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GEORG SIMMEL

Just as the universe needs “love and hate,” that is, attractive and repulsive forces, in order to have any form at all, so society, too, in order to attain a determinate shape, needs some quantitative ratio of harmony and disharmony, of association and competition, of favorable and unfavorable tendencies.

(G. Simmel, “Conflict”)

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Georg Simmel (1858-1918) Born in 1858 in Berlin, son of

successful businessman who died when GS was an infant

Historical context: cosmopolitan Berlin GS was the quintessential Berlin

intellectual, at center of intellectual circles, café culture

Marginalized in academia, due to eclectic nature of work and anti-semitism of German university establishment

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Intellectual influences & core ideas Simmel’s work challenged 2 currents of European thought:

1. Historicism emphasizes fundamental differences b/w natural and social worlds

natural sciences seen as the proper domain of objectivity whereas social sciences, if science at all, require interpretive methods, subjectivity

2. Organicism sees natural & social realities as continuous and models social processes on biological ones

employs organic metaphors, sees world as one chain of being from simple, natural phenomena to the most complex social patterns archetypal figures: Durkheim, Spencer, Comte

Simmel rejected historicism b/c it precluded scientific and generalizing approach to social life and rejected organicism for its reification of social facts, its vision of life as a thing

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Society According to Simmel,

“Society is merely the name for number of individuals connected by interaction….It is not a ‘substance,’ nothing concrete, but an event: It is the function of receiving and affecting the fate and development of one individual by another”

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The individual in modern society

Society and the individuals that compose it constitute an interdependent duality, the existence of one presupposing the other duality: being twofold; dichotomy; a

classification into two opposed parts or subclasses

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Society Sociation Simmel prefers the term “sociation” over

“society” “Society” is a reification, “sociation” is

not Sociation emphasizes relation and

process Insofar as we speak of “society,” we do

so only in shorthand

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Sociology Sociology’s goal is description and analysis of

particular forms of interaction and their crystallization in group characteristics Proper subject matter for sociology is the formal aspects of

social life, not the particular content Content refers to the drives, purposes, interests, or

inclinations that individuals have for interacting with one another Such motivations, in themselves, are not social but rather are

isolated psychological or biological impulses Actions in concert with others to fulfill drives or realize interests

are social a geometry of social life: specifying regularities in

diverse content

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Sociology: against reification

Reification means “thingification,” making something that is a process or a concept, something abstract, into a thing, e.g.

1) Relationship: when two people become romantically involved, they have a “relationship,” it becomes a thing, tangible force – but really it’s a process of relating

2) Organization: we treat it as a thing rather than a process, a set of relations among people

3) Categories like class, race, nationality, gender, etc.

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Quantitative features of social life

GS divides the social world into 3 basic forms: Solitary individual Dyad (two persons)

each individual can present themselves to the other in a way that maintains their identity

either party can end the relationship by withdrawing from it

Triad (3 or more people) enables strategies that lead to competition, alliances,

or mediation often develops a group structure independent of the

individuals in it, whereas this is less likely in the dyad

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“Sociability” (1910) sociability: the “play-form of association,”

driven by, "amicability, breeding, cordiality and attractiveness of all kinds" interacting with others for the sake of the

connection itself Sociable conversations have no significance or

ulterior motive, talking is an end in itself for pure pleasure of association not that all serious topics must be avoided, but point is

that sociability finds its justification, its place, and its purpose only in the functional play of conversation as such

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Resolving the solitariness of the individual

Every play or artistic activity has a common element: “a feeling for, or a satisfaction in associating with others, resolving the solitariness of the individual into togetherness, union with others” Depends on “good form,” interaction of the elements

through which a unity is made “Since sociability in its pure form has no ulterior

end, no content, and no result outside itself, it is oriented completely about personalities.” (297) “But personalities must not emphasize themselves too

individually…or with too much abandon and aggressiveness”

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The “superficial” nature of sociability

To the extent that it’s a form of interaction free of the tensions of “real” life, sociability establishes an “artificial” world, a world without friction or conflict

“Inasmuch as sociability is the abstraction of association – an abstraction of the character of art or of play – it demands the purest, most engaging kind of interaction – that among equals….It is game in which one ‘acts’ as though all were equal.” (294)

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Coquetry Coquetry or flirtation: a kind of sociability or

erotic play in which an actor continuously alternates between denial and consent Idea is to lead the other on “without letting

matters come to a decision, to rebuff him without making him lose all hope”

“Coquetry is the teasing or even ironic play with which eroticism has distilled the pure essence of its interaction out from its substantive or individual content” It’s not individual behavior, it’s interaction