Social Research in the Light of the German Sociologist Georg Simmel in Comparison with Chinese Sociology

The German sociologist and philosopher Georg Simmel (1858-1918) is internationally known as the founder of Formal Sociology. I take the centenary of his death as a welcome opportunity to remember the beginning of modern social sciences. The current state of European and American relational sociology can be interpreted as a revival of Simmel’s method and principles of social research directed to a phenomenology of genesis. From the genetic point of view Simmel considers individuality, creativity, fragmentation and conflict the typical characteristics of modern society. Consequently, his Formal Sociology should be called “Genetic Sociology” instead of Relational Sociology. This paper has the aim to make Simmel’s legacy known to Chinese sociologists and cultural philosophers. Concluding, I highlight the essential differences between the German and the Chinese way of seeing the world of social life, and I propose issues for change.


F. Fellmann
The couple exemplified the intellectual marriage of the period, celebrating the freedom of independent partners, as Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir were to do after World War II. The newly gained sexual liberty paved the way to Simmel's late philosophy of culture.
Simmel's thought is divided into three phases: First, his positivistic method of social research, which ends with the 1905 edition of his epistemological essay The Problems of the Philosophy of History [1]; second, his relational method of social research culminating in his 1908 Sociology Investigations of the Forms of Sociation [2]; third, philosophical essays dealing with the concept of culture in the last years until his death in 1918 [3] [4]. The nucleus of Simmel's philosophy of culture is present in his most famous work, The Philosophy of Money (1900) [5]. Simmel viewed money as a means of economic exchange and as such as a symbolic form that enables an understanding of the evolution of modern culture. Whereas sociology considers the formal aspects of social interaction, cultural anthropology takes into account the personal background of social organization. This view derives from the close relation between economy and human passions. Their common feature is the dynamic of the will to live. This structural equivalence turns money into the basic metaphor of human existence that connects subjective culture with objective culture according to the principle of reciprocity.
Simmel was convinced that sexual life, the most private feature of personality, is at the root of all cultural forms. His whole system of social interaction is centered around erotic love based on the male-female polarity, which means that man and woman are equal in rights but are different in function and in emotionality. In his late essays Simmel explains how, through the sexual revolution of his time, the cultural evolution has achieved its highest level in the relation between life and form. He is convinced that modern erotic life flows in individual channels and is directed against forms which force life into generalized schemata and thereby destroy its individuality. Simmel's devotion to the principle of individuality has given social research a new key that may be of use for modern Chinese sociology [6].
It is noteworthy that the libidinous undercurrent of Simmel's conception of social life has seldom been noticed. Neither his contemporaries nor his later interpreters pay attention to the fact that Simmel's personality was that of an erotic shaped by the way of urban life. Of course, Simmel's theories are not a direct projection of his personal life but his academic nonconformity sheds light on his way of seeing the social world through the lens of his temperament. Simmel's theory of erotic love is indispensable for understanding the way society grows bottom up as a system of different strata of cultural life.

The Concept of Society
Simmel was an outstanding innovator in methodology. He does not consider society as an institutionalized structure but he is concerned with the emergence of Simmel's answer is: because sociation is felt by people as their natural environment. Viewed from the sociological perspective this self-evidence requires biological, psychological and logical explanations. Simmel's explanations are the following: First, human behavior is regulated by rigid patterns of natural drives. Second, the natural impulses are modified by psychological workings of interpersonal relationships. And third, the developmental behavior patterns follow the logic of geometrical forms. The forms contain subordination, super-ordination, exchange, conflict and association by which a sum of separate individuals is made into a higher unity. Social integration has formed and is performed by different social types such as the stranger, the adventurer etc. The notion of the stranger has found wide usage in modern sociological literature. Simmel defines the stranger as a member of the group he lives in and yet remains distant from the native members of the group. At the present time of migration, this social type is highly relevant.
In the chapter "The Quantitative Determination of the Group" Simmel analyses how the number of persons in a group is qualitatively experienced. In a two-person group (dyad) each partner is able to retain their individuality. Since in this case each person has only another individual by his side, the group's dependence on him, and consequently his responsibility for common action, is obvious. In a three-person group (triad) there is a possibility of weakening the remaining individual's independence and causing him to become the subordinate of the group. The analysis of three-person groups leads Simmel to consider networks of groups as higher social structures. In society, as the groups become increasingly greater, the individual becomes separated and grows more alone, isolated and segmented.
Simmel's view was somewhat ambiguous with respect to group size. On one hand he believed that the bigger the group the better for the individual. In a larger group it would be harder to exert control on the individual, but on the other hand with a large group there is a possibility of the individual becoming distant and impersonal. Therefore, in an effort to cope with the enlargement of the group, the individual strives to be at home in a smaller group such as the family.
Concerning intimate relations, the urban style of life in big cities like Berlin, where Simmel spent most of his life, leads to futile sexual encounters with no commitment at all. Simmel was aware of the fact that this way of life in the long run leads to social fragmentation, which undermines the cohesion of the community. But at the same time, it frees people from the social ties of traditional class structure and opens the door for the development of spontaneous intimacy. It is this state of nearness through distance that gives people the opportunity to develop new forms of self-validation and self-expression. Thus, Chinese sociology has a strong focus on applied, policy-oriented research.
Key topics include the changing social stratification in China, social organizations and social governance, family and demographic studies, migration and urbanization, cultural and ideological change, social security and social justice. Society as a totality is a gradual concept that gives a justification for focus upon socio-economic developments. In this field, Chinese sociology is on the right path.
On the other hand, there is a notable lack of theoretical basics in Chinese concepts of society. Relational sociology as the study of forms of social interaction or sociation is not yet fully established. Here the acquaintance with Simmel's work will help to pave the way to the primacy of Chinese social research.
To sum up: The fabric of society, as Simmel conceives it, relies on interactions between individuals. The dynamic relation is experienced prior to the relata, and according to the act of exchange follows the pattern of reciprocity. The group is a whole which is more than the sum of the elements, beginning with the couple as a two-person group and ending with society as a group of indefinite size. This is, in short, the leading idea of Simmel's formal sociology that has been at the beginnings of relational sociology. But as we will see, this is not the best term for Simmel's way of interpreting the growth of the social world.

The Concept of Culture and the Dynamic of Life
In the light of the many aspects of human behavior Simmel considers society near to culture. Although the analysis of social facts dominates his sociology, whereas cultural forms dominate his more philosophical writings, a rigid separation is not to be found. In the perspective of genetic phenomenology, Simmel refers to culture as a process of cultivation of individuals through the agency of external forms like religion, art, or science. This was the beginning of cultural sociology practiced by Weimar Germany sociologists such as Alfred Weber [7].
Social and political organizations as well as rituals of celebrations generate archetypical forms of all human sociality, called "patterns of culture" by Ruth Benedict (1934).
In his book The Philosophy of Money Simmel distinguishes between two forms of culture: subjective or personal culture and objective culture [5]. represents the most modern form of the struggle which primitive man must carry on with nature for his own bodily existence" [8]. The self-preservation of the individual brings human experience in permanent conflicts. The inevitable conflicts are destructive and constructive as well. They are constructive in giving society texture, durability, and resilience. But the increase of objective social structures such as legal systems or technology is intensely felt as a threat to individuality. This double face of experience provides the very basis for life to attain its self-transcending character. "From more-life to more-than-life" is Simmel's formula to describe this process. The driving force of cultural evolution could well be called libidinous, in the specific sense of eroticism as well as in the broader sense of the will to live.
In the 1911 essay On the Concept and the Tragedy of Culture Simmel argues that cultural forms emerge in social interactions and become fixed [9]. As such they stand in perpetual tension with the ongoing life processes, which tend to break off from old forms and to create new ones. Thus, the concept of culture implies that the mind ("Geist") creates objective entities through which the development of the subject takes the way from itself to itself. This is the normal course of life. Sometimes the continual creation of new forms is stopped by the rigidity of the forms. This is the point where the cultural process becomes tragic.
The tragedy of culture consists in the fact that the destructing forces directed against life arise from the deeper stratum of life itself. Thus, the forms with which human life has built up its own positivity become self-destructive negativity.
Strangely enough, Simmel in his later essay The Conflict in Modern Culture (1918) shows modern culture in a more positive light. The key concept in this essay is "life" in its spiritual sense, mental life. In contrast to the biological meaning, mental life is always connected with opposed qualities or tendencies stemming from an originally undifferentiated unity: "Whenever life progresses beyond the animal level to that of the spirit, and the spirit progresses to the level of culture, an internal contradiction appears. The whole history of culture is the working out of this contradiction. We speak of culture wherever life produces certain forms in which it expresses and realizes itself […]. These forms are frameworks for the creative life which, however, soon transcends them" [8].
Conflict is essential for change in spiritual life, understanding conflict as "struggle in the absolute sense of the term which encompasses the relative contrast

Sexuality and Eroticism
In Simmel's sociological and psychological view of erotic love has been empirically confirmed by later life sciences. Ethnology has shown that the sexual drive is a natural force that is active in all areas of culture. For Bronislaw Malinowski, author of Sex and Repression in Savage Society, psychosexuality has paved the way to a dynamic theory of the human mind and its unconscious sides [11].
Modern sociobiology considers Darwinian sexual selection as only one factor in the evolution of sociability. Edward O. Wilson in his classic Sociobiology. The New Synthesis has demonstrated, how the antagonism between sex and sociality, mostly displayed by animals, is mitigated in human society by the cultural forms of courtship [12]. In evolutionary biology the transformation of the sexual drive into eroticism characteristic for intimate relations is considered as an important presupposition of humanization [13]. Eroticism, unlike mere sexual activity, is a psychological issue dependent on, and at the same time independent of, sexuality. The step from sexuality to eroticism opens the door to human individuation and free will.
In the essay The Relative and the Absolute in the Gender-Problem Simmel links sexuality to sex differences. In opposition to casual sex ("the relative"), sexuality connected with eroticism shapes the person as a whole and harmonizes all aspects of sexual behavior: "The absolute represents sexuality or eroticism as cosmological principle" [14]. The sex differences become manifest in the way sexuality is dealt with. The sexual drive is dominant in men, whereas women perceive sexual arousal as secondary. This is because female sexuality rests more in itself and is consequently not in need of the relation to man. The being-in-itself of the "more profound female sexuality" refers to the potential maternity of the woman, but Simmel goes a step further in exalting female sexuality as a metaphysical principle which overcomes sexual relativity and elevates the absoluteness of the female Eros to the unity of being.
In his most successful essay Flirtation (Die Koketterie), published 1911 in the collection Philosophische Kultur, Simmel discusses flirtation as a generalized type of interaction. According to Simmel, "to define flirtation as simply a 'passion for pleasing' is to confuse the means to an end with the desire for this end." The distinctiveness of the flirt lies in the fact that the coquette awakens delight and desire by means of a unique antithesis and synthesis: through the alternation of accommodation and denial. In the behavior of the flirt, the man feels the proximity and interpenetration of the ability and inability to acquire something. According to this, flirtation is the sophisticated form of the courtship process typically marked by a mixture of desire and coyness. Flirtation is not merely evident in the coquette, but also in intellectual life, in the sort of self-concealment in which a person stands behind what is expressed in a veiled fashion. Of course, flirtation is particularly significant in human relationships where rigid codes of sexual behavior exist. It was a means by which the power of "consent or refusal" could be exercised by women: ''Flirtation is a means of enjoying this power in an enduring form.'' When men engage in flirtation, it becomes a game or a form of playing with reality. Like art, which places itself beyond reality, ''flirtation also does no more than play with reality, yet it is still reality with which it plays'' [14]. From this follows that undetermined behaviors are not negative per se but play a positive role in human social interactions like love and friendship.
Similar to the development of European eroticism in the last century, sexuality in China has undergone dramatic changes [15]. Changes in this field consider not only sexual behaviors and attitudes but also a series of related social changes such as gender equality. As sociology of sexuality is not in the focus of social research, only personal reflections or argumentative essays are at hand. However, from a sociological perspective, there have been several main factors that have created the current turning point of changing sexual culture in the contemporary Chinese social context [16].

Ethics and the Image of Man
The impact of Simmel's work on contemporaries mainly concerned his formal sociology. The basic forms of social interaction were widely discussed. In US-American sociology Simmel was present especially through the mediation of Robert Ezra Park [17]. On the whole, individual behavior was not in the focus of Simmel's reception. An exception to be noted is a work by Murray S. Davis, Intimate Relations (1973). Following Simmel's microscopic method, Davis analyzes the psychological factors by which personal relations evolve. Partners in a pair-bonded state lose their old selves in each other by creating each other anew.
In this process of individuation people do not follow strict moral rules. Instead they are motivated by the ideal construction of their relationships. In this the whole person comes into play, and in modern couples, it is the wife whose role is increasingly dominant.
In various essays Simmel deals with the contributions of women to culture.
Whereas objective culture is marked by male contradiction and restlessness, subjective culture is associated with female harmony and stability. Simmel's polarized psychology of maleness and femaleness has been modified by differential psychology and is in the strict sense no longer valid. Nevertheless, Simmel recognizes the dominance of female sociability in modern times that has overcome the patriarchal bias of traditional culture. In modern societies, where female sensibility equals male purpose, the female personality norms tend to become the general scheme of moral norms. This corresponds to Simmel's late "ideal turn", which he expressed in his 1913 article Law of the Individual. An attempt on the principle of ethics [9].
In this essay (literally translated "Individual Law") Simmel argues against Immanuel Kant's theory that there is a single moral obligation, the "Categorical Imperative", relying on the concept of duty [18]. This position is analogous to Confucian virtue ethics that eliminates emotions from the right way to humanity [19]. Simmel, to the contrary, points out that humans are not only guided by reason but by emotions as well, some of which are tonic and constructive.
Among the basic emotions like anger, fear, disgust, etc., love is unique as it must be shared by a loving partner. Only in a state of loving and being loved can individuals experience themselves as whole persons with rights and obligations to others. This is the primordial root of ethics, which does not regard exclusively what a person does but what he or she is. One's being or character may be better than one's actions, and concrete ethics have to take that into account.
An extended version of the 1913 article appeared in Simmel's final work, The View of Life (1918) [20]. Here, Simmel replaces the opposition of "is" and   [19]. The main characteristic of humans is humaneness or benevolence (ren), the sense of which is not to be learned but innate.

Conclusions
As we have learned from Simmel, in modern societies life is in permanent conflict between nature and culture. Conflict is unavoidable and sometimes destruc-

Conflicts of Interest
The author declares no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper.