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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THE CONCEPT OF SOCIETY 31 ) J ND) neither the cause nor the result of society; they are them- selves immediately society. There is not an internally self-contained, closed national or social unit which pro- duces law, morals, religion, and language, but the social elements induced by purpose, need, or force build these social products, and this causes or rather means their uni- fication. The more important the interests which bring men into mutual relationships, the more readily will they be- come fixed and objectified in institutions. But society does not obtain its unity merely from these institutions any more than the human organism consists merely of the larger organs. There are innumerable varieties of recipro- cal relations which never become institutionalized. Not only the state and the labor union, the family and the political party, but all the thousand minor relationships playing from person to person, momentary or permanent, conscious or unconscious, create the social unity out of the individual elements. “That people gaze at one another and are jealous of one another; that they exchange letters and dine together; that, apart from all tangible interests, they affect one another sympathetically or antipatheti- cally; that gratitude gives to the altruistic act an after- effect which is an inseparable bond of union between peo- ple; that one asks another to point out the way, and that people dress and adorn themselves for one another’s bene- fit: all these relationships are incessantly binding men together.” That which constitutes society in the real sense of the term is evidently the type of reciprocal influencing thus indicated. A collection of human beings does not become a society because specific impulses actuate the individuals ! Soz. Diff., p. 14; Soz., p. 11. *Soz., p. 19.

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