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Not to be swallowed up by forces of society used to be a problem of gemeinschaft based societies where ascriptive identity was of decisive importance. But ever since the European Enlightenment of the eighteenth century, liberation was sought from all the ties—in politics, religion, economics and morality to permit the natural original virtue of man to emerge which is equal in everyone. But the problem with the concept of equality is that if all are equal what happens of individuality? One does not want to be just one among many. While the eighteenth century Enlightenment gave us equality, the fate of nineteenth century is the quest for individuality. The process involves the resistance of the individual to being leveled and swallowed up in the social technological mechanism. So what are the adaptations that the individual makes to the forces that lie outside it?
Simmel argues that the mental life of the metropolitan person develops an intellectualist character. It goes about making rational decision—efficiency oriented taking stock of a situation through reason. According to Simmel this intellectualist quality is best signified by two things: money and the watch.
Money, Simmel points out, is concerned with what is common to all things. In other words, between two very dissimilar things what is comparable is their price. Exchange of goods gave way to money. The introduction of a third element of measurement led to the rise of money. So now the value of two commodities in exchange is measured in terms of some other commodities which is held to be precious—be it gold, silver, shell, leather or money. It is something which in itself has no value but it assumes a pure function i.e., pure symbol of value. |
