The social Theory of Georg Simmel

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1024612627

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-166627

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Spykman, Nicholas J. http://d-nb.info/gnd/124229867

Title:: The social Theory of Georg Simmel

Place of publication:: Chicago

Publisher:: Univ. of Chicago Press.

Year of publication:: 1925

Scope:: XXIX, 297 S

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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er- If ind an- aer gid the : 1s nat ~er- lly der If Ses ess 1 of ble Ice sis 1es, are s of :0n- me res vith the liv- lost hol- roy or- 1in- SOCIAL CONSERVATION L777 tain themselves, even if merely as empty frames, only on the basis of a rigid conservatism. The opposite type of social self-preservation is char- acteristic of groups that live within larger groups, either tolerated or opposed and suppressed. The self-preserva- tion of these groups and the persistence of their social unity require an extreme elasticity and variability of sociological forms. Their offensive and defensive strength lies just in the variety of forms under which they can operate. They must be able to expand and contract at any moment and avail themselves of any type of organization that circum- stances permit. Bands of brigands and conspirators can maintain their social unity only if they can instantly subdivide into small- er groups, act separately under different leaders, and in- stantly reunite again for larger enterprises. Great flexi- bility of form is the indispensable condition of their per- sistence. The Jews in Central Europe have lived for cen- turies under conditions which have been similar from the formal point of view to those of brigands and conspirators. They have been small suppressed minorities within larger social groups. They have maintained their social unity in the face of these oppressions by a great variability of soci- ological form. Their social solidarity has been a religious solidarity, an economic solidarity, or a political solidarity. It has attached itself to each of these forms according to circumstances and conditions. Here again the flexibility of form has been the means of persistence and the strength of their defensive and offensive against the larger group. Apart from such cases as the existence of a smaller group within a larger group. there is no immediate corre- * 80z., pp. 574-80. For a more elaborate treatment of structures that have outlived their social usefulness, see G. D. H. Cole, Social Theory, chapter xiii, “The Atrophy of Institutions,” pp. 193-200.

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