Money, gender, modern lifestyle

Author: Simmel
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2000-12-01
Features: It is said that Marx was suffering from a carbuncle while writing Capital, and the turmoil in his body led to a surge of, resulting in a sharper critique of capitalism. According to the logic of psychobiographical studies, Simmel appeared quite mild in his critique of capitalism when writing Philosophy of Money—was it because his physical condition was excellent? The logic of psychobiographical studies can be amusing, but another analytical logic, which is actually quite similar to psychoanalysis in nature, seems far more serious. Simmel lived in the late 19th century, an era of rapid modernization that was also fraught with gloom. Social movements and national independence struggles erupted one after another, while the trains and warships of colonialism roamed everywhere, and countless innocent girls fell into brothels. As a "sociologist," Simmel did not, like Marx, devote himself to the issue of social equality, nor did he, like Weber, worry about the "iron cage" of the capitalist spirit. Instead, he toyed with the sense of individual life in modernity, earning titles like "aestheticist" or "impressionist sociologist." It seemed that Simmel was too bourgeois in his sensibilities, and his way of thinking was flawed, lacking historical awareness and class consciousness.