"Antipathy ... causes distances and aversions without which we could not lead life at all."

- Georg Simmel

Introduction

Georg Simmel (1858-1918) was one of three founding fathers of german sociology. Born in 1858 in the heart of Berlin, Simmel was the son of a confectionery factory owner. He pursued studies in philosophy and eventually earned his doctorate in the field. Although he was a star as a "Privatdozent", whose lectures were always packed, he was always denied a professorship until later in life. The scandalous reason the academic establishment used for this: he was Jewish.

Work

Simmel suggested that society can be seen as the interactions among individuals. He focused on these interactions rather than looking at society from macro or micro perspectives. Simmel's sociology is often referred to as "formal sociology" because it primarily examines the various forms of interactions among people. He compares this to how grammar separates the pure forms of language from its content. These formal behaviors, such as hierarchy, competition, imitation, division of labor, formation of groups, representation, and more, can be observed across different types of social groups, whether it's a state, religious community, conspiracy group, cooperative, art school, or family (Pries, 2019).

Simmel also had an eye for the role of social types, like the poor and the outsider (who has the beneficial outside perspective); and for conflicts and contrasts, such as freedom versus restriction, disclosure versus privacy, and solidarity versus antagonism.

Simmel was a conflict sociologist, the original urban sociologist as well as the original network sociologist. He stressed the role of social interaction in reproducing and recreating social institutions, instead of e.g. a top-down approach of just promulgating rules. Power, in his view, should be thought of as a relationship or a balance, in which all people involved have a voice. He further observed that people derive their meaning only from their relationship with other individuals and objects (this is similar to the recent work of Bruno Latour, among others).

The Philosophy of Money

One of Simmel's most famous books is The Philosophy of Money (Philosophie des Geldes; Simmel, 1900). In this book, he saw money as the symbol of our society. The magical-mystical surplus value of money consists in forcing itself to the absolute means, which tragically enough becomes the absolute end. Money has no saturation limit. It gives both potency in the sense of power and potential in the sense of possibilities. Money is the great equalizer: everyone needs it and everyone can use it to buy goods. Simmel:"Like a liquid, money lacks inner boundaries." But money also excludes. With money, we are completely free, but also totally bound. Everything is about money, nothing is about trust anymore: money gives trust God no longer gives. Money is like God: it is omnipotent and everybody listens to it. One could say that Simmel foresaw the illusion of consumerism. Simmel:"The lack of something definite in the center of the soul drives us to seek momentary satisfaction in ever new stimuli, sensations, and external activities." Money has an immense acceleration effect. One is forced to participate or one goes under. Civilization is geared towards material enhancement; the intrinsic worth of man has not risen as quickly as the worth of material goods (Bayern 2, 2018).

The Stranger

In 1908, Simmel's book Soziologie appeared. In it, there is an important text,  that has not only become the fundamental text of migration sociology, but is insightful for dealing with complex systems as well. Simmel: "Italian cities [tended] to call their judges from the outside, because no native was free from entanglement in family and party interests." The stranger's unique blend of proximity and detachment makes them see things differently. If they share their views, this can help a group to see things from a different, more holistic, perspective. "The Stranger", not a transient wanderer, but someone who has come to a place and remains there, carry with them qualities that are not native to that place. The stranger is simultaneously near and far, both part of the group and outside of it. They settle within a group but maintain a sense of detachment and mobility. The stranger has historically been associated with trade and commerce, as a mediator for goods that are produced outside of a given community. In societies where production is primarily for self-sufficiency, there is no need for intermediaries like traders, but as societies become more specialized and interconnected, the presence of strangers becomes more prevalent. Their objectivity and freedom from entrenched interests can lead to both openness and suspicion from the group. The relationship with the stranger is based on general commonalities rather than specific connections, leading to a tension between nearness and distance. Strangers are often treated as a type rather than individuals, with fixed social positions, as seen historically in taxes imposed on certain groups. Simmel teached us to value the stranger.

Simmel's Conflict Sociology (book fragment; Simmel, 1908)

"There probably exists no social unit in which convergent and divergent currents among its members are not inseparably interwoven. If there's no actual conflict, there at least is a considerable differentiation of moods and directions of thought, whence flow all the vitality and the really organic structure of that group. Our opposition makes us feel that we are not completely victims of the circumstances.

Ordinarily, the opponents conceive of themselves as defenders of threatened rights, as fighters for what is objectively correct, as knightly protectors of the minority.

Much less striking phenomena reveal more clearly an abstract impulse to opposition - especially the quiet, often hardly known, fleeting temptation to contradict an assertion or demand, particularly a categorical one. The first instinct with which the individual affirms himself is the negation of the other.

In human hostility, cause and effect are often so heterogeneous and disproportionate that it is hard to determine whether the alleged issue really is the cause of the conflict or merely the consequence of long-existing opposition.

Our psychological activity responds to almost every impression that comes from another person with a certain deterministic feeling. The subconscious, fleeting, changeful nature of this feeling only seems to reduce it to indifference, which would be as unnatural to us as the vague character of innumerable contradictory stimuli would be unbearable. We are protected against both of these typical dangers by antipathy, the preparatory phase of concrete antagonism which engenders the distances and aversions without which we could not lead life at all."

Sources:

Simmel, G. (1900), Philosophie des Geldes, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot.

Simmel, G. (1908), Der Streit, in: Soziologie, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot.

Georg Simmel - Philosophie des Geldes, Bayern 2 podcast.

Pries, L. (2019), Soziologie - Schlüsselbegriffe, Herangehensweisen, Perspektiven, 4th edition, Weinheim/Basel: Beltz Juventa.

Below you can see a video with a good explanation of some of Simmel's ideas, given by Robert van Krieken of the University of Sydney.

You can read a summary of Simmel's lectures and books by using the buttons below.