Introduction 1 Interaction, Form and the Dialectical Approach

Notes Introduction 1. ‘Sociation’ is a term coined but variously used as a translation of Vergesellschaftung, here referring to the entirety of forms of social interactions. See also Chapter 1. 1 Interaction, Form and the Dialectical Approach – Simmel’s Analytical Conceptual Framework 1. Vandenberghe (2009) and Rose (1981/2009) indicate the disputed provenance of the terms ‘reification’ and ‘alienation’. ‘Alienation’ (Entfremdung) is often regarded as appearing first in Marx’s Paris Manuscripts. But, prior to this, Hegel had written of Verdingung, specifically with reference to property rights. 2. In the Theses on Feuerbach, inviting no disagreement, Marx stated that ‘The chief defect of all hitherto existing materialism – Feuerbach included – is that the thing, reality, sensuousness, is conceived only in the form of the object or of contemplation, but not as sensuous human activity, practice, not subjectively ...The highest point reached by contemplative materialism ...is contemplation of single individuals and of civil society.’ In contrast with Hegelian dialectical idealism or a Feuerbachian materialism that dis- penses with the Hegelian dialectic, Marx insists on a dialectical sociohistorical account of humanity’s creativity, labour, reflexivity and capacity for taking a universal view. To this extent, Simmel is in broad agreement with Marx: there can be a humanistic materialism. But otherwise there was much disagreement. 3. This parallels and contrasts with the model of law-based, scientific ‘deductive- nomological explanation’, with ‘interpretans’ and ‘interpretandum’ replacing ‘explanans’ and ‘explanandum’. Ringer (1997: 30) presents Simmel as assum- ing that we cannot establish any convergent social occurrences as lawfully linked unless we first analyse these into their component elements. Even if we are sometimes able to achieve this, the complexity of events makes it unlikely that two historical events can ever be lawfully connected as totalities. 4. An indication of the difficulty and ambiguity of Simmel’s numerous texts on ‘history’ is how an otherwise acute commentator, Weingartner (1960: 85–139), seems largely to fail to decipher Simmel’s position, misinterpreting Verstehen merely as ‘intuition’. 5. See Oakes (1977: 23, 34, 48; 1980: 20–1; 1984: 39, 48). He iden- tifies Hauptprobleme der Philosophie, 2nd ed. (1910b, especially 8–43), Lebensanschaung, 2nd ed. (1922: 29–31) and Schopenhauer und Nietzsche,3rd ed. (1923: 12–13, 42–59) as key locations of Simmel’s assertions in this respect. 6. A non-reductionistic pluralism, that Oakes is right, Simmel does espouse, does not amount to ‘incommensurability’. In suggesting otherwise (and with a 294 Notes 295 different rendering of Simmel and Kant from our own), Oakes may have been unduly influenced by the Wittgenstianian-Kuhnian philosophical mood of the time. He cites Wittgenstein (1967) and Winch (1959). 7. Alongside Parsons (discussed further later), Habermas is perhaps the most ambitious sociological synthesis, yet it excludes Simmel. 2 Simmel’s Life and the Context of His Work 1. The account is drawn largely from secondary sources. 2. A somewhat different viewpoint is provided by Amos Morris-Reich (2003: 127), who suggests that there is one way at least that Simmel sought to ‘redefine ...the negative image of the Jew by intricately tying the tra- ditionally negative image of the Jew as a man of money to the [posi- tive] program of modernity and the quintessential place reserved within it by money’. In Morris-Reich’s interpretation, ‘Money lending ...creates social evolution, promotes individuation and is an agent of culture’ and makes the Jew a ‘meritorious member of society’ (p. 128). Pointing also to the fact that Simmel’s father was a travelling merchant, Helle (2009) is another to suggest that Simmel does, albeit obliquely, address at least one aspect of the situation of the Jew, and positively, in his treatment of the ‘stranger’. 3. Sometimes Simmel presented sociology as in part applying general psychological abstractions – for example, in drawing on the folk-cultural ‘psychological’ theories of Moritz Lazarus and Heymann Steinthal, whose influence was spread via their pioneering journal Zeitschrift fur Volkerpsycholgies und Sprachwissenschaft. 4. Here a major element in the success of Weber’s approach (one outcome of the Methodenstreit) was the combination of the institutional approach of the German historical school in economics and history with the ideas of classical economists such as Carl Menger, who emphasised the ‘typicality’ of economic laws. 5. Weber’s significant conceptualisations include his typology of social action; his ideal types of ‘bureaucracy’ and ‘class’ and ‘status’; and his conceptions of political ‘domination’. 6. In emphasising in a more generalised way a struggle for existence and reproduction, Schopenhauer is, however, sometimes regarded as anticipating aspects of modern evolutionary thinking. 7. Steven Aschheim (1992) takes a contrary view, suggesting that Simmel’s most prized value was Vornehmheit, the idea of distinction, a ‘distancing’ from the crowd taken from Nietzsche. 8. We should also notice the influence on Bergson of the French social and biological thinking of Félix Ravaison-Mollien, who emphasised the contin- uing power of ‘instinct’ and the ‘sacred’. As well as influencing Bergson, Ravaison’s ideas influenced Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Emmanuel Levinas and Giles Deleuze, a different, if related, strand of thinking from Simmel’s (but see Chapter 9). 9. Frisby’s Fragments of Modernity (1986) compares at length the different approaches to the study of modernity of Kracauer, Benjamin and Simmel. 296 Notes 3 Fashion as a Form 1. In The American Journal of Sociology, ‘dandy’ is rendered ‘dude’. 2. The term ‘constellation’ sometimes appears to be used more or less synonymously with ‘form’, but presents difficulties for translation. Only once in the case of ‘constellation’ does Simmel indicate that it means the same as ‘form’. Along with ‘Konstellation’, such words as ‘Gebilde’ (construct) and ‘Grundgefüge’ (foundation) are mostly used synonymously with ‘form’. For example, the final sentence in the German text declares fashion to be but one amongst other Gebilde (1987: 51). In calling fashion a complex Gebilde, Simmel speaks of the tendency to save energy common to all Gebildes (1987: 49). ‘Constella- tion’ is repeatedly suppressed altogether in the English text. On occasion it is rendered as ‘phenomenon’ or ‘condition’. 3. This is despite the fact that Simmel on occasion vehemently emphasises that the character or the nature of ‘a thing’ is quite independent of the character of its origin – that once constituted, every phenomenon tends towards autonomy and a character of its own, regardless of its origins. 4. The point highlighted here would not be so easily corroborated by the English text. 4 The Poor 1. In the text of the ‘Poor man’ we also meet with the concept of scale. ‘Deter- minate differentiations among individuals concerning their subject-object position’, Simmel claims, ‘lead to a scale of nuances of that dichotomy.’ The group applies different measures in making different social types, the noble- man, the banker, the lady of the world or the priest into an object on the one hand and into an unmediated element of its life on the other. Simmel sees: a maximum of subjectivity with a minimum of objectivity constituting one end of the continuum or scale; the reverse defines the opposite extreme. Here Simmel can be seen as not only clarifying his own method but also suggesting that this method is to some extent also the method of social groups. 2. This example of asceticism also raises the issue of where a more extreme individual voluntary and lifelong renunciation of wealthy living – the choice of ‘being poor’ – stands. Such ‘ascetic poverty’, where poverty is a ‘posi- tive value’, is more fully considered by Simmel in The Philosophy of Money. Because money is ready for use for any purpose, among Buddhist monks, or the Franciscans, the total renunciation of money as a means is ‘elevated to a final value’. It becomes an exact negation of the essence of money. Thus ‘ascetic poverty’ throws into relief Simmel’s form of both the poor and money (1978: 251–4). 3. Simmel’s assertion that the contrast between state and private assistance is a sociological difference of the first order is later repeated along with his statement that abstract concepts are the means whereby certain individual elements crys- tallise from an individually complex reality. They frequently attain a liveliness and effectiveness for praxis which seems to accrue by rights to Notes 297 concrete totalities. This starts with intimate relations, with at least one of the parties not looking for the lover but for the emotional value of love, often indifferent to the lover’s individuality. In religious relations, a certain kind and degree of religiosity seems to be all that matters, while its bearers are irrelevant; the priest’s conduct (Verhalten) or the relation of the believer to his community is determined solely by this generality, without regard to the particular motives, creating this atmosphere, and with no special interest in the individuals. (1958: 365) 4. Here Simmel may be overrating the state’s wisdom (an old German, in fact Franco-German, expression, Staatsraison). 5. According to Mauss (1922), the gift precedes exchange but involves extended reciprocities, as aspects of social networks. Simmel’s account of the gift precedes Mauss’ by 20 years (see Beidelman, 1989, for a discussion). Simmel saw the gift, like payments to the poor, as the ‘imposition of an identity’. Mutual influences are always involved, even in uneven exchanges. 6. Elsewhere in Soziologie, Simmel also sees psychological processes automatically at work: ‘A misuse of ...superiority is often unintended. We cannot stop ourselves interpreting the other. However much the decent person forbids himself or herself making use of the other’s carelessness and helplessness, the learning process proceeds automatically. Goodwill can do nothing against it’ (p. 267).

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