Summer thoughts and considerations

Maybe it was the heat of mid-August, even if it wasn’t as bad as last year, or perhaps all the polemics, comments and criticism made after our publication last week of a letter from Alessandro Dettori. The fact is that a lot of thoughts came to mind including, and above all, a way to explain how some things are. In order to better understand the scenario I would like to recall what the German sociologist Ferdinand Tonnies, a friend of Max Weber, wrote over a century ago when he attempted to define certain forms of human aggregation, in particular what distinguishes community from society.

According to Tonnies, Community  has its roots in a perfect union of the desires of individuals who are part of it and that this is a natural reality in which one fully emerges themselves in an emotional and instinctive way. It is a togetherness of common and reciprocal feelings upon which all members remain united. The origin of community is in blood ties and the relationship between fathers and sons and is the most complete because along with the organic base and ties of affection that bind it there is the authority figure of the father, an authority not based on the desire to dominate but on the need to educate. Even the economy of the community is regulated by relations of collaboration, exchange and agreement. Useful items are exchanged not for profit but for need and use. The community thus represents a kingdom of oneness, where relations are peaceful and for togetherness and perfect integration. In Society, on the other hand, individuals are united by contract and thus it is centered on individualism and egotism. While abiding by forms of courtesy, individuals tend to center on establishing their own value and usefulness and society members are thus in competition with one another. At the base of society is an economic relationship that is not centered on the value of what is being used but on the profit one can obtain through exchange. This is why it is necessary that value be measurable using an objective criteria that all can share. This criteria is in turn based on the work time needed to produce goods and services of and money is the abstract, artificial and purely conventional form it has assumed.

These two forms for aggregation, if you think of it, are at the base of how life is envisioned. Those who tend to have a ‘community’ vision focus on the substance of relations, ethics and direct knowledge and thus tend to oppose globalization and the excess of bureaucratic rules and regulations. Those who have a ‘social’ vision, on the other hand, prefer rules, laws and everything that is economic and legal, based on basic ethical considerations, in a vision of the world that is more impersonal but also more regulated and it is through this that democracy is created. Those in the first group tend to be anarchists and resistant to imposed rules, while those in the second group see these rules as a guarantee for civil coexistence.

Can these opposing views ever find common ground?  Perhaps.  In the world of wine there are those opposed to all protocols and regulations regarding so-called ‘natural’ wines while others maintain that without laws the term ‘natural’ is misleading and allows consumers to be potentially victims of fraud. Each side obviously has a point. The reasons of the first group come from the heart of those who put their heart and soul into their work and do not see the need for someone from outside to determine whether it is authentic and then seek to regulate it. The reasons of the second group are based on the conception that the rules of a modern state, based on laws and guarantees, are the only that can truly guarantee freedom and democracy in a concrete way. At least one argument they support makes sense to me. Those who seek to cheat will have greater difficulty if there are efficient rules and controls. And this, all things considered, represents a guarantee even for honest winemakers. From this point of view Dettori’s call for common sense seems more than appropriate.