Talk:Georg Simmel (1858-1918)
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2008/2009 write-up
Lead off: Michael Schapira
I thought I would lead off with some provocative quotes from each article:
Fashion
"The whole history of society is reflected in the striking conflicts, the compromises, slowly won and quickly lost, between socialistic adaptation to society and individual departure from its demands" (p. 294) (Compare this quote with the first sentence of "The Metropolis and Mental Life" for a theme that emerges in the works of Simmel that we read)
"We encounter [in the field of fashion] a close connection between the consciousness of personality and that of the material forms of life, a connection that runs all through history" (p. 298)
"Fashion furnishes an ideal field for individuals with dependent natures, whose self-consciousness, however, requires a certain amount of prominence, attention, and singularity" (p. 304) (It is interesting how Simmel extends this point, showing how "social obedience" is inextricably linked to a form of "individual differentiation" in vanguard figures like the party leaders of "dudes").
"Whoever consciously avoids following the fashion does not attain the consequent sensation of individualization through any real individual qualification, but rather through the mere negation of social example" (p. 307)
"We have here a triumph of the soul over the actual circumstances of existence, which must be considered one of the highest and finest victories, at least as far as form is concerned, for the reasons that the enemy himself is transformed into a servant, and that the very thing the personality seemed to suppress is voluntarily seized, because the leveling suppression is here transfered to the external spheres of life in such a way that it furnishes a veil and a protection for everything spiritual and now all the more free" (this external/internal distinction is returned to in his admiration of Goethe on p. 314. I wonder if Simmel is getting at a more cynical variant of Bourdieu's use of "virtuoso" (itself an appropriation of Aristotle's "phronemos")?)
"Only the noblest persons seek the greatest depth and power of their ego by respecting the individuality inherent in things" (p. 316)
"We cannot claim that all fashion is unnatural, because the existence of fashion itself seems perfectly natural to us as social beings, yet we can say, conversely, that absolutely unnatural forms may at least for a time bear the stamp of fashion" (p. 322)
The Metropolis and Mental Life
“The deepest problems of modern life flow from the attempt of the individual to maintain the independence and individuality of his existence against the sovereign powers of society, against the weight of the historical heritage and the external culture and the external culture of technique of life” (p. 324) (Again, compare this to the first sentence in "Fashion")
"This intellectualistic quality which is thus recognized as a protection of the inner life against the dominance of the metropolis, becomes ramified into numerous specific phenomena" (p. 326). (One of these phenomena is the detached stance that dovetails with the urban capitalist who levels all "quality and individuality to a purely quantitative level" of exchange value. This leads to other intellectualistic qualities like a calculative stance or a fixation on punctuality).
"There is perhaps no psychic phenomenon which is so unconditionally reserved to the city as the blasé outlook...The essence of the blasé attitude is an indifference towards the distinction between things" (p. 329) (For another account of this process of leveling Soren Kierkegaard's The Present Age is instructive (insofar as he takes into account the Press as a culprit))
"The mental attitude of the people of the metropolis to one another may be designated formally as one of reserve" (p. 331)
"It is rather in transcending this purely tangible extensiveness that the metropolis also becomes the seat of cosmopolitanism...Every dynamic extension becomes a preparation not only for a similar extension but rather for a larger one and from every thread which is spun out of it there continue, growing as out of themselves, an endless number of others" (p. 334) (This passage seems to mark a turning point in the essay, showing a type of liberation (creative, spatial, social?) that comes with metropolitan life)
“Here in buildings and in educational institutions, in the wonders and comforts of space-conquering technique, in the formations of social life and in the concrete institutions of the State is to be found such a tremendous richness of crystallizing, depersonalized cultural accomplishments that the personality can, so to speak, scarcely maintain itself in the face of it" (p. 338)
"To the extent that such forces [those of the metropolis] have been integrated, with the fleeting existence of a single cell, into the root as well as the crown of the totality of historical life to which we belong--it is our task not to complain or to condone but only to understand" (p. 339) (In Henri Lefebvre's The Urban Revolution a similar tone is struck about coming to terms with what he takes to be the complete urbanization of the planet. He writes, in 1970, that "for the moment, for a long time into the future, the problematic [i.e. those contradictions and tensions embodied in urban life] will outweigh our understanding" (p. 162).
The Web of Group-Affiliation
"Thus, a group whose cohesion depended upon geographic and physiological factors, terminus a quo, was entirely replaced by a group whose cohesion was based on purpose, on factual considerations, or, if one will, on individual interests" (p. 128-9) (I posted an article about the dangers inherent in celebrating this change below).
"Criteria derived from knowledge came to serve as the basis of social differentiation and group-formation" (p. 137)
"The medieval group in the strict sense was one which did not permit the individual to become a member of other groups, a rule which the old guilds and the early medieval corporations probably illustrate most clearly. The modern type of group-formation makes it possible for the isolated individual to become a member in whatever number of groups he chooses. Many consequences resulted from this" (p. 140) (the style of this comparison/split strikes me as similar to the thinkers we have been studying...pointing to the widespread feeling of an epochal change).
"Thus one can say that the society arises from the individual and that the individual arises out of association...The creation of groups and associations in which any number of people can come together on the basis of their interest in a common purpose, compensates for the isolation of the personality which develops out of breaking away from the narrow confines of earlier circumstances" (p. 163)
"Sociological patterns are revealed in social life in an unlimited number of ways, but these patterns themselves are emanations of more general and deeply seated psychological functions' (p. 172) (Aside from being a clear statement of Simmel's focus, this point is central to the ensuing discussion of solidarity stemming from the division of labor (both in economic and gender terms)
"The fact that a person has a vocation will always be linked to his life in its entirety" (p. 188)
Studying Simmel's life
Key dates
1858: Born in Berlin
1874: Father dies
1881: Receives doctorate in philosophy from the University of Berlin (his thesis was entitled "The Nature of Matter According to Kant's Physical Monadology")
1885: Becomes a Privatdozent (similar to a course lecturer, but Dependant on fees from student enrollment) at the University of Berlin
1890: Married the philosopher Gertrud Kinel
1903: Granted an honorary title at the University of Berlin, but one which denied him the political privileges (within the university) of other professors)
1914: Is finally granted full professorship at the University of Strasbourg. However war disrupted his ability to lecture
1918: Simmel dies of cancer
Life phases
Influential events and contexts
Significant interactions
As a Privatdozent Simmel developed a reputation as a brilliant intellect, drawing the admiration of thinkers such as Max Weber, Edmund Husserl, Ranier Marie Rilke, George Santayana, and Ferdinand Toennies.
Along with Weber and Tonnies he was instrumental in founding the German Society for Sociology
Struggles and accomplishments
Simmel's Key Works
1890: On Social Differentiation
1892: The Problems of the Philosophy of History
1893: Introduction to the Science of Ethics
1900: The Philosophy of Money
1903: The Metropolis and Mental Life
1908: Sociology: Investigations on the Forms of Sociation
1917: Fundamental Questions of SociologyCritical literature on Simmel
- Vidler, Anthony. “Agoraphobia: Spatial Estrangement in Georg Simmel and Siegfried Kracauer.” New German Critique..54, Special Issue on Siegfried Kracauer (1991): 31-45. Retrieved 4 July 2007 JSTOR.
Conceptual glossary for Simmel
Simmel/glossary
Talk
Queries, critiques, and points of discussion
In "The Web of Group-Affiliations" Simmel highlights both the liberating qualities and tensions that come from a modern life made up of multiple "group-affiliations." At times he touches on the danger of psychological compartmentalization that might come from the opposing demands of different group-affiliations (I'm thinking of pages 150-4, 164-5), but remains pretty sanguine about the problem (see the first paragraph on page 163). Alasdair MacIntyre wrote a nice piece on why multiple group-affiliations of mutual interest still require some overarching principles of coordination to avoid both psychological compartmentalization and abdication of mutual responsibilities stemming from larger affiliations (as citizens for example). It can be found here: [http://www.jstor.org/stable/3751839] <nowiki>
General Concepts
Simmel seems to lean more towards the metaphysical than our previous subjects, both in reading about his background as an essayist and in the text of "The Philosophy of Money". This is exemplified in his use of one aspect of society, money, to posit a general view of the modern world rather than formulating a grand schema a la Durkheim or Tonnies, though he provides a strong argument for money as the determining factor of modern culture.
He is in agreement with Tonnies' view that society had evolved into a rationalistic beast, allowing for individuality but ultimately a detrimental state. Objective culture, the things "out there" that humanity has created using intellect, is not able to be internalized by individuals and we, in a sense, lose control and become oppressed by it.
The Philosophy of Money
Money is the concrete root of this societal change for Simmel: "...money, on the basis of its general availability and objectivity, none the less facilitates the growth of individuality and subjectivity, how much its unchanging uniformity, its qualitatively communisitic character, leads to each quantitative difference becoming a qualitative one. This extension of the power of money that is incomparable with that of any other cultural factor, and which gives equal rights to the most contradictory tendencies in life, is manifested here as the condensation of the purely formal cultural energy that can be applied to any content in order to strengthen it and to bring about its increasingly purer representation." (p. 440)
This increase of pure representation - coinciding with the rise of the intellect - brings about a crisis: "Just as freedom is not something negative but rather is the positive extension of the self into the objects that yield to it, so, conversely, our freedom is crippled if we deal with objects that our ego cannot assimilate. The sense of being oppressed by the externalities of modern life is not only the consequence but also the cause of the fact that they confront us as autonomous objects. What is distressing is that we are basically indifferent to those numerous objects that swarm around us, and this is for reasons specific to a money economy; their impersonal origin and easy replaceability.... Cultural objects increasingly evolve into an interconnected enclosed world that has increasingly fewer points at which the subjective will can interpose its will and feelings." (p. 460)
That money brought us to quantify our world and interactions, its replacement of the barter system and the resulting change in our ability to perceive an internalized, whole self fragments society at the same time that it allows for the rise of the individual, leading to a choice for modern man: "Whether this will lead to personal refinement, distinctiveness and introspection or whether, on the contrary, the subjugated objects, in view of the ease with which they may be acquired, will gain control over men, depends no longer upon money but upon man himself." (p. 470) Simmel is pessimistic about where this has actually led us: "Modern man's relationship to his environment usually develops in such a way that he becomes more removed from the groups closest to him in order to come closer to those more remote from him.... The overall picture that this presents surely signifies a growing distance in genuine inner relationships and a declining distance in more external ones." (p. 476); and sees a "preponderance of means over ends" (p. 482).
Points of Discussion
Simmel uses art as a counterpoint for the modern produced object: "Conversely, where the division of labour prevails, the achievement becomes incommensurable with the performer; the person can no longer find himself expressed in his work" (p. 455) and "The nature of the art work completely resists a subdivision of labour among a number of workers" (p. 454) - while this makes sense with art forms such as sculpture, what does it say about an orchestra, a film? Has the modern concept of art changed or is Simmel's argument flawed?
Money is an agent without character; can this also be said about ICTs, and if so how are they changing society - is it simply a further fragmentation?
With both Simmel and Tonnies I had difficulty keeping an open mind about their arguments as they seem to be saying pre-modern society was inherently better. While I agree that modernism and post-modernism have made it more difficult to keep a sense of connectedness, I still strongly prefer the chance to develop as an individual - especially considering the role of women (not to mention other oppressed groups) in older societies. I'm having a hard time sussing out whether they believe that it would be possible to return to or retain the ideals of a small community without giving up the advantages that come with being able to develop as an individual.
Study Group =
Hi everyone,
Is anyone interested in starting a study group to go over the readings? A few people have expressed interest and said that the study group could meet on Monday or Tuesday night. Does this day/time work for other people?
I was thinking that we could meet in the CCTE Dept (322 Thompson in TC) at the table in the back of the department or I could speak with the department secretary about scheduling the conference room.
Please let me know if you are interested and which night/time is best for you. I was thinking we could switch the days around to accommodate the different schedules that people have.
Regards, Brian
- I reserved Room 202 in the Russell Library for tomorrow 7pm. The room can accommodate 6 people and we already have 3. If more than 6 show interest, I'll look into finding another place to hold the group. Brian Gregory 19:30, 25 September 2006 (EDT)
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