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Organisation Of Communal Life
In his analysis of the history of the world, Koneczny reached the conclusion that in matters of human thought and actions there are certain pairs of abstract notions that are mutually exclusive, such as creation and emanation, around which certain complexes of ideas form. Eight such pairs (see Table 1) concern the method of communal life organisation and therefore pertain to the topic of civilisations.
Table 1
| Personalism | Collectivism |
| Emancipation of the family | Family not emancipated from clan |
| Induction (from observations) | Deduction (from a priori notions) |
| Historical consciousness | Negation of everything past |
| Unity in diversity, variety welcome | Uniformity demanded |
| Organic approach to problems | Mechanical approach to problems |
| Legal dualism (both private and public law) | Legal monism (either private or public law) |
| Self-government | Totalitarianism |
Communal life can be organised either for the human person or for the society (collective). It is an essential element of a personalistic organisation that the family be emancipated from the clan. Solutions can be sought from experience, inductively, or from some theory that is adopted a priori. Taking experience into consideration requires knowledge of the past and respect for it. Those making a priori decisions are not interested in facts and demand uniformity. Relying on the experience of the past leads to the tolerance of diversity. Unity based on diversity produces an organism that is capable of self-repair, by corrections from below. Uniformity, commanded by a priori notions, leads to a mechanism and a life regulated from above, which can only be corrected from above. Organisms form inductively, historically, from the natural development of relations. They create both private and public laws. Planned organisations can only create mechanisms, based on a single type of law, private or public, but not on both. This leads to totalitarianism, whereas local self-government stems from tolerance of diversity.
The Latin civilisation, from the stand point of which Koneczny begins his analyses and draws all of his assertions, belongs, in its entirety, to the first set of notions. All solutions derived from the second set are alien to it and spoil it.