SOC 1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Commodity Fetishism, Gemeinschaft And Gesellschaft, Georg Simmel
Document Summary
His emphasis on the duality existing between society and the individual led him to define sociology as the study of social interaction or, as he often called it, The main task of sociology, then, is to uncover the basic forms of interaction through which individuals pursue their interests or satisfy their desires. Simmel sought to analyze the forms in which interaction takes place. For instance, understanding the specific content of interactions that take place between and employer and employee- what they talk about and why- is not of central concern to sociologists. What is of sociological significance, however is determining the uniformities or commonalities that such interactions have with those between, say, a husband and wife in a patriarchal society, or between a ruler and his subjects. Doing so leads to the realization that each is based on a reciprocal relationship of domination and subordination.
