SOC101Y1 Chapter Notes -Georg Simmel, The Technique, Social Forces
Document Summary
In addition to more liberty, the 19th century demanded the functional specialization of man and his work; this specialization makes one individual incomparable to another, and each of them indispensable to the highest possible extent. However, this specialization makes each man the more directly dependent upon the supplementary activities of all others. * the psychological basis of the metropolitan type of individuality consists in the intensification of nervous stimulation which results from the swift and uninterrupted change of outer and inner stimuli. His mind is stimulated by the difference between a momentary impression and the one which preceded it. * the rapid crowding of changing images, the sharp discontinuity in the grasp if a single glance, and the unexpectedness of onrushing impressions --> these are the psychological conditions which the metropolis creates. * the metropolis exacts from man as a discriminating creature a different amount of consciousness than does rural like.
