The Significance of Individualism from Simmel and Giddens's Perspective - Literature review Example

Essay Name: University: Date: The Significance of Individualism from Simmel and Giddens Perspective Introduction The majority of social scientists have envisaged that the unlimited individualism growth will be one of the inevitable impacts of modernization; thus, it presents major threats to the society’s organic unity. However, others believe that independence and autonomy are important conditions for developing social solidarity as well as interpersonal cooperation. The founders of sociology place much emphasis on determining whether ‘individualism’ was an idiosyncratic feature of contemporary societies. They believed that the issue of individual-society was totally a social issue that suggests modernity and expresses itself severely. They all desired for a real release from an individual, but points out its challenges and risks with the view to how social work is influenced by Individualism. The care individualisation and services personalisation are some of the examples demonstrating this societal trend. Whilst assisting service users to understand their ambitions for an improved future, individualism, if unchecked, destabilises life’s social aspects. A contemporary democratic and western society which places ultimate value on individualism also brings forth irresolvable as well as tension between the society and the individual. In the field of sociology, the individualism concept was brought forth by the empirical scheme of one's social position. The increasing significance of focus on this pattern influenced by changes in the society has been rough and rapid. In societies having pseudosteady and successive political changes like French and American Revolution, the Industrial Revolution as well as Human Rights Revolution together with its exiting breaks from the inside, made the sociologists ask themselves regarding an individual’s position in the society. The objective of this piece is to explain the significance of individualism from Simmel and Giddens Perspective. Analysis In ‘The trajectory of the self’, Giddens (1991) demonstrates the path or course of life; that is, an individual’s path that he/she has left behind and his/her future path. Based on the future, the trajectory is created through the life plans. Giddens (1991) describe life plans as an important content of the self-trajectory that is reflexively organised. Furthermore, life-planning is a way of organising future actions’ path or course mobilised based on self’s biography. For instance, it is very difficult to discern the occurrence of fateful moments. Still, individuals can plan for the time they expect to live. Giddens (1991) asserts that trajectory enables people to prepare their lives both in terms of the future as well as the past. It serves as a personal calendar, which are timing devices for important events in a person life. Individuals normally utilise a personal calendar to talk about life through the connection of various events. Giddens (1991) considers individuality as a concept of modernity, arguing that individuality has actually been valued in every culture. As mentioned by Georgantzas et al. (2010), Giddens considers globalisation as the materialisation of new individualism since different professional works have been changed. For instance, many people are currently arranging their professional careers as compared in the past and are also acquiring new skills and qualifications and transferring them into a different professional context. The ICT development resulted in the world finances digitalization; thus, free markets were pushed onto the virtuality level. Citing Giddens (1990), Georgantzas et al. (2010) posit that the global social disorientation risk that affects individuals across the globe together with the ecological risk and health risk have reduced individuals’ quality of life. According to Giddens (1976), it is exceedingly difficult to understand the emergence and importance of moral individualism through the ontological methodological individualism premises. Citing numerous classical theorists like Durkheim and Max Weber, Giddens (1976) mentions that individualism condemnation has been fuelled by confusion with the constricted utilitarian egoism as well as utilitarianism of the economists. In France, the debate is centred on the fate of the individualism ideals through which the French revolution was fought, notwithstanding the never ending Catholic hierocracy assaults (Giddens, 1976). As pointed out by Evans (1995), Giddens characterised modernity as being not only dynamic but also risky. In this case, the risky part is attributed to the contemporary practices like undergoing a surgery travelling in a car, which are clearly very risky. The dynamic part is attributed to innovation, creativity and inventions that undermine traditions. Giddens empathises that modernity is related to controlling the odds behind the risks, in order that the modern ‘consumer’ is safe from undue risks and offered with "treatments" in case of misfortunes. Giddens clearly demonstrates that self is transitions in lives of the individuals and is also a reflexive project (Evans, 1995). According to Giddens (1991), the project of self is opened up by modernity, but it is influenced strongly by standardising effects associated with capitalism of commodity. As acknowledged by Giddens, individuals can respond creatively while consuming commodities and the self’s reflexive project is partly necessarily an effort against commodified influences. As pointed out by Helle (2008), the individualization through surfaces as the evolutionary tendency which is integral in the mutual exchange amongst individuals. Individualization is considered by Simmel as liberation from the narrow, somewhat unsophisticated, social relationships realm which offers security due to their limited number as well as the platform for starting communication with human beings living far in the global or cosmopolitan orientation. The concept of a world humankind society, according to Simmel, is an outcome of individuality that is extended widely (Helle, 2008). Allik and Realo (2004) posit that development of agriculture resulted in more affluent societies which consequently became socially stratified and more complex. Even so, the society prescribed all norms, values, beliefs, as well as behaviours in these societies; all individuals were assigned to one’s place based on the rigid social hierarchy. However, during the Axial Age, the tensions between worldly and transcendental order, the empirical cosmos as well as religious demands generated a dualistic worldview. This process led to the emergence of the initial form of individualism. While classical religions were developing, Allik and Realo (2004) posit that the difference between the divine and the human, between nature and individual, turned out to be more visible, resulting in a self-conception that was clearly structured. This individualism, as demonstrated in Buddhism was oriented outworldly; leaving the society was the only way of achieving independence. Scores of theorists considered unlimited individualism growth as a serious threat to the society and individuals’ organic unity. In France, the individualism concept has in the past carried a negative connotation, meaning social dissolution as well as individual isolation. The majority of critics emphasise that individualism promotes social atomization that consequently results in the fading of social solidarity and leads to distrust and egoism dominance. Wolff (1950) examined individualism from Schleiermacher’s philosophical expression, that the moral task involves all specific mankind representation of the individuals. All people, according to Wolff (1950), are ‘compendium’ of mankind and they are forces’ synthesis constituting the universe. The new individualism was referred as qualitative. Simmel argues that the society and individual are already principally irreconcilable, but their antagonism can be reconciled by fashion in a provisory manner. Fashion, according to Simmel, has a peculiar feature that makes social obedience possible and simultaneously it is a form of individual distinction (Pyyhtinen, 2008). Both individual and fashion are forms through which the individuation and generalisation’s antagonistic forces compete as well as seek harmony. Individual, according to Simmel, is eventually the concept of synthesis. Simmel stresses that the 18th-century individualism was not dissolved by the 19th -century individualism permanently. Instead, the two are residing next to each other. Understanding the synthesis that exists between them appears to Simmel to be a crucial undertaking of the 20th-century. He believed that the simultaneous co-existence of the 19th century and 18th century individualisms could be seen in the contemporary metropolis. The modern metropolis, according to Simmel, provides a position for these individualisms to co-exist. Podoksik (2010) posits that the materialisation of an additional, qualitative was to overcome shortcomings associated with quantitative individualism concept. Simmel considers this emergence as a particularly modern tendency that underlined not only the individuals’ quantitative separateness from one another but also their qualitative dissimilarities. It considered all people as a unique personality and not the general form’s servant. While analysing Simmel’s concept of individuality, Podoksik (2010) noted that the concept reveals how Simmel pursued the German philosophy basic themes from Leibniz, like the tension between totality as well as individuality, or between difference and identity. But still, it demonstrates the complexity of the German concept of individuality. The qualitative individualism, according to Podoksik (2010), demonstrates two contradictory tendencies; the inclination to lay emphasis on the individual’s apartness as well as radical uniqueness; and the inclination to bring individuality back to the universe’s totality. The philosophy of Simmel contains these two contradictory tendencies. Simmel formulated the qualitative individualism notion, on the one hand. On the other, he tried to move from post-Nietzschean radical individualism into the life category which rises above the individual life. According to Watier (1993), the relativist conception by Simmel depends on subjective life and social life. This individuality representation is exhibited in Simmel's analyses on Goethe as well as Stefan George and those criticising qualitative individualism and quantitative individualism. The analysis by Simmel, as mentioned by Watier (1993, rests on the different individuality conceptions’ imaginative support of Kantian cosmopolitan individual image and the French Revolutionary. Simmel has not identified the individuality images empirically since they are part of a common knowledge. Vosooghi and Shafati (2014) insist that Simmel’s individualism theorization is more provable as compared to his other works regarding fashion, metropolises as well as the dynamic contrast between society and individuals. Individuals, according to Simmel, are a social phenomenon. While Simmel emphasises that individuals are not the absolute and ultimate element, instead it is an assembled being Giddens presumes that the late-modernity conditions are not in harmony with tradition and morality as forces shaping self and identity. A number of countries like China and Japan are offering evidence that morality inherited in tradition could have a position in these societies. Although Giddens’s interpretation of the self-condition in late-modern societies seem plausible, further analysis into his views point out that Giddens operated with certain assumptions regarding the self and these assumptions were not only factual and descriptive but also appear to connote normative views regarding the desirable way of leading an individual’s life in the contemporary societies. Simmel considered the individuality idea as a separate entity (but not full or unique) and subsequently, it is perceived as the concept of quantitative individualism. After that, it is understood uniquely and separately, but it is not yet complete. Conclusion In conclusion, this piece has explained the significance of individualism from Simmel and Giddens Perspective. As demonstrated in the essay, although Simmel uses the qualitative individuality notion to analyse the forms of contemporary individuality in the money economy and the metropolis sphere, qualitative individuality in his work connotes a philosophical individual interpretation. Simmel put more emphasis on the qualitative connotation of individuality. To comprehend this individuality, which, as mentioned by Simmel, is less strictly social, individuality must perfect and shape itself and adhere to its own laws. Simultaneously, this results in the theory of culture as well as the relationship that exists between object and subject in this theory. Giddens has pointed out that self is engaged constantly and involves adapting to the circumstances that are eternally changing. As argued by Giddens, anxiety is brought about by worrying circumstances or their threat but can simultaneously marshal novel initiatives as well as adaptive responses. Individuals, according to Giddens, seem to lack choice but have to change themselves to be able to adapt to the circumstances that are changing. The individualization though surfaces as the evolutionary tendency which is integral in the mutual exchange amongst individuals, it is considered by Simmel as liberation from the narrow, somewhat unsophisticated, social relationships realm which offers security due to their limited number as well as the platform for starting communication with human beings living far in the global or cosmopolitan orientation. Giddens considers individuality as a concept of modernity, arguing that individuality has actually been valued in every culture. References Allik, J., & Realo, A. (2004). Individualism-Collectivism and Social Capital . Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 35(1), 29-49. Evans, T. (1995). Matters of modernity, late modernity and self-identity in distance education. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 10(2), 169-180. Georgantzas, N. C., Katsamakas, E., & Solowiej, D. (2010). Giddens’ globalization: Exploring dynamic implications. Retrieved May 12, 2017, from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228583811_Giddens%27_globalization_Exploring_dynamic_implications Giddens, A. (1976). Classical Social Theory and the Origins of Modern Sociology. American Journal of Sociology, 81(4), 703-729. Giddens, A. (1991). The Trajectory of the Self. In Modernity and Self-identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age (pp. 70-108). Palo Alto, California, United States: Stanford University Press,. Helle, H. J. (2008). Sociology of Competition by Georg Simmel. Canadian Journal of Sociology, 33(4), 945-978. Podoksik, E. (2010). Georg Simmel: Three Forms of Individualism and Historical Understanding. New German Critique, 37(1), 119-145. Pyyhtinen, O. (2008). Ambiguous Individuality: Georg Simmel on the ‘‘Who’’ and the ‘‘What’’ of the Individual. Humanistic Studies, 31, 279–298. Vosooghi, M., & Shafati, M. (2014). Individualism; One's Position in Society, According to the Founders of Sociology. International Journal of Social Sciences, 4(4), 9-14. Watier, P. (1993). Simmel and the Image of Individuality . Current Sociology, 41(2), 69-75. Wolff, K. H. (1950). The Sociology of Georg Simmel. Glencoe, Illinois : The Free Press. Read More