Georg Simmel: The Essence of His Conflict Theory

Simmel (1955: 13-14) says several remarkable things about conflict (Kampf) in society. His reasoning often appears convoluted, and, just as often, quite profound. All in all, he is emphatically a precursor to all who engage in serious thinking about the place of conflict in social life these days.

He argues that conflict is inseparable from social interaction, and thus “sociation”; and is even itself a form of sociation. He sees conflict, indeed, as “one of the most vivid interactions” and, as an example of social interaction, by definition beyond the scope of social acts by the lone individual. Furthermore, conflict is not the cause of some sort of pathology of human interaction, but the resolution or ‘cure’ of such pathology.

Conflict is not, tautologically speaking for a moment, the cause of conflict – the cause of itself. Rather, Simmel sees it as both a consequence and a resolution – but of what? It is a consequence and a resolution of “divergent dualisms” – that is, of “the tension between contrasts” -- between, if you like, yin and yang, thesis and antithesis.  

His is not a deliberately Marxian conception, though he uses certain decidedly Marxian terms, such as (Simmel, 1955: 14-15):
1. "the antithetical and the convergent" (p. 14)
2. Conflict is "the synthesis of elements that work both against and for one another" (p. 14)
3. "Conflict itself resolves the tension between contrasts" (p. 14) 
4. "unity of harmony and contradiction" (p. 15)

But he is not anti-Marx. Instead, he chooses to strike his own path. The phenomenology of social life, as he has observed it, suggests to him that conflict's resolving function (effect) is triggered, ultimately, by the presence and interplay of certain “dissociating factors”: “hate, envy, need, desire” (Simmel, 1955: 13).

To him, the most likely dialectical consequence of conflict is not necessarily a Marxian sort of overthrow -- though it may turn out to be that -- but rather peace between and among the parties. It is not conflict, then, that is to be resolved when there is conflict -- since, as we have already seen, it does not cause itself. Instead, attention must in principle and pointedly be paid to the dissociating factors -- the real causes of conflict.

Viewed more broadly, the “dissociating factors” -- briefly identified above -- call to mind, and are a selection from, the seven deadly sins of the bible, namely: (1) Lust/desire/lechery, (2) gluttony/over-consumption/ selfishness, (3) greed/avarice/hoarding, (4) physical laziness/ sloth/despair, (5) wrath/hatred/anger, (6) envy/jealousy, and (7) pride/vanity (see All About God Ministries, ChangingMinds.Org The Seven Deadly Sins, Wikipedia). 

Simmel thus reverts to Christian theology for clarity about, and validation (for him) of, the causality of conflict. Consciously or subconsciously, he turns that theology, that worldview, into his conceptual scheme. 

Abraham considerably distorts all this by observing that, for Simmel, conflict is not “a disruptive temporary phase. [Instead,] peace and conflict [are] equivalent faces of social reality; neither is inherently constructive or destructive” (Abraham, 1982: 109-10). For Simmel, conflict is neither disruptive but always temporary', nor temporary but always disruptive. It is a resolving process, with, though he does not explicitly say so, a clear dialectical trajectory (or "Laws of Motion").

Harmony and conflict are neither equivalent 'faces' of social life, nor, in defined situations, always co-present in equal measure. I don't think Simmel suggests that at all, even when he defines peace as the "synthesis" (that is, the 'sociation') of contending forces. In clear dialectical motion, "interpenetration" precedes "synthesis" and prepares the grounds for it. Prior to a particular form of synthesis, as Engels would point out, there is always some kind of imbalance -- the very reason a resolution ( a negation, if you like) is sought, or seeks to impose itself, before it is in turn negated: if not here, in this web of group affiliations, then there -- or there and then.

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Note: 1. Anchoring the above interpretation is this passage:

“Conflict is admitted to cause or modify interest groups, unifications, organizations... If every interaction among men is a sociation, conflict – after all one of the most vivid interactions, which, furthermore, cannot possibly be carried on by one individual alone – must certainly be considered as sociation. And in fact, dissociating factors – hate, envy, need, desire – are the causes of conflict; it breaks out because of them. Conflict is thus designed to resolve divergent dualisms; it is a way of achieving some kind of unity, even if it be through the annihilation of one of the conflicting parties...Conflict itself resolves the tension between contrasts. The fact that it aims at peace is only one, an especially obvious, expression of its nature: the synthesis of elements that work both against and for one another. [Conflict] is roughly parallel to...the most violent symptom of a disease which represent (sic) the effort of the organism to free itself of disturbances and damage caused by it” (Simmel, 1955: 13-14).

             2. Georg Simmel lived from 1 March 1858 to 28                   September 1918.

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REFERENCES:

^{Abraham, M. Francis (1982) Modern Sociological Theory: An Introduction. (Tenth Impression). New Delhi: Oxford University Press.}

Simmel, Georg (1955) Conflict and the Web of Group Affiliations. New York: The Free Press.

Kwach Yambo: A Father's Tribute

In one of his epic songs, Jimi Hendrix sings: “The night I was born, Lord I swear the moon turned a fire-red.” He was too little to know, of course, what kind of moon there was that night. But his folks might have told him, years after the fact. More likely, it was an imagined night.

Kwach was born in the morning, and died in the night. I don’t know what kind of sky Thika had that fateful night.

He was born on September 16, 1983, under the watchful eyes of doctors and nurses, who carried out a cesarean section at Aga Khan Hospital, Nairobi. He spent his first three days on this earth in an incubator, to fight off a touch of jaundice.

He died with massive injuries to the head, trapped for hours in a car, alone, as Kenya celebrated Obama’s landing. The driver and second passenger, who survived, had long been admitted to hospital. It took the effort of the Fire Brigade to free his lifeless body. A body without life is still the body of someone we should, as a collectivity, know and feel for.

No, I am not celebrating Kwach’s death. This is a mourning moment, and a loss. I am not telling myself that he is in a better place. I am devastated by his going. I wanted him to be in this place – to keep walking this earth and overcoming adversity and realizing his dreams, as they evolved – till he was in his eighties or, better still, nineties. The unconditional acceptance of death (of loss of life), regardless of circumstance, is an example of extreme, even morbid, despair.

I wanted him to be here with his siblings and friends and his own family, and to live and grow old with and like his peers, long after his mother and I were gone.

That’s what parents dream for their children, and so for themselves. You don’t nurture them with all that tender loving care for this kind of horror. 

That’s what human progress promises. Yet he died at the hands of the very sort of technology that progress delivers, and that delivers progress.

I know that millions and millions of parents have, throughout human history, endured and continue to suffer the fate that has now befallen us, and worse.

I know that from the facts. I just don’t want to accept the facts right now; because this is personal, not statistical. This is flesh and blood, not human history. Not trending news.

The morning that news of his death reached our house, Chikka, my only daughter, rushed into the bedroom where I had gone to change, screaming: “Daddy, Daddy, we have lost Kwach!” And she told me, amid the sobs, “Sorry.” I imagine she sensed what Kwach’s loss must mean to me, the father. I was sorry for her too, and saddened by her indescribable anguish. A tragedy of unfathomable magnitude had found its way into our closely-knit and reasonably secure house.

I understand that since Kwach died, his paternal grandmother (Ny’Opeyo) has cried desperate tears for her first grandson, who is also her father.

We are, all of us, stardust, still. We are specks of impossibly distant things of light such as we see twinkling in the heavens on cloudless nights. Things which, where we will bury Kwach, I have had the sensation as a younger man that you could reach up with your very own stretched hands and grab a handful of. Theology talks of “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust”, but, like Kwach, we are only partly of this earth.

The outpouring of emotion that Kwach’s passing has wrought has reinforced the thought that the twinkling is not the property solely of distant stars, but of certain specks of dust right here on earth, too. Such as Kwach.

We are, all of us, stardust, KWACH.


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P.S.

1. You may also wish to READ THIS.

2. ADDED (Aug 20, 2015): Hear Kwach's voice, doting on his daughter (Video taken on Nov 7, 2013)