, and content soon begins to mimic the expressed preferences of the user, ultimately concluding with the introduction of that user into the digital community carefully selected to align with those preferences.

In the digital space, community is anything but Nisbet’s bowling leagues and associations; these communities aren’t bound by anything beyond a shared intrigue into a particular piece of content, which can quite literally be anything. Interaction occurs sparingly and is typically one-sided, while constant anonymity makes legitimate friendship rare and difficult to cultivate. One user can be tied into a hundred or a thousand different communities simultaneously, each for a specific interest, and each providing small amounts of necessary fulfillment. As Hobbes outlined the absolutist nature of the individual and state, we now interact in communities of this same absolutist nature between the user and the interest at hand: a digital Leviathan reproduced a thousandfold across cyberspace, appealing to all and constantly courting attention and engagement. While traditional community and digital Leviathans emerge from the same base desire for order and connection, beyond this, they have little in common. Political discourse, once exercised on the local level in “township democracy,” is now confined largely to cyberspace and national-scale politics. The local park’s renovations take a backseat to analyses of national elections or scrutiny of the federal government. Moreover, the abstract composition of each online community means each member of the collective varies widely in every aspect of identity.

The traditional community was always geographically based, neatly confined into counties or neighborhoods that had an exact population tally and produced similar ways of life for all residents, regardless of individual identity. Digital communities not only have anonymity and extreme variations in individual identity but also exponentially larger numbers of users that constantly fluctuate. The problem of disorganization and impersonality is compounded by a lack of personal accountability. This has, perhaps predictably, allowed political and cultural debate to be constantly corrupted by misinformation and emotion. Perhaps most importantly, though, the immense power of the internet solely lies in the hands of the modern state, which alone possesses the authority to enact regulations, censor dangerous content, and manipulate integral elements of cyberspace. Today’s digital Leviathans can therefore be seen as a dangerous answer to the atomization of traditional community, operating indirectly at the behest of the state to reinforce the individualist foundations of modernity. The march of progress continues, and the individual gains “not only compensation for the frustrations and insecurities to which he is heir in mass society but also the intoxicating sense of collective freedom.”

As our reliance on the digital world has expanded, so too have the dramatic repercussions of this binding attachment been slowly illuminated. For the first time, the youth are being educated and formed by a new age of technology that sees their individualism and personal sovereignty attain new heights. As the information age races ahead, the once extensive community bonds invigorated by the populous have slowed to a near halt. For most of the world, digital Leviathans have settled comfortably into the position of intermediaries between individual and state, whilst truly being committed to directly strengthening and legitimizing the state’s expanding hold over authority. The full ramifications of this dynamic remain to be seen, but increasing dependence on digital Leviathans to find community fulfillment still produces the same alienation that Nisbet warns of in The Quest for Community. Regarding the communal upheaval impacting the modern individual, he writes, “the older, rationalist conception of stable, self-sufficing man has been replaced, in large measure, by a conception of man as unstable, inadequate, and insecure when he is cut off from the channels of social membership and clear belief”. Anxieties and frustrations associated with the alienated individual have yet to fade in the digital realm and can even be exacerbated in echo chambers of doubt, fear, and obsession, culminating in dependency and moral decay. It’s an oversimplification to view the internet as a simple mass of these echo chambers and digital Leviathans, however. There are certainly many vibrant communities and organizations aided by a digital presence, and as with the modern state, who can doubt that cyberspace has produced “some of the most important humanitarian gains and personal liberties in Western culture?” At the same time, who can doubt that this evolution of the modern state’s revolutionary spirit has also formed “problems of balance of authority in society and problems of associative and personal freedom which are very nearly overwhelming at the present time?”

The Quest for Community is a sobering reflection on contemporary Western liberalism and the consequences of accelerating today’s world without prudence. Nisbet is far from optimistic regarding modernity’s impact on the community, but nonetheless, there is room left for hope. As the book’s foreword observes, “it’s possible for both liberal government and liberal economics to flourish without descending into tyranny, so long as they allow, encourage, and depend upon more natural forms of community.” If the state fosters a supportive environment for enduring communities, it may be able to enact a reconciliation between technology and traditional communities. Nisbet himself envisions an alternate form of state where “its power will be limited by associations whose plurality of claims upon their members is the measure of their members’ freedom from any monopoly of power in society.” Despite the consequences of digital Leviathans and the atomization of community, Nisbet’s insights still offer a path forward. His vision of a harmonized society actively cultivating an intermediary to check the growth of state power remains a compelling model for the contemporary world, where society accommodates the constant need for community and opportunities for technological advancement.

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References

Nisbet, R. (2023). The quest for community: A study in the ethics of order and freedom. Simon and Schuster.