No Civil Society?

One thing that struck me was the end of Chapter III in Book II when Rousseau asserts that there "should be no partial society in the state and that each citizen make up his own mind" (156). While this would be a good thing, and may to some extent have been more possible at his time, the lack of civil society now would hinder peoples abilities to have the information to make up his own mind. Since most issues and topics in general are very involved and without groups who care specifically about the information gathering it and distributing it, it would become difficult to know enough about an issue to make up your own mind. While he would likely be more against societies such as unions and fixed political parties, civil society would also fall under his assertions against partitions in society since it is methods of bringing people interested in specific issues to work on and discuss issues which relate to their community, and often spread information and opinions about those topics.
Now, civil society is considered an important part of building a society into a democracy and involve people actively in having a voice and being able to analyze for themselves what their opinions should be on government. So why does Rousseau think that this segment is more harmful? For other issues he carefully weighs the positives and negatives, but not here. Is the objection based mainly on that subgroups within the society will inherently weaken the greater whole? If so, how does he feel that everyone should have the knowledge to evaluate their stances?