Understanding Georg Simmel

Abstract

This paper makes two basic claims. First, Simmel was aware of the Als-Ob (“As-If”) before Vaihinger published his Die Philosophie des Als-Ob (The Philosophy of As-If) (Vaihinger, 1911 [1935]), and he used the As-If in his epistemology of the social sciences. It is difficult to understand Simmel's sociology without recognizing the role of the As-If. However, this essential part of Simmel's epistemology of the social sciences almost has gone unreported in the standard literature. Second, Simmel formulated a concept of relativity. This concept, too, is an important part of his epistemology, yet it is not understood well. Only through an appreciation of his view of relativity can Simmel's concept Wechselwirkung (usually translated as “reciprocal interaction” but more exactly translated as “reciprocal effect”) be interpreted properly. Without an understanding of his concept of relativity Simmel's form-content relation does not convey the sense intended. This paper demonstrates that the form-content relation as used by Simmel is, in current terminology, the theory-model relation. Finally, use is made of my explication of Simmel's epistemology to clarify some relations between Simmel's ideas and Durkheim's position.     

Simmel,rationalisation and the sociology of money

Simmel was born in 1858. Raised in the centre of the Jewish business culture of Berlin. Simmel studied history and philosophy, becoming a Privatdozent in 1885. Although he published numerous books and artickes, simmel was excluded from influential university positions as a result of the pervasive anti-Semitism of the period and it was bot until 1914 that Simmel was finally promoted to a full professorship at the University of Strasbourg. Like Durkheim. Simmel was both the object of anti-Semitic prejudice and a fervent supporter of the nationalist cause in the First World War. Simmel died in 1918 if cancer of the liver.¹ This basic and naïve factual biography of Simmel in many respects provides many of the themes in Simmel's sociology. First, his sociology is held to be the brilliant reflection of the glittering, cospospolitan world of pre-war Berlin and that his commentary on that world took the form of impressionism his sociological essays are snapshots sub specie aeternitatis”? simmel's perspective has been regarded as an example of the nature of modern society as contained in Robert Musil's The Man's Without Qualities. That is a social existence without roots, commitments or purpose.³ Secondly, Simmel was and remained a social outsider despite his good connections with Berlin's cultural elite. His writing has been as a result characterised as perspectivism and an aestheticication of reality. As an indication of this, Simmel's influence has in the past often rested on such minor contributions as‘The Stranger’⁴ Thridly, because Simmel failed to secure an influential location within the German university system, there was no development of the Simmelian school of sociology at all comparable to Durkheimain sociology. Decades of sociological interpretation of Simmel's work have still left Simmel as a theoretical enigma on the ambitus of the sociological tradition. His sociology has been categorised as interactionist, formal and conflict sociology.⁵ In more recent years there has been a renewal of interest in Simmel which has begun to show a greater appreciation of the unity and stature of his sociology. This renewal has been brought about by the cominentaries of Levine. Frisby, Robertson, and Holzner. ⁶ More importantly, the translation of Simmel's The Philosophy of Money⁷ by Bottomore and Frisby provides a new opportunity for a systematic evaluation of Simmel's sociology of modern culture. The main burden of this paper is that existing commentaries have failed to focus on the central theme of‘alienation’and‘rationalisation’in The Philosophy of Money which provided the major theoretical backing for on the one hand, Weber's analysis capitalism as the iron cage and on the other Lukács so-called rediscovery of the alienation theme in the young Marx.     

Simmel at a Distance: On the History and Systematics of the Sociology of the Stranger

Abstract

Concepts made famous in “classic” works are often cited in ways that deviate from their original meaning. This often leads to cumulative confusion rather than the advancement of insight. Scrutiny of such confusions may provide fruitful points of departure for systematic codification.

In the literature which refers to Simmel's excursus on “The Stranger,” four areas of confusion can be identified

1. Simmel's conception of the stranger has periodically been equated with the concept of the “marginal man,” a very different social type;

2. Simmel's conception of the stranger has often been equated with the newly arrived outsider, another distinct type;

3. the distinction (only latent in Simmel) between strangers as individuals and stranger communities has not been articulated in later studies; and

4. the significance of the variety of ways in which Simmel used the metaphor of simultaneous closenss and remoteness has been obscured.

Clarification of the issues related to these four areas of confusion lays the basis fora typology of stranger statuses (Guest, Sojourner, Newcomer, Intruder, Inner Enemy, Marginal Man) and a related paradigm presented to assist in organizing the sociology of the stranger in a more systematic fashion.     

Between Tradition and Modernity: “Leftover” Women in Shanghai

In recent years, single, educated women who are not yet married by their late 20s in China's major cities have been increasingly castigated as “leftover” women. After more than 3 decades of rapid socioeconomic development, marriage remains near universal and early in China. In the meantime, there has been a resurgence of patriarchal traditions. Using semistructured interviews, in this qualitative research the author sought to understand the motivations of these women and their efforts to negotiate the contradictions regarding marriage formation and career development. Six themes emerged from the women's narratives: (a) parental pressure, (b) a gender double standard of aging, (c) forced socioeconomic hypergamy, (d) the importance of compatible family backgrounds, (e) efforts to balance women's independence with support for family and men, and (f) conflicting gender ideologies. The author contextualizes these themes by analyzing how women weave traditional expectations with modern life in a transitioning China, where tradition and modernity alternately clash and converge to constitute a somewhat uneasy mosaic society.     

Fear and Loathing on Reality Television: An Analysis of “America's Most Wanted” and “Unsolved Mysteries”*

From early newspapers to contemporary television drama, the media demonstrate a continuing fascination with crime. Two recent television programs, “America's Most Wanted” and “Unsolved Mysteries,” claim to offer a different treatment of crime in that these programs dramatize “real” crimes and encourage the television audience to assist in locating fugitives. Content analysis of the programs reveals that depictions of crime are consistent with television crime drama, and that these dramatizations resemble urban legends in which crime symbolizes the uncertainties of modern life. The programs convey an unpredictable world filled with unsafe people and places. This sense of modern danger justifies the programs' solicitation of audience participation through surveillance.     

Making Coolies, (Un)making Workers: “Globalizing” Labour in the Late‐19th and Early‐20th Centuries

This paper explores the social relationships of wage labour formed or stabilized in British merchant shipping in the course of “off‐shoring” employment in the late‐19^th century. It argues that Asian wage‐workers were mobilized for employment on British merchant vessels as “coolies”, i.e. nominally free but mediated labouring subjects who could only be stabilized through legal, penal, social, debt, or other forms of coercion. Once introduced “coolie” relations were not confined to Indian crews. They also affected wage labour relations more generally in British shipping. While occurring against the backdrop of anti‐colonial struggles, the seafaring coolie's transformation into maritime worker was closely mediated by employers and the colonial state and produced hybrid outcomes. The creation of the modern seafaring “coolie” and the nature and context of his transformation into a “worker” thus shed interesting light on wage labour relations in the modern and contemporary global economy.     

JÜRGEN HABERMAS AND THE RATIONALIZATION OF COMMUNICATIVE INTERACTION*

This paper analyzes J. Habermas's theory of “universal pragmatics” and examines the extent to which Habermas's ideal speech community is predicted upon a specific type of relationship between the individual and society. The ability of the theory of universal pragmatics to overcome the form of domination institutionalized by modern societies is questioned, and the argument is made that Habermas's radical program of emancipation is vitiated (1) by Habermas's conflation of “transcendental” and “situationally engaged” enlightenment and (2) by Habermas's inability to reintegrate practical-emancipatory and technical forms of reason. Habermas's idea of “communicative competence” replicates, rather than displaces, the “modern” solution to the problem of the relationship between the individual and society.     

Georg Simmel from a different standpoint. Cultural variants and the limits of interpretation

Georg Simmel was recently included among sociology's founding fathers, after years of neglect. This article contends that it happened because Western culture is facing a deep crisis and is no longer able to ostracize authors who think along different lines. Simmel's success proves that the cultural variant that dominated the West for three centuries is losing its supremacy and can no longer cope with thinkers belonging to alternative variants. On the basis of Dumont's work on European culture and the German variant it is possible to deconstruct the main issues that were raised against Simmel. They turn out to stem from prejudice and misunderstanding, as those who criticized Simmel either could not understand his Weltanschauung or did not share it and considered it a threat to the modern way of life.     

Durkheim on Religion and Moral Community in Modernity*

Durkheim's theory of religion is approached from the perspective of his lifelong concern with the question of meaning and moral order in modern society. This emphasis naturally leads to a consideration of wider themes informing Durkheim's sociology of religion than are usually found in analyses focusing exclusively on his treatment of primitive religion in The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1964). Durkheim sees as the distinguishing feature of modernity the progressive emancipation of the individual from traditional sources of influence. The evolution toward greater individuation, culminating in the “cult of the individual” or “religion of humanity,” is set by Durkheim within the context of the role of collective ideals in promoting social change and in the maintenance of moral order. Religion, the major symbolic expression of societal wide ideals, is identified as the key variable which enables Durkheim to reconcile the competing demands of individuals for freedom with the interests of society in collective welfare.     

Interpretative Freedom and New Combination: The Way in Which the “Middle Class” Has Been Narrated

The English words “middle class” have experienced much more connotations and denotations—typically “bourgeoisie,” “white‐collar,” and professional—than any other class‐referring word since the latter half of the 18th century. On the one hand, in response to such diverse narrations during about two and a half centuries, I partially agree with some of the nominalistic theories of class, in that the middle classes were not created until they were named by contemporaries. On the other hand, my view diverges from those theories, in my asserting that the contemporaries have had an interpretative freedom to recognize “middle classes” only within the bounds of plausibility on the side of the realistic social world. The typical middle class in each period has emerged in such a way that Schumpeter's new combination is performed in a stage of recession by new entrepreneurs, who will move into the “middle” strata and hold some cultural leadership but still obtain inconsistent statuses, to be recognized as “middle class”ex post facto in a boom time. Two Kondratieff's cycles have had one recognition of the typical “middle class.” The new combination is one of the pressures bringing middle classes into a modern society, contrary to the so‐called class decomposition into the two poles.     

An argument for context‐driven intersectionality

The concept of intersectionality has fundamentally changed feminist theorizing and the study of women and gender. However, intersectional research, theorizing, and practice also have been subject to important critiques. This article provides a brief genealogy of intersectionality and summarizes major critiques. We recognize value in these critiques as well as the ongoing power of an intersectional lens. We therefore advocate what we call “context‐driven intersectionality,” arguing that attention to the historical, political, economic, and social factors that shape power relationships and social structures is critical to conducting robust intersectional analyses that avoid reification of social categories and inequalities.     

SCIENTOLOGY “ETHICS”: DEVIANCE,IDENTITY AND SOCIAL CONTROL IN A CULT-LIKE SOCIAL WORLD

Qualitative research at the macrosocial level can be facilitated by examining the more fully articulated social worlds existing within advanced societies. Based on the author's field research, Scientology's structure, culture, and comparability to American capitalist society are discussed and “Ethics,” its institution of social control, is shown to involve a paradigm in which conduct flows from social identity and deviance is defined in terms of a progression of stages of identity loss through reference group confusion. A hypothetical case shows how each stage is treated through specific intervention formula designed to reverse the process. “Ethics” is shown to closely parallel symbolic interactionist theories of deviance. Its differences from symbolic interactionism are ascribed to the inherent contradiction between the individualistic and system-centered orientations permeating American capitalist society.     

Fighting Corruption without the State: Civil Society Agency and the “Otokoto Saga”

The violent outburst of Owerri's civil society in September 1996 arguably signaled a new order in the fighting of corruption – through self‐help efforts. This outburst was a demonstration of public discontent over the activities of a few rich citizens in that town who were believed to have been involved in varied corrupt practices in making “fast” wealth. It was also a vociferous indictment on the State and its agents for ineptitude in fighting corruption, and complicity in criminal acts. Drawing from both primary and secondary sources in social research, this study critically examines the chain of events preceding, and the dynamics of the developments surrounding the societal conflicts in Owerri, Nigeria, popularly dubbed “Otokoto Saga.” It analyzes the varied dimensions of the societal conflicts, the authentic roles of civil society agency in a “self‐help strategy” and the responses of the State (and its actors) to the inadvertent eruptions. It further shows how Owerri's civil society agency “forced” the state to take critical steps towards the restoration of sanity in the town. The paper argues that civil society's critical awareness of its own roles in maintaining a corrupt‐free society was instrumental to their violent reactions. It concludes that deep‐seated fear and frustration underlined the reactions of the civil society, while moral panic and outrage triggered such reactions.     

American Sociology: History and Racially Gendered Classed Knowledge Reproduction

The purpose of this paper is to explore how racially gendered classed power‐relations structure history, knowledge and American Sociology's historical memory and disciplinary knowledge production. In order to do so, this paper will 1) utilize Cabral's (1970) theory of history to center humanity as historically developed into a racially gendered classed capitalist world‐system, 2) employ intersectionality as a heuristic device to see how knowledge is manipulated to normalize dehumanization as well as to perpetuate exploitation and privilege by denying “Othered' ” knowledges, and lastly 3) sociologically imagine this racially gendered classed process in the “institutional‐structure” of American Sociology by exploring the ancestry of the concept of “intersectionality.” In all this paper argues 1) American Sociology under theorizes history, a central aspect of the sociological imagination and production of new sociological knowledge, 2) American Sociology reproduces a dehumanized theory of history per Marx's “historical materialism” and 3) the structure of American Sociology's knowledge is racially gendered classed, as illustrated in the collective memory of the concept of “intersectionality.”     

Relational Troubles and Semiofficial Suspicion: Educators and the Medicalization of “Unruly” Children

Using an interview‐based analysis of the accounts of interactions between educators, parents, and clinicians, this study explores educators' roles in interpreting childhood troubles as the medical phenomenon of attention deficit‐hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The analysis of interviews shows how children's “personal” troubles become understood as “relational” ones, prompting increasingly sophisticated social responses. I argue that the institution of education, operating in a clinical capacity but lacking the legitimate authority to assign ADHD diagnoses, plays a hybridized, semiofficial role in the medicalization process. This assertion informs a critique of the “informal/official” dichotomy found in the sociology of deviance lexicon, and furthers previous positions in the sociology of mental health that have implicated school representatives in the social construction of behavior disorders.     

Ultimate concerns in late modernity: Archer,Bourdieu and reflexivity

Through a critique of Margaret Archer's theory of reflexivity, this paper explores the theoretical contribution of a Bourdieusian sociology of the subject for understanding social change. Archer's theory of reflexivity holds that conscious ‘internal conversations’ are the motor of society, central both to human subjectivity and to the ‘reflexive imperative’ of late modernity. This is established through critiques of Bourdieu, who is held to erase creativity and meaningful personal investments from subjectivity, and late modernity is depicted as a time when a ‘situational logic of opportunity’ renders embodied dispositions and the reproduction of symbolic advantages obsolete. Maintaining Archer's focus on ‘ultimate concerns’ in a context of social change, this paper argues that her theory of reflexivity is established through a narrow misreading and rejection of Bourdieu's work, which ultimately creates problems for her own approach. Archer's rejection of any pre‐reflexive dimensions to subjectivity and social action leaves her unable to sociologically explain the genesis of ‘ultimate concerns’, and creates an empirically dubious narrative of the consequences of social change. Through a focus on Archer's concept of ‘fractured reflexivity’, the paper explores the theoretical necessity of habitus and illusio for understanding the social changes that Archer is grappling with. In late modernity, reflexivity is valorized just as the conditions for its successful operation are increasingly foreclosed, creating ‘fractured reflexivity’ emblematic of the complex contemporary interaction between habitus, illusio, and accelerating social change.     

The Merry-Go-Round of Meetings: Embracing Meetings in a Swedish Youth Care Project

Modern society has been called “a society of organizations,” and meetings are considered indispensable. However, a recurring cultural theme in contemporary working life is complaints about excessive and time-consuming meetings. The present article analyzes a contrasting case concerning a Swedish youth care project that employed a set of “coordinators” to maintain close contact with young people and their parents. Over time, these coordinators adopted an exceedingly administrative approach in which meetings with other professionals became more and more central. This article explores how an expanding meeting culture with strong social commitments can be generated from within interorganizational contexts, such as “projects,” and successfully competes with other concerns. Thus, the administrative orientation represents an example of the type of social interaction process that Simmel discerned as Eigendynamik or autonomous processes of social interaction.     

“It's Definitely a Good Time to Be a Farmer”: Understanding the Changing Dynamics of Successor Creation in Late Modern Society

This article considers the implications of the wider systemic shift from modernity to late modernity for the process of intergenerational farm transfer. The article argues that the shift from the collective to the individual, indicative of late modern society, is particularly pertinent in the context of intergenerational transfer, which has long been rooted in collective thinking. Drawing on the perspectives of incumbent farmers and potential successors, the article utilizes results from semistructured interviews with 29 farmers and 19 potential successors in Devon, England. Using a thematic analysis, the article provides a nuanced understanding of the impact of the systemic shift and the associated emphasis on the individual on successor identification. Although the article reaffirms understanding of successor creation as a collective process, determined by factors such as gender and birth order, it also identifies an emergent cohort of younger potential successors, for whom succession was the outcome of an evaluation of farming as a career. It concludes that, within the case study area, modernization is changing the way in which farm children are identifying themselves as “the successor.” The article suggests how this increasingly judicious approach to succession leaves reproduction of the family farm increasingly vulnerable to negative externalities.     

How Can Three Questions on Modernity Be Answered? The World-System Theory and Japanese Experiences

This article addresses three questions on modernity. Can “the premodern” and “the modern” be differentiated in the historical process? If they can, what is the relationship between “the premodern” and “the modern”? And what will become of these relationships in the future? This article attempts to answer these questions by criticizing the world-system theory and considering some of the experiences of the modernization process in Japan. The world-system theory has tried to relativize social theories from advanced societies in the global perspective. However, the world-system, born during the long 16th century, was defined from the start as modern and capitalist. Therefore, logically this theory cannot adequately grasp the modernization process. To overcome this challenge, this article first accepts the differentiation between “the premodern” and “the modern” and defines modern society as one in which “the modern” is not exclusive but dominant. Second, this article turns to some of the Japanese experiences of “modernization”, particularly in industrial relations. This article asserts that a Japanese-style society tends to keep “the premodern” over a longer term and to replace “modern” relations with “the premodern” ones in management. The author defined this process as informalization. Third, this article stresses that since the late 1990s with globalization, informalization is no longer derived from original “premodern” relations, which are nowadays reproduced by capital. An example of this is the “black company.” This article notes, finally, that capitalism is likely to reproduce premodern forms for its duration.