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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MONEY AND THE STYLE OF MODERN LIFE 237 en ‘h- 0- of ey ch m in the iat ing ire ust us sts me gy eC- nee zen dar ete ain ive ive rer- we ascribe to them a value which they do not possess in their mere factual significance. They can be elements of culture only if their properties and qualities have been developed and extended beyond their natural stage. Natural objects become elements of culture only if they have been given a form and structure which they did not possess by nature. They must give expression to our will, our emotions, our intellect, and react back on our subjective, mental life. In so far as they are elements of culture, they are the embodi- ment of our thoughts and feelings; and this holds good whether they are cultivated plants or works of art or ma- chines. And it holds good, not only for that part of culture which develops out of man’s relations to objects, but also for that part which develops out of man’s relations to his fellow-men and to himself, such as language, religion, mo- rality, mores, and law. In cultivating things we cultivate ourselves. Cultivation means increasing the total value beyond that of the natural mechanism. It is a value-increasing process which works both on nature outside of us and on nature inside of us. If we view the contents of life as cul- tural elements, we deny the self-sufficiency of their aesthet- ic, moral, or scientific value. To view them as elements of culture is not to view them in any of these static factual aspects, but to view them in their functional relationship to man. It is to view them as a phase in the process which goes from man through these values back to man, as ele- ments which contribute to man’s development beyond his own natural state. In so far as man cultivates objects, he cultivates himself, and in so far as the transnatural devel- opment of the energies of these objects is a cultural pro- cess, it is the visible and objective expression of the devel- opment of his own energies. One of the characteristic phenomena of the cultural

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