1. Simmel

2. Simmel considered society to be an association of free individuals, and said that it could not be studied in the same way as the physical world, i.e. sociology is more than the discovery of natural laws that govern societies.

3. Society is made up of the interactions among individuals, and the sociologist should study the patterns and forms of these associations, rather than look for social laws.
Any social phenomenon is composed of:
1) Content: the interest, purpose, or motive of the phenomenon or interaction 2) Form: the mode of interaction among individuals through/in the shape of which the specific content achieves social reality.
This emphasis on social interaction at the individual and small group level, and viewing the study of these interactions as the primary task of sociology makes Simmel's approach different from that of the classical writers, especially Marx and Durkheim.

4. integrates analysis of individual action with the structural approach.
began his inquiries from the bottom up, observing the smallest of social interactions and attempting to see how larger-scale institutions emerged from them.
For example, Simmel observed that the number of parties to an interaction can effect its nature. The interaction between two people, a dyad, will be very different from that which is possible in a three-party relationship, or triad.

5. In the dyad, a relationship can be considered relatively straightforward;each individual can present themselves to the other in a way that maintains their identity, and either party can end the relationship by withdrawing from it. Various strategies emerge in the triad that change the form of interaction from the dyad. In the triad, there may be strategies that lead to competition, alliances, or mediation. The triad is likely to develop a group structure independent of the individuals in it, whereas this is less likely in the dyad

6. As group size increases even more, the increase in the size of the group or society increases individual freedom. The small circle of early or premodern times allows its individual members only a narrow field for the development of unique qualities and free movements. ... The self-preservation of very young associations requires the establishment of strict boundaries and a centripetal unity.

7. As the group grows in numbers and extends itself spatially, "the group's direct, inner unity loosens, and the rigidity of the original demarcation against others is softened through mutual relations and connections." This implies much greater possibility of individual freedom and flexibility, with the common culture and form of association greatly weakened.

8. The metropolis or city becomes the location where the division of labour is the greatest and where this individuality and individual freedom is most expanded. At the same time Simmel notes that for the individual this creates the "difficulty of asserting his own personality within the dimensions of metropolitan life."

9. The growth of the city, the increasing number of people in the city makes the "objective spirit" dominate over the "subjective spirit." Modern culture in terms of language, production, art, science, etc. is "at an ever increasing distance." This is the result of the growth of the division of labour and the specialization.
Subjective culture is "the capacity of the actor to produce, absorb, and control the elements of objective culture. In an ideal sense, individual culture shapes, and is shaped by, objective culture. The problem is that objective culture comes to have a life of its own."

10. “The individual has become a mere cog in an enormous organization of things and powers which tear from his hands all spirituality, and value in order to transform them from their subjective form into the form of objective life.“

11. This sounds much like Marx's alienation, Durkheim's anomie, or Weber's rationalization, although Simmel associates this with the city, rather than with the society as a whole, as do the other classical writers.

12. Where Simmel differs from classic writers, is that Simmel returns to the individual, analyzing how the individual deals with the developments of modern society, and considering how the individual personality is developed in these circumstances. Simmel notes that one way individuals assert a personality is to "be different," to adopt manners, fashions, styles, "to appear concentrated and strikingly characteristic.

13. Nature of contact in the city means lasting impressions based on regular and habitual interaction with others cannot be developed. In these circumstances, obtaining self-esteem and having "the sense of filling a position" may be developed by seeking "the awareness of others."
Note that the personality is not an isolated entity but also is a social entity, one that depends on interaction. Social interaction, looking to the reaction of others, and seeking the recognition and awareness of others is an essential aspect of individual personality. In this way Simmel ties together the individual and the social, and each require the existence of the other.

14. For Simmel, there is a dynamic or dialectical tension between the individual and society -- individuals are free and creative spirits, yet are part of the socialization process. Simmel viewed modern society as freeing the individual from historical and traditional bonds and creating much greater individual freedom, but with individuals also experiencing a great sense of alienation within the culture of urban life.
“The deepest 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, of external culture, and of the technique of life.”

15. Dyad
Intimacy: the dyad depends on the principle that the sociological process remains within personal interdependence and does not result in a structure that develops beyond its elements. The whole structure of intimacy is based on what each of the two participants gives or shows only to the one other person and to nobody else. Intimacy is, therefore, based on exclusivity of content of a relationship between members, regardless of the nature or identity of that content.

16. Marriage does not seem to appear to have the essential sociological character of the dyad - absence of a super-personal unit. There is a feeling that marriage is something super-personal which is valuable and sacred in itself
Although Simmel does not put it this way, this follow from the fact that marriage is - or can be - an institution independent of the process of interaction that constitutes the dyad.
technically requires the official recognition of an external authority

17. Freedom has a dual nature
Freedom has a dual nature. It has a negative connotations: the absence of social content. But is also has a positive aspect for the social individual: a specific relationship of that individual to the environment.
Freedom is an act of maintaining individual autonomy in the face of conflicting and competing forms of sociation that attempt to claim precedence over the individual.

18. Small groups are more unitary and thus display a greater degree of solidarity, which in turn results in the potential for greater radicalism. A large party, on the other hand, must moderate its positions in order to cater to its heterogeneous constituency and maintain its support.
Generally speaking, large groups show less radicalism The mass, however is an exception to the rule. When activated by political, social, or religious movements large groups can be ''ruthlessly radical,'' especially when gathered in physical proximity and under the influence of nervous excitement. The key is that the mass can only be animated and guided by simple ideas - this is basically the ''lowest-common-denominator view of crowd dynamics.

19. Simmel makes three assumptions about the individual and society.
1. Individuals are both within and outside society.
2. Individuals are both objects and subjects within networks of communicative interaction.
3. Individuals have the impulse to be self-fulfilling and self-completing, that is, they seek an integrated self-concept. Society also tries to integrate itself (like Durkheim noted), although the effect of this may be in opposition to individual integrity.

20. society is not a separate reality of its own, but "society merely is the name for a number of individuals, connected by interaction ... society certainly is not a 'substance,' nothing concrete, but an event”
society is nothing but lived experience, and social forces are not external to, nor necessarily constraining for the individual, rather it is individuals who reproduce society every living moment through their actions and interactions.
Simmel disagreed with Durkheim that "society is a real, material entity" and did not view society as merely a collection of individuals. Rather, he adopted the position of "society as a set of interactions."

21. Fashion
Simmel views fashion as developing in the city, "because it intensifies a multiplicity of social relations, increases the rate of social mobility and permits individuals from lower strata to become conscious of the styles and fashions of upper classes." In the traditional and small circle setting, fashion would have no meaning or be unnecessary. Since modern individuals tend to be detached from traditional anchors of social support, fashion allows the individual to signal or express their own personality or personal values. Simmel noted that fashion provides
“the best arena for people who lack autonomy and who need support, yet whose self-awareness nevertheless requires that they be recognized as distinct and as particular kinds of beings.”

22. fashion can be considered to be a part of objective culture in that it allows the individual to come into conformity with norms of a group. At the same time, it can express individuality, because an individual may choose to express some difference from norms. Fashion is dynamic and has an historical dimension to it, with acceptance of a fashion being followed by some deviation from this fashion, change in the fashion, and perhaps ultimate abandonment of the original norm, and a new norm becoming established. There is a dialectical process involved in the success of the fashion involved in its initial and then widespread acceptance also leads to its eventual abandonment and failure.
rejecting fashion: an inverse form of imitation.

23. fashion allows personal values to be expressed at the same time as norms are followed. The two exist together, and the one without the other would be meaningless. In all of this, social interaction is of the essence - what others think, what one thinks that others think

24. Two social tendencies are essential to the establishment of fashion: the need of union and the need of isolation. The very character of fashion demands that it should be exercised at one time only by a portion of the given group, the greater majority being on the road to adopting it (i.e. real fashion is not something everybody can express at the same time). The distinctiveness of a fashion is destroyed by mass adoption. By reason of this peculiar play between the tendency towards universal acceptance and the destruction of its very purpose to which this general adoption leads
=== simultaneousnequalization and individualization

25. Money as a symbol
Economic exchange can best be understood as a form of social interaction. When monetary transactions replace earlier forms of barter, significant changes occured in the forms of interaction between social actors.
In modern society, money becomes an impersonal or objectified measure of value. This implies impersonal, rational ties among people that are institutionalized in the money form. For example, relations of domination and subordination become quantitative relationships of more and less money -- impersonal and measurable in a rational manner.

26. the spread of the money form gives individuals a freedom of sorts by permitting them to exercise the kind of individualized control over "impression management" that was not possible in traditional societies. ... ascribed identities have been discarded. Even strangers become familiar and knowable identities insofar as they are willing to use a common but impersonal means of exchange.

27. Money displaces "natural" groupings by voluntary associations, which are setup for specific rational purposes. It dissolves bonds based on the ties of blood or kinship or loyalty. Money in the modern world is more than a standard of value and a means of exchange. Over and above its economic functions, it symbolizes and embodies the modern spirit of rationality, of calculability, of impersonality.

28. Play
Play draws its great essential themes from the realities of life: chase and cunning; proving of physical and mental powers, the contest and reliance on chance. By freeing these themes (forms) from the substance of real life, play gets its cheerfulness but also the symbolic significance that distinguishes it from just spending time.
Sociability is the play-form of association. Since sociability in its pure form has no ulterior end, no content, and just involves the satisfaction of the impulse to sociability.
It is for the sake of special needs and interests that individuals unite (in economic associations, blood fraternities and the like). Above their special content, though, all associations are accompanied by a feeling for, by a satisfaction in, the very fact that one is associated with others and that the solitariness of the individual is resolved into togetherness, a union with others.

29. Different from conservative moralists: prostitution as the immoral plague of society
linked the "essence of prostitution" to the "nature of money itself" :
male domination + alienation
the lowest point of human dignity: The market exchange in prostitution works only to the prostitute’s indignity and humiliation because in the sensual act, “the man contributes only a minimal part of himself, but the woman her entire self.”
The men never interact with her “as real and whole persons,” and she “must feel a terrible loneliness and dissatisfaction

30. Simmel argued: “the key feature of prostitution is not polyandry, but polygyny.” That is, the advantage of the buyer (client) over the seller (prostitute) in the sexual exchange economy means that prostitution is not defined by a woman’s availability to many men but in a man’s sexual access to many women. Polygyny “diminishes uniqueness of a woman; she has lost the value of rarity.”