At its most extreme, the debate has thrown up ideologically opposed propositions which are equally untenable. For example, it used to be claimed that modernity and community are irreconcilable, that the characteristic features of community cannot survive industrialization and urbanization. It is a spurious argument for its opposition of ‘community’ and ‘modernity’ rests only upon ascribing stipulatively to community those features of social life which are supposed, by definition, to be lacking from modernity! Moreover, it is an argument which unjustifiably claims the authority of such seminal
scholars as Durkheim, Weber, Tönnies and Simmel