Thinking Sociologically SO3066

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Thinking Sociologically SO3066

• Georg Simmel
• 1858-1918
• The Fourth Founding Father?

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Thinking Sociologically SO3066

• Simmels Biography
• Simmels Career Intellectual Community
• The Outsider

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Thinking Sociologically SO3066

• Simmels Sociology
• Intellectual Roots
• Hegel Dialectics (alienation)
• Kant and Categories of Thought
• Natur Kultur

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Thinking Sociologically SO3066

• Hegels Influence Individual and Society as a
  Dialectical Process

Antithesis (Conformity)
Thesis (Autonomy)
Synthesis (The Social Individual)
Social Man is not partially social and
partially individual rather, his existence is
shaped by a fundamental unity, which cannot be
accounted for in any other way than through the
synthesis or coincidence of two logically
contradictory determinations man is both social
link and being for himself, both product of
society and life from an autonomous centre
(Simmel, 1908). The individual is determined at
the same time as he is determining he is acted
upon at the same time as he is self-actuating
(Coser, 1977).
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Thinking Sociologically SO3066

• Kant Making Sense of Experience

Noumena Things as they are in themselves. Phenome
na Things as they appear to us.
When we look at the world we experience it
through our senses, as phenomena. We impose
form on our phenomenal experience - through
categories that are assimilated from our culture.
Phenomena
Noumena
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Thinking Sociologically SO3066

• Society is merely the name for a number of
  individuals connected by interaction

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Thinking Sociologically SO3066

• Conversely?
• Sociology asks what happens to men and by what
  rules they behave, not insofar as they unfold
  their individual existences in their totalities,
  but insofar as they form groups and are
  determined by their group existence because of
  interaction

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Thinking Sociologically SO3066

• Formal Sociology
• The Focus of Sociology is neither social facts
  nor social action but social Interaction or
  sociation.

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Thinking Sociologically SO3066

• Forms Patterns of interaction that are apparent
  across a broad range of varying social and
  historical situations.
• Social relationships either neither determined by
  external constraints nor are they utterly
  haphazard and unique to specific situations.
  Recurrent forms emerge from the process of
  interaction itself.

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Thinking Sociologically SO3066

• Forms
• Superordination and Subordination
• Conflict and Cooperation

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Thinking Sociologically SO3066

• Forms
• Centralisation and Decentralisation
• Intimacy and Distance

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Thinking Sociologically SO3066

• Social Types The type becomes what he is
  through his relations with others who assign him
  a particular position and expect him to behave in
  specific ways. His characteristics are seen as
  attributes of the social structure (Coser,
  1977).
• The Adventurer One who breaks the continuity
  of everyday life
• The Renegade One who disrupts the social group
• The (Man) in the Middle The person who stands
  half way between leader and subordinate within
  the social group.

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Thinking Sociologically SO3066

• Social Types
• The Mediator The person who may act impartially
  to resolve disputes or, alternatively, who may
  manipulate disputes between other group members
  for advantage.
• The Poor The person at the bottom of society,
  defined by his or her dependence on others
  welfare and benevolence.
• The Stranger The person who is present, but
  always distant from the group (Simmel?). The
  Stranger is a permanent member (geographically
  close), but always retains a critical
  (psychological, emotional and cultural) distance
  from the other members.

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Thinking Sociologically SO3066

• Social Differentiation
• The Significance of Numbers
• Dyads Two person group with no independent
  structure individuality not challenged by the
  group.
• Tryads With a three person group a
  stratification system becomes possible. There is
  an expansion of potential social roles and
  relationships.

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Thinking Sociologically SO3066

• The Web of Group Affiliations

Concentric (see Traditional Society)
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Thinking Sociologically SO3066
Multiple and across diverse groups (see Modern
Urban Society) More Social Differentiation
Less concentric and more multiple
Group 1
The Individual
Group 2
Group 3
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Thinking Sociologically SO3066

• Individual Society
• Subjective Culture Culture as it appears to
  each individual
• Objective Culture The external manifestation
  of culture

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Thinking Sociologically SO3066
Simmels Process Sociology Externalisation We
apply meaning to experience that guides our
actions within forms of sociation
(interaction) Internalisation We internalise the
recurrent beliefs and activities that emerge from
forms of sociation Institutionalisation
Recurrent forms become crystallised Contents
(Interests) Institutionalised forms shape our
interests, values emotions.
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Thinking Sociologically SO3066

• Simmel
• Modernity, The Works The Legacy

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Thinking Sociologically SO3066

• Simmel the Modern City
• Traditional Life Individuals are bound closely
  to the group, but by very few formal ties.
• Urban Way of Life Individuals have more loose
  affiliations and personal freedoms, but are more
  dependent on, and more constrained by, the formal
  relationships and organisation of society as a
  whole.

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Thinking Sociologically SO3066

• The Metropolis and Mental Life (1902)
• The deeper problems of modern life derive from
  the claim of the individual to preserve the
  autonomy and individuality of his existence in
  the face of overwhelming social forces (Simmel,
  1902).

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Thinking Sociologically SO3066

• Entering the City (An explosion of forms?)
• Nervous Exhaustion The multitude of sights,
  sounds and experiences in the city overwhelms the
  senses.

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Thinking Sociologically SO3066
The Blasé Attitude Screening off the
unnecessary and potentially overwhelming
Rational Calculation Greater reflexivity
applied to interaction with strangers Managing
the dialectic of the self autonomy
conformity anonymity isolation
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Thinking Sociologically SO3066

• Fashion (1904)
• Fashion becomes important as a vehicle for
  managing identity in a highly populated urban
  society where appearances become the principal
  form of identification.
• Fashion reflects the delicate dialectical
  relationship between distinctiveness and
  conformity in urban society.
• Means of standing out from the urban crowd
  (individualism), but also the shared symbolism of
  fashion (conformity) allows others to identify
  your status, role etc.

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Thinking Sociologically SO3066

• For Simmel "... fashion represents nothing more
  than one of the many forms of life by the aid of
  which we seek to combine in uniform spheres of
  activity the tendency towards social equalization
  with the desire for individual differentiation
  and change." (F, p. 133) In each social relation
  there are two forces at work one pushing us to
  bind ourselves to others through imitation, and
  another pushing us to unbind ourselves from
  others, to undo the social network, through
  distinction. But social life changes in so far as
  the balance between the socialising force and the
  de-socialising force is always unstable and
  provisional. Fashion is an example of the way in
  which actual social life always includes in some
  way its own opposite, an asocial life (Benvenuto,
  2000).

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Thinking Sociologically SO3066

• The Philosophy of Money (1900)
• Distance Money allows human beings to interact
  in a more impersonal manner- provides a medium of
  exchange whilst removing the need for
  interpersonal bargaining and reciprocity. This
  removes restrictions on exchange.
• Money Value The value of numerous objects and
  activities is made objective through being
  measured in monetary terms rather than subjective
  desire.

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Thinking Sociologically SO3066

• The Philosophy of Money (1900)
• Calculation Money renders many relationships and
  exchanges open to calculation.
• Rationalization Interactions and relationships
  become more rational (due to the calculability
  afforded by money).
• Reification Money becomes both an end in itself
  and a major feature of the objective culture
  that limits human freedom.

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Thinking Sociologically SO3066

• The Tragedy of Culture
• The differentiation and diffusion that holds the
  potential for individual freedom is countered by
  the weight of the reified culture of urban
  society.

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Thinking Sociologically SO3066

• Durkheim
• Marx
• Weber
• Simmel
• The Relationship between Individual Society

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Thinking Sociologically SO3066

• Simmel Legacy
• Symbolic Interactionism (Chicago School)
• Urban Sociology (Chicago School)
• Schutz - BL The Social Construction of Reality
• Elias Figurations
• Giddens Structuration