George Simmel
Introduction
This essay discusses and provides a critical analysis of George Simmel’s (1858-1918) concept of culture and further discussed with a critical analysis on Modern and Money Culture. Simmel was a leading early twentieth century European-German scholar who had an apparent and solid influence on sociology in the United States. Although Simmel is classically labelled as a sociologist, the depth and breadth of his interest such as philosophy, sociology, socio-psychology, aesthetics, cultural analysis, literature and art, just to name few, cannot simply be limited to any one discipline, and it is best to approach Simmel as a cultural philosopher.
Concept of Culture
Simmel believed that nature and culture are two different ways of looking at the same phenomena, since the state of culture can be caused by its “natural” originating conditions. There are two sides to the concept of culture, as Simmel states that people are often undergoing modernization and influenced by their cultural products between subjective culture and objective culture. To Simmel modern history appeared as a progressive liberation of the subjective from the bonds of exclusive attachment. Simmel argued in pre-modern society that man typically lived in a very limited number of relatively small social circles which were tightly surrounded by the individuals and held firmly in grip. Simmel also claimed that modern culture is bored because it is behaviourally not stimulated. Graham (2005, p. 578) states that:
“Simmel extends this observation with a paradigmatically Marxian example. The fact that machinery has become so much more sophisticated than the worker is part of this same process. How many workers are there today, even within large-scale industries, who are able to understand the machine with which they work, that is the mental effort invested in it?”
However, if one compares our culture with that of a hundred years ago, then the things that determines and surround our lives
This essay discusses and provides a critical analysis of George Simmel’s (1858-1918) concept of culture and further discussed with a critical analysis on Modern and Money Culture. Simmel was a leading early twentieth century European-German scholar who had an apparent and solid influence on sociology in the United States. Although Simmel is classically labelled as a sociologist, the depth and breadth of his interest such as philosophy, sociology, socio-psychology, aesthetics, cultural analysis, literature and art, just to name few, cannot simply be limited to any one discipline, and it is best to approach Simmel as a cultural philosopher.
Concept of Culture
Simmel believed that nature and culture are two different ways of looking at the same phenomena, since the state of culture can be caused by its “natural” originating conditions. There are two sides to the concept of culture, as Simmel states that people are often undergoing modernization and influenced by their cultural products between subjective culture and objective culture. To Simmel modern history appeared as a progressive liberation of the subjective from the bonds of exclusive attachment. Simmel argued in pre-modern society that man typically lived in a very limited number of relatively small social circles which were tightly surrounded by the individuals and held firmly in grip. Simmel also claimed that modern culture is bored because it is behaviourally not stimulated. Graham (2005, p. 578) states that:
“Simmel extends this observation with a paradigmatically Marxian example. The fact that machinery has become so much more sophisticated than the worker is part of this same process. How many workers are there today, even within large-scale industries, who are able to understand the machine with which they work, that is the mental effort invested in it?”
However, if one compares our culture with that of a hundred years ago, then the things that determines and surround our lives