Unit 4 - Marx and Simmel

Question 1

alienation

Answer 1

Marx
- the worker is alienated from own created self-expression (himself)
- alienated from the creative experience of work (“species-being”)
- alienated from others in his community
- alienated from profits
- dialectical materialism
- working class
- loss of human powers in society, the way in which a particular type of social organization alienates us from our world
- a state in which the environment we create takes on a real solidity, comes to see unchangeable
- alienated labor (see top)

Question 1

commodity fetishism

Answer 1

Marx
- refers to how the market swaps relationships between things for relationships between people
- relationships hidden in commodities
- exploitative
- all relationships are absorbed into the relationships of my money (known) for that thing
- a relationship that can only exist because of people becomes all about things - that depersonalizes, saps us of human dignity
- behaves like a hidden religion
- fetishism = “idolatry” - worship takes place unconsciously throguh actions
- treat the market like a thing because we believe it is
- angers Marx - we are subordinated as humans before the illusionary authority of things (money, objects)

Question 2

blasé attitude

Answer 2

Simmel
- proximity we have with people we don’t know + constant stimulation - so much that the psyche needs protection
- distances itself from people, from life, holding back from emotional investment and instead adopting an intellectual attiude of shared indifference, choosing what to engage in
- we become more isolated/anonymous/lonely
- BUT it opens up more opportunities fopr intellectual challenge
- we lose relational closeness, but gain wider horizons
- urban emphasis on “being on time”
- attitude of indifference/apathy to the world/relationships around you
- overstimulation - blocks out the noise

Question 3

the impact of money on relationships in the metropolis

Answer 3

Simmel
- not enough to be “humans in general”
- crave uniqueness/irreplaceability
- meaning of our lives is expressed on the market of buying/selling
- relations characterized not by personal closeness but by quantity
- money economy allows us to become more mobile in our relations/more alienated
- relationships become mediated by the market
- anonymous interchangeable nature of relationships that causes urbanites to become eccentric as a way of reasserting their uniqueness
- we lose something, we gain something
- everyone wants to be different - at the point of exchange, you are what you’re worth - you lose part of yourself - everyone becomes an instrument for someone else