Simmel

Question 1

Reproduce Simmels’s law of increasing individualization and sociation

Answer 1

Sociation= form of social relation in which people and groups interact
Individualization= sociological and psychological growth of the individual (socio: because of quantitative increase in number of relations in which a person is involved, psycho: growing sense of individuality as result of this

Question 2

Simmel’s diagnosis of modern culture

Answer 2

1. Professional and personal spheres become separated
2. Dominance of rationality
3. Gap between development of the person and the development of culture

Question 3

Urban mentality

Answer 3

1. Dominance of rationality: distance themselves from emotional and personal, calculating measuring weighing
2. Psychological distance: many people leaves only inner retreat, distance themselves
3. Consequence: more freedom, anonymity, fragmentary experience of reality - danger of loss of self

Question 4

Simmel’s theory of fashion

Answer 4

Differentiation & imitation

1. Not tied to content
2. Fashion and middle class: trickle down
3. Fashion for men and women: scarce development opportunities for women outside of the home
4. Fashion and urban life: more people makes differentiation harder, more extreme fashion
5. Fashion and individuality: draws attention the the jndividual

Question 5

Comments on simmel

Answer 5

• fragmentary and not very systematic
• too essayistic, not scientific enough
• hardly any methodologic justification (few references)

Question 6

Describe the 3 elements of the social scientific study of culture and explain their relationship

Answer 6

1. Subjective culture: bearers of culture
2. Objective culture: content of culture (independent of bearers and interrelations)
3. Social structure: formal forms of interaction
   Sociology as geometry of social forms, abstracted from: content (objective) & those who embody that content (subjective)