• Robbie McClintock, Instructor
  • Office hours @ 2nd floor, Gottesman Library
    Thursdays 4:00 to 6:00 pm and by appointment
    
• Frank Moretti, Instructor
  • Office hours @ 603 Lewisohn Hall, by appointment
    (Call Teresa Gonzales, 212 854 1962, or email her teresa@columbia.edu)

Meeting 5  •  September 30 — Georg Simmel (1858-1918)

Georg Simmel

• Scaff, Lawrence A. "Georg Simmel." The Blackwell Companion to Major Classical Social Theorists. Ritzer, George, ed. (Blackwell Publishing, 20030. Blackwell Reference Online.
• Habermas, Jürgen. "Georg Simmel on Philosophy and Culture: Postscript to a Collection of Essays." Critical Inquiry, Vol. 22, No. 3 (Spring, 1996), pp. 403-414.  •  JSTOR.

• Simmel, Georg. "The Field of Sociology." Georg Simmel. The Sociology of Georg Simmel. Kurt H. Wolff, trans. (Glencoe, IL: The Free Press, 1950) pp. 3-25.  •  Electronic Reserve
  • Compare this introductory chapter from Simmel's major work on Sociology (1908) to Durkheim on the Rules of Socilogical Method and Weber on "Basic Sociological Terms."
• Simmel, Georg. "The Conflict in Modern Culture" and "On the Concept and Tragedy of Culture." Georg Simmel. The Conflict in Modern Culture and Other Essays. K. Peter Etzkorn, trans. (New York: Teachers College Press, 1968) pp. 11-46.  •  Electronic Reserve.
• Simmel, Georg. "The Metropolis and Mental Life." Georg Simmel. On Individuality and Social Forms: Selected Writings, Donald N. Levine, ed. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1971) pp. 324-339.  •  Electronic Reserve
  • Simmel published much of his work through essays for a well-educated, general audience, a style represented in these.

• The Philosophy of Money (1900, 1907). 3rd edition. Tom Bottomore and David Frisby, trans., (New York: Routledge, 2004). Chapter 6, Section II: "The Concept of Culture," pp. 446-470.  •  Electronic Reserve  •  Barnes & Nobel: $44.95.
  • This excerpt from Simmel's important work on The Philosophy of Money gives a good sense of his more systematic thinking.

Since much of our discussion in last week’s class was based around the question of whether sociology should be considered a science, I looked into the writings of Wilhelm Dilthey, whom Robbie mentioned. Dilthey was also a German sociologist, and lived around the same time as Simmel. In his work Introduction to the Human Sciences, Dilthey explains that he draws a distinction between physical sciences and human sciences. He does this because of what he saw as the subordination of the human spirit in the study of the physical sciences. Dilthey says both the physical sciences and human sciences “encompass natural facts and are based on knowledge of nature.” Here’s an excerpt that illustrates his thinking with an example (bear with me, it’s kind of lengthy):

Blue light is not more readily explained by the corresponding frequency of its oscillation than a negative judgment by a process in the brain. Physics leaves the task of explaining the sensory quality of blueness to physiology. Since this discipline does not find in the motion of physical parts the means for conjuring up blueness either, psychology is finally duped into trying to establish it. Properly considered, however, the hypothesis that qualities arise in the process of sensation is mainly a calculatory device whereby the changes in reality, as they are given in my experience, are reduced to a particular subclass of changes within that reality corresponding to only a part of my experience. This is in order to bring these qualities to a single level, as it were, for cognitive purposes. If it were possible to substitute constant and precisely defined facts of consciousness for the precisely defined facts which occupy a fixed place in the framework of a mechanistic view of human nature, and then, by using a system of uniformities that accounts for the latter, to determine the occurrences of processes of consciousness entirely in accordance with experience, then these facts of consciousness would be as much a part of our knowledge of nature as are tones or colors.

So, it’s kind of an elegant way to classify sociology as a science, just as physics or chemistry are sciences, all related to nature. But Dilthey seems to find it important to clarify that he believes human sciences should be seen as equally important to the physical sciences.

As a student in the Journalism school, I have to wonder: how does the study of communications fit into this discussion? There have been some attempts in the past to connect communications to the physical sciences… among them, John B. Watson’s writings on behaviorism that took the mind out of the social sciences: “The rule, or measuring rod, which the behaviorist puts in front of him always is: Can I describe this bit of behavior I see in terms of "stimulus and response"? … By response we mean anything the animal does - such as turning toward or away from a light, jumping at a sound, and more highly organized activities such as building a skyscraper, drawing plans, having babies, writing books, and the like ....” (Watson, Behaviorism, 1924) But I think most people would consider communications a human science rather than a physical science. The noted scholar John Dewey said “a proper daily newspaper would be the only possible social science.” When I read that, I thought, “hunh. Proper daily newspaper.” What does that mean? A newspaper, or any other form of mass media, I believe strives to promote understanding, which would fit Simmel’s ideas of learning by experiencing. But there’s a debate over whether media actually do promote understanding, or whether reporters are increasingly part of an elite class that observes the public from a distance.

There’s also been note of how formulaic news stories can be, incorporating long-held myths like the Hero, the Victim, the Trickster. Basing stories around these myths, these familiar characters, serves a purpose for both writers and readers; it helps put stories in context (whether the context is legitimate can certainly be argued). But noting these tendencies, has news become crystallized to the point that Simmel would argue that it “loses all individuality and stagnates freedom,” (CiMC, 22) the way he argues that other forms have, like marriage, prostitution, and religion? And will traditional journalism be displaced by something Simmel would describe as something that “does not aim to satisfy extrinsic needs, but searches instead for continuous life in a deeper sphere in which it is not yet torn between needs and satisfactions” (CiMC, 24)? Would some new forms of media fit more closely what Simmel sees as “continuous life”?

It seems to me that they would, especially blogs, wiki and the like that allow for continuous and multi-faceted interactions. The constant feedback and collaborative revisions that these new forms of communications allow fit well into Simmel’s ideas for “continuous life,” rather than objects that become “completely alien and crystallized into self-sufficient independence” (OtCatToC, 30) once they’re created. Objects that are less rigid may allow for a more effective subject-object synthesis Simmel believes is necessary for cultivation. So if that’s so, if these new media models are indeed closer to the interactive, continuous life that Simmel valued, could that be related to the demise of some of the more traditional journalistic forms? I know, I know, the business model has changed, people are getting news for free when they used to have to pay for it, no one wants to advertise online, I know all of those arguments. But is that really the whole explanation? Or does the rise of online, interactive media have anything to do with a growing dissatisfaction among readers/listeners/viewers in the rigidity of the journalistic form?

Other thoughts: Simmel echoed some of Tönnies’ observations on the changes urbanization has brought to social life. Simmel and Tönnies were contemporaries; they, with Max Weber, founded the German Sociological Society. And like Tönnies, Simmel noted the importance of money as a means of exchange in an impersonal society: “To the extent that money, with its colorlessness and its indifferent quality, can become a common denominator of all values it becomes a frightful leveler—it hollows out the core of things, their peculiarities… in a way which is beyond repair.” (tMaML, 330) But also like Tönnies, Simmel does not show a clear favoritism for a more pastoral way of life, remarking that it can also be stifling: “Small town life in antiquity as well as in the Middle Ages imposed such limits upon the movements of the individual in his relationships with the outside world and on his inner independence and differentiation that the modern person could not even breathe under such circumstances.” (tMaML, 333) And in fact, Simmel was a “man of the city,” according to Lawrence A. Scaff, living in Berlin for most of his life. Simmel even connected the development of Berlin into a metropolis with his own personal development.

On a completely unrelated note, I thought I’d mention that a portion of the Simmel reading reminded me of the so-called Myers-Briggs personality test. You know, the introvert-extrovert one? I’ve had several teachers who loved giving the test, so maybe that’s why it came to my mind so easily. The Myers-Briggs test came out after Simmel, and is based on Jung’s personality types. Myers-Briggs classifies people based on four pairs of characteristics. The one I was reminded of in reading Simmel was the Intuition-Sensing continuum. So-called Intuitives (Ns) are more comfortable with abstract thought, while Sensing (S) types find more comfort in concrete facts. Everyone has the capability for either tendency; some people just lean more one way versus the other. Simmel, it seemed to me, acknowledged the value of both in a passage from “On the Concept and Tragedy of Culture,” in which he talks about the synthesis of genius. It’s on page 35: “a twofold force is at work in the founder of a religion and in an artist, in a statesman and in an inventor, in a scholar and in a legislator. On the one hand, there is the expression of his essential powers, the exuberation of his nature to such a high level that it frees by itself the contents of cultural life. And on the other hand, there is the passionate dedication to the cause with its immanent laws demanding perfection, so that the creative individual becomes indifferent to himself and is extinguished. Within genius these two streams are unified.”

Come to think of it, I suppose you could also draw a parallel between the Intuition-Sensing continuum and the distinction Simmel makes between the human sciences and the physical sciences, since the human sciences require understanding more than physical evidence.