1. Just as the universe needs “love and hate,” that is, attractive and repulsive forces, in order to have any form at all, so society, too, in order to attain a determinate shape, needs some quantitative ratio of harmony and disharmony, of association and competition, of favorable and unfavorable tendencies.
(G. Simmel, “Conflict”)
Georg Simmel

2. Georg Simmel ( )
Born in 1858 in Berlin, son of successful businessman who died when GS was an infant
Historical context: cosmopolitan Berlin
GS was the quintessential Berlin intellectual, at center of intellectual circles, café culture
Marginalized in academia, due to eclectic nature of work and anti- semitism of German university establishment

3. Intellectual influences & core ideas
Simmel’s work challenged 2 currents of European thought:
Historicism emphasizes fundamental differences b/w natural and social worlds
natural sciences seen as the proper domain of objectivity whereas social sciences, if science at all, require interpretive methods, subjectivity
Organicism sees natural & social realities as continuous and models social processes on biological ones
employs organic metaphors, sees world as one chain of being from simple, natural phenomena to the most complex social patterns
archetypal figures: Durkheim, Spencer, Comte
Simmel rejected historicism b/c it precluded scientific and generalizing approach to social life and rejected organicism for its reification of social facts, its vision of life as a thing

4. Society According to Simmel,
“Society is merely the name for number of individuals connected by interaction….It is not a ‘substance,’ nothing concrete, but an event: It is the function of receiving and affecting the fate and development of one individual by another”
In short society is the array of interactions engaged in by individuals

5. The individual in modern society
Society and the individuals that compose it constitute an interdependent duality, the existence of one presupposing the other
duality: being twofold; dichotomy; a classification into two opposed parts or subclasses

6. Society  Sociation Simmel prefers the term “sociation” over “society”
“Society” is a reification, “sociation” is not
Sociation emphasizes relation and process
Insofar as we speak of “society,” we do so only in shorthand

7. Sociology
Sociology’s goal is description and analysis of particular forms of interaction and their crystallization in group characteristics
Proper subject matter for sociology is the formal aspects of social life, not the particular content
Content refers to the drives, purposes, interests, or inclinations that individuals have for interacting with one another
Such motivations, in themselves, are not social but rather are isolated psychological or biological impulses
Actions in concert with others to fulfill drives or realize interests are social
 a geometry of social life: specifying regularities in diverse content
Emphasizes social interaction at the individual & small group level
Microsociology of Simmel much different from “grand theory” of the classical writers, especially Marx and Durkheim

8. Sociology: against reification
Reification means “thingification,” making something that is a process or a concept, something abstract, into a thing, e.g.
Relationship: when two people become romantically involved, they have a “relationship,” it becomes a thing, tangible force – but really it’s a process of relating
Organization: we treat it as a thing rather than a process, a set of relations among people
Categories like class, race, nationality, gender, etc.
gender is more tricky b/c there seems to be some kind of biological component, so there might be some “thingness,” some “essence,” to gender

9. Quantitative features of social life
GS divides the social world into 3 basic forms:
Solitary individual
Dyad (two persons)
each individual can present themselves to the other in a way that maintains their identity
either party can end the relationship by withdrawing from it
Triad (3 or more people)
enables strategies that lead to competition, alliances, or mediation
often develops a group structure independent of the individuals in it, whereas this is less likely in the dyad

10. “Sociability” (1910)
sociability: the “play-form of association,” driven by, "amicability, breeding, cordiality and attractiveness of all kinds"
interacting with others for the sake of the connection itself
Sociable conversations have no significance or ulterior motive, talking is an end in itself
for pure pleasure of association
not that all serious topics must be avoided, but point is that sociability finds its justification, its place, and its purpose only in the functional play of conversation as such

11. Resolving the solitariness of the individual
Every play or artistic activity has a common element: “a feeling for, or a satisfaction in associating with others, resolving the solitariness of the individual into togetherness, union with others”
Depends on “good form,” interaction of the elements through which a unity is made
“Since sociability in its pure form has no ulterior end, no content, and no result outside itself, it is oriented completely about personalities.” (297)
“But personalities must not emphasize themselves too individually…or with too much abandon and aggressiveness”

12. The “superficial” nature of sociability
To the extent that it’s a form of interaction free of the tensions of “real” life, sociability establishes an “artificial” world, a world without friction or conflict
“Inasmuch as sociability is the abstraction of association – an abstraction of the character of art or of play – it demands the purest, most engaging kind of interaction – that among equals….It is game in which one ‘acts’ as though all were equal.” (294)

13. Coquetry
Coquetry or flirtation: a kind of sociability or erotic play in which an actor continuously alternates between denial and consent
Idea is to lead the other on “without letting matters come to a decision, to rebuff him without making him lose all hope”
“Coquetry is the teasing or even ironic play with which eroticism has distilled the pure essence of its interaction out from its substantive or individual content”
It’s not individual behavior, it’s interaction