George Simmel was a German sociologist born in 1858 who received his PhD from the University of Berlin. Despite being a popular lecturer supported by Max Weber, he was considered an outsider academically. Simmel focused on social interactions and published works on topics like the metropolis and mental life, philosophy of money, poverty, and the stranger. He took a dialectical approach to sociology looking at social relations, conflicts, and contradictions. Simmel viewed the individual in modern society as being in trouble due to things people produce taking on a life of their own externally coercing the actor.

1. George Simmel (1858-1918)
Presented By:
Faiza Parveen
M.phil 1st, Sociology

2. INTRODUCTION
•Born in Berlin on March 1, 1858 Germany.
•Received his PHD from the university of Berlin
•German Sociologist, Author, and philosopher. Best known as a micro sociologist
•Close acquaintance of Max Weber (1864-1920).
•Despite being a popular lecturer and being supported by Weber, he was consider an outsider
academically.
•Only in 1914 did Simmel obtain a regular academic appointment, and this
appointment was in Strasbourg, far from Berlin
• Died on September 28, 1918.

3. Simmel work’s
 His view of society
 His view of sociology
 His assertion that individual in modern society was in trouble.-
 metaphysical principles of life
• Contribute greatly to the development of small group research (poverty,
the prostitute, the miser and the spendthrift, and the stranger. )
• Focused intently on social interaction and social geometry, Philosophy
of Money , The Metropolis and Mental Life [1903/1971])

4.  A dialectical approaches multi causal and multidirectional, integrates fact and value,
rejects the idea that there are hard-and-fast dividing lines between social
phenomena, focuses on social relations (B. Turner, 1986), looks not only at the
present but also at the past and the future, and is deeply concerned with both
conflicts and contradictions.
 Simmel’s sociology was always concerned with relationships especially interaction
association.
 “In Simmel’s dialectic, man is always in danger of being slain by those objects of
his own creation which have lost their organic human coefficient

5. Objective Vs Subjective Culture
 refers to those things
that people produce
(art, science,
philosophy, and so
on).
 refers to the capacity
of the actor to
produce, absorb, and
control the elements
of objective culture.
Objective culture Subjective culture

6. More-Life and More-Than-Life
• for Simmel separation b/w people and
product is inherent in the nature of human
life. In philosophical terms, there is an
inherent and inevitable contradiction between
“more-life” and “more-than-life”

7. Urbanism VS Urbanization
Urbanism (life within the city)
• A phenomenon of people human
interaction in moving from rural areas
metropolitan areas. towards urban
cities.
• It studies the significance of cities in
role of migration and the reasons
development of society. acting behind
it.
 Urbanization (development of
city)
 refers to the city formation or
building process. It studies the way
social activities locate themselves
in space according to
interdependence process of societal
development and change

9. Characteristic Features
 Individuality
 Autonomy
 Indifferent
 Technological pessimism
 Intensification of nervous stimulation
 Punctuality, calculability and exactness

10. The Metropolis and Mental Life(1903)
 The urban dwellers mental life is predominantly intellectualistic in character.
 People respond to situations in a rational rather than an emotional manner.
 A common stance of urban dweller is thus the blasé outlook.
 The world of the blasé person is flat grey and homogenous.
 Analysis of contrast between urban and rural ways of life
 .Differences between the traditional villages ,small town and modern city.

11. Cont.
 Simmel look at the social psychological features of modern urban culture.
 He notes that in cities, many anonymous people come into contact with one another,
yet are removed from the emotional ties and social bounds they had in smaller
communities.
 Urban dwellers' tend to be
 Calculative: daily life is filled with “ weighting, calculating , enumerating reducing
qualitative values to quantitative.

12. Blasé attitude
• Simmel describe bales attitude as an attitude of absolute boredom and lack
of concern.
• A money economy also induces a blasé attitude, “all things as being of an
equally dull and grey hue, as not worth getting excited about” .
• Results of the reduction of the concrete values of life to the mediating
values of money

13. • Table 1 Synopsis of Simmel’s Lecture Titled “The Metropolis and Mental Life” Unit of
comparison Urban way of life Traditional way of life Main metaphor Long chains Small
circles Dominant economic system Goods production and money economy Detailed
division of labor Subsistence production and barter economy Little division of labor Core
economic problem Fight for man (instill new needs) Fight with nature (satisfy elementary
needs) Consumer’s relation to the product Orientation to exchange value Blasé attitude
toward things Consumption of final products Orientation to utility value Sensitivity to
differences Consumer’s input Consumer’s relation to the manufacturer Dependence on
many people the consumer do not know Positive: predictability Negative: inexorability
Dependence on a few people the consumer knows Positive: latitude for judgment Negative:
arbitrariness General etiquette Brevity and rarity of meetings Slight aversion Length and
frequency of encounters Solidarity Benefit to the individual Individual freedom Collective
support Danger to the individual Social isolation Social control Leveling of people
Adaptation to formal procedures (e.g., the obligation to be punctual) Adaptation to group
norms Differentiation of people Stylization of individuality in public Knowledge of
individualities in the group Rhythm of life Tempo Contrasts Incessant change Leisureliness
Evenness Constancy Personality patterns Intellectuality Tolerance Flexibility of roles
played Emotionality Philistinism Stability of character Life horizon The near is far; the far
is near Cosmopolitanism The near is near; the far is far Provincialism

15.  We tend to focus on money in terms of its functions:
◦ in exchange (medium of exchange),
◦ as an asset (store of value), and
◦ being useful for accounting purposes (unit of account).

16.  Simmel focuses on money and the monetary system as an
integral part of the market economy.
◦ Money is a social institution.
◦ Money is related to justice, liberty, and man as a social creature.
◦ The monetary system is not the conscious creation of a political entity,
but rather is the unintended product of social evolution.

17.  Simmel treated money as a specific phenomenon linked with a variety of other components
of life, including “exchange, ownership, greed, extravagance, cynicism, individual freedom,
the style of life, culture, the value of the personality, etc.”
 Much in common with the work of Karl Marx. Like Marx, Simmel focused on capitalism and
the problems created by a money economy.
 But having a difference because Marx saw economic problems as time-bound, the product of
capitalist society, he believed that eventually they could be solved. While Simmel saw the
basic problems as inherent in human life and held out no hope for future improvement.

18. Money and Value
 According to Simmel, people create value by making objects, separating themselves from
those objects, and then seeking to overcome the “distance, obstacles, difficulties”.
 Money provides the means by which these entities acquire a life of their own that is external
to, and coercive of, the actor.
 Promotes rational calculation in human affairs, furthering rationalization characteristics of
modern societies.

19. Money and Freedom
19
 Money is also linked directly to justice and freedom.
 “Exchange is … a really wonderful means for combining
justice with changes in ownership.”
 Money is a social institution and is meaningless if
restricted to the individual.
 Money expands liberty.
 Simmel does not argue that economic freedom is
sufficient to guarantee political freedom. Like Friedman,
he argues that it is a necessary, but not sufficient
condition.

20. Threats to a
Monetary Market Economy
• Valuation is a social problem and operates through money. Distortions affect
valuation, hence justice.
• Wages paid in money expose the worker to “uncertainty and irregularity” stemming
from fluctuations in the purchasing power of money.
• Simmel fears inflation and inflation volatility.
• Socialism may be a natural point of evolution of the social organization.
• Rejects Hume’s notion of long-run neutrality because of widely-recognized short-
run neutrality.
20

21. Criticisms
• Simmel does not suggest a way out of the tragedy of culture, because he
considers alienation to be inherent to the human condition. (by Marxists)