George Simmel 1858-1918
0.0 / 5
- Created by: joel mckay
- Created on: 25-04-14 18:57
George Simmel 1858-1918
The Stanger:
- the potential wanderer who has not quite overcome the freedom of coming and going... is an element of the group itself'
- why do we need stangers?
- to be trader ('the classical example is the history of European jews')
- to be objective.
- 'objectivity may also be definted as freedom'
- the stranger can say they thinks, they have no stake in the status quo, no investment to protext and this means that what the stranger says 'contains many dangerous possibilites'
1 of 11
The Metropolis:
- fast changing and demanding
- think of the calculation involved
- we dull our feelings down otherwise we would be unable to cope
- we are indifferent, even hostile to those millions who now press so closely around us.
- the metropolis is the natural home of objective culture (not just in the art galleries and theater) but everywhere.
- in this, as in all respects, individuals are given great freedom and choice
- but what they lose is the emotional spring of thier own creativity and any sense of meaning in their lives.
2 of 11
Fashion:
- you can express you individuality and follow the crowd through fashion: makes you feel both different and the same.
- most fashionable people are able to carry this off with the most panache - exaggerating the fashion of the moment.
- the most individual are the most dominated by fashion
- they are the most dependent on group approval.
- when Simmel write about idea of 'objective culture' he doesnt just have in mind the metropolis or fashion.
- but simmel wanted sociology to become - the study of the interaction created by objective culture.
- to understand this you have to understand his sitinction between FORMS and CONTENTS.
3 of 11
Forms and Contents of Sociology:
- contents are the = needs, drives, ambitions.
- Forms are the = social things we create when we pursue these ambitions.
- these things range from pretty concrete (2 way relationships) to very abstract (like society)
- Simmel emphasis is on the way the forms affect our relationships with each other.
- Economic institituions and money operate as forms to relaise ambitions and also to cage them and stultify us with false needs.
- Subjective expression (e.g art) becomes objectified in the artistic canon.
- same thing happens with religion belief or economic system and all are hostile to the individuals need to express themselves, to live out thier uniquenes.
4 of 11
The Philosophy of Money:
- money onliterates differences between people that used to define traditional societies: not just ascribed differences but also personal and subjective qualities of every kind.
- when you take money from them or give it to them money makes the exchange more impersonal.
- as money get more important impersonality becomes apparent of the sort of society it is.
- bad character and ascribed character matter less, are not handicaps to social esteem and so on.
Money becomes the Universal Measure:
- money is the talisman of modern life against which the whole world and everything in it can be measured.
- everything can be measured against everything else so, in a way, we know baout the whole world.
- is money is a measure of everything = everything has a price?
5 of 11
Everything has a price?
- we are more dependent on others... and what they are like, and who they are, matters less and less.
- money intrudes deeper into parts of out lives which no one could have conceived might have anything to do with economic calculation
- we start to look at all aspects of out lives as exchange and this fundamentally changes how we feel about others.
- its like durkheim and a little like Weber on rationalisation.
6 of 11
--
- irrationality gives way to reason because of the spread of money as the medium of exchange.
- it flattens culture differences between people as everyone related within and between their socieities in this impersonal way
7 of 11
Money Dis-enchants:
- money allows us to over-ride cultural differences to make a potentially dangerous/fruitless visit to a foreign culture turn out the way we want it to.
- being a stanger is not a problem anymore, everybody is at home because they have money.
- there isnt room for irrationality and mystery becasue everyone has the same transparent and rationalised orientation to money.
- not that there are no Hierarchies in modern society, no subordination, but there is a differnece in modernity.
- in traditional societies the lord reigned over the peasants directly byt now everything is mediated through money.
- its becasue the lord has money that they are higher than, or have power over the peasants; and its only becasue the peasants lacks money that they lack power and position in society.
- relationship between us and money creates which Simmel wants to see as Liberating things.
8 of 11
Money Continued:
- with money in charge pursue other ends that their needs.
- new posibilities are created when money becomes the universal objective standard of personal worth - everyone measures themselves against each other compared to money.
- can use signs of money to manipulate how people react to you and treat you: you do this when you choose what to buy, to wear etc.
- Modern culture makes us most alienated from life but gives us the change to design out own lives to give meaning.
- fashion 'furnishes an ideal field for individuals with dependent natures, whose self-consciousness, requires a certain amount of prominence, attention adn singularity. fashion raises even the unimportant individual by making him the representative class" (american journal of sociology, 1957)
9 of 11
Money... continued... again:
- money allows us to design our own lives in this way - completely impossible in the traditional socieities before money became a generalised mode of exchange.
- money has taken over so many aspects of our lives (as opposed to traditional societies) and simmel tells us about the effects of this on our inner lives - our aspirations, expectations and fantasies.
- this can seem to be liberating
- living in society where money rules, rather than religion kinship = alot more freedom.
- becasue money is neutral: it doesnt make you submit to particular values, live you life in a set way etc.... you have more freedom.
10 of 11
impression Management:
- it can seem a very empty victory with money because we are in danger of becoming just this: the impressions we seek to give to others.
- we have no relations with others that are quthentic
- everything is mediated by money and impression management.
- who is genuine ?
- this may be why we need the money and the clothes etc that money can buy
- we have lost all things we used to believe in that made money unnecessary
- we can pay the prices but we dont have any values and dont really know what we want
- the only value is novelty and nothing we already have is valuable except in the sense that it is worth lots of money.
- Schopenhauer believe that virtues like compassion are much more irrational than rational and Simmel was following this line of though
- our reason sets us thirting after novelty
- we always want more; more sensation, more excitement
- this constant search for stimularion is what serves instead of the things we once believed in.
11 of 11
Similar Sociology resources:
0.0 / 5
0.0 / 5
4.0 / 5 based on 1 rating
0.0 / 5
0.0 / 5
0.0 / 5
0.0 / 5
0.0 / 5
Comments
No comments have yet been made