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.

"Weaving is Digital" ~ Teshome Gabriel and Fabian Wagnuster

QUOTE: "In fact, despite the newness often attributed to computer technology, much of its vocabulary, as well as that of the internet, draws on relational concepts borrowed from back-strap weaving. Terms such as texture, pattern, layering, links, nodes, sampling, net, network, web, web weaver, and threads belong to a lexicon employed in both weaving and computing. On a structural level, they both rely on the use of crossing, interweaving lines" ~ Teshome Gabriel and Fabian Wagnuster

Cohen on Changing the Sacred Rite of Peer Review

Patricia Cohen had an interesting piece in a very recent issue of New York Times. Essentially, she reports that a "trailblazing" experiment is under way, particularly in the humanities, on alternative ways of vetting scholarly works for publication in journals, and even books, that were traditionally peer-reviewed. All of this assault on the citadel, which remained essentially 'unassailable' during the second half of the twentieth century and even farther back, is thanks to the wider spaces and resources increasingly made available by the web to both sides of the publishing divide -- the publisher and the (would-be) published -- as well as the digital divide itself.

In this new dispensation, the power to pass judgment on the quality and publishability of a scholarly submission is to be devolved well beyond small rings of anonymous experts (peer reviewers) to online "brown-bag" sessions -- a shifting kind of e-brownbag community, if you like -- in which as many experts and apprentices ('grad students') with "the time" can equally participate.

There are a number of reasons why scholars in the developing world would view this new trend with even more interest than she probably imagines when she writes:

"Clubby exclusiveness, sloppy editing and fraud have all marred peer review on occasion. Anonymity can help prevent personal bias, but it can also make reviewers less accountable; exclusiveness can help ensure quality control but can also narrow the range of feedback and participants. Open review more closely resembles Wikipedia behind the scenes...".

Still, as Cohen notes, this "open-door policy" poses some dangers:
1. Peer review would turn into some kind of "American Idol" spectacle [Now, only a select few pick the idols: who are typically American in American publications, and European in European ones].
2. Reviewers might not be as, at once, incisive and 'blunt' in public as they have been in private, working "blindly" [Which was a good thing].
3. Comments might not be as "comprehensive and conceptual" as they have been, and instead become "short and episodic" texts, fired at "warp speed" [Which, putting the speed aside, would be 'degenerate'].
4. 'Know-nothings' would rule the process [Which would be a terrible blow to professionalism and disciplinary excellence].

Read more here

A Book You Can, So To Speak, Burn

Yesterday afternoon, as I was going through an oft overlooked section of my limited bookshelf space at home, I came across a book I had bought over a decade ago, at the then price of Kshs. 2,300/-. It is a 1993 paperback, a Ziff-Davis publication, titled "PC Learning Labs Teaches cc: Mail". This cc:Mail (ver 1.1) probably took several years of marketing and trading to reach the Nairobi bookshop in which I had found it.

My first reaction, after perusing it, was to throw it in the waste-paper basket, painful as that (nay, the very thought of it) was going to feel. And so I did. On second thoughts, however, I retrieved it -- just a few steps after I had, with seeming finality, dumped it. It was too good-as-new to throw away just like that. Should I do so without a thought -- without a "theory" to accompany the act? Wasn't there need for a ritual conversation about its historicity -- its once-upon-a-time pride of place (or, now, lack thereof) -- in the scheme of things, such as we are given to see?

Of course I knew that the paper (the book's holistic body-part) was recyclable, by virtue of which fact it may happily go. But the book's "finishing" provoked feelings of doubt and touchable regret -- a countervailing keeper's dream of endless, unperturbed possession (of that which one, at this unspeakable moment, wished to be finished with). I wanted to be sure.

But what of the ideas in the book that ultimately made it the book that it essentially was? What error would I, really, commit this late afternoon by letting go? There was nothing to stop the ritual "burning", but I wanted to be sure.

And so I granted a reprieve, which has run into today. Here's what I have concluded. This book is archaic, and was almost from the day I bought it. There is not an idea in it, no iota of knowledge worth preserving -- except perhaps the knowledge of it, and its very presence, as a symbol: of the total absence of knowledge of any practical or irreplaceable value, and of the virtual deadness of the procedures which it continues, in these changed times, to describe and prescribe.

It was designed, when DOS still held its ground and floppies were forever, principally as a LAN email software for windows, with some capacity for extranet and global connectivity. Events have overtaken it. From Wikipedia,we note the following facts, including one saving grace:

LAN based e-mail technology was rendered obsolete by client/server e-mail systems such as Lotus Notes and Microsoft Exchange. The final version of cc:Mail, cc:Mail 8.5 was released in 2000.
October 31, 2000: cc:Mail withdrawn from the market.
January 31, 2001: All cc:Mail development ceased.
October 31, 2001: cc:Mail telephone support ceased.
Despite its having been discontinued, a small number of customers continue to use cc:Mail and the product continues to be commercially supported by Global System Services Corporation.

In the age of global, web-based email services such as Gmail and Yahoo, cc:Mail is gone, gone and gone -- except for a few diehards who are not about to change the world.

So this cc: Mail book of mine can burn, baby! There are books you can throw away, books you can "burn", with a clear conscience -- without invoking Thoth's name and without fear of him. But, as swords turn into ploughshares, so will this book recycle into some other, unrecognizable, paper thing -- in which the very memory of it is obliterated. And yet I don't know what path it will follow to those imagined ends, after my last act (after that final curtain) at the basket. Or perhaps there will be no pathos to talk of, as pressure mounts to preserve this thing as forensic evidence of that which I speak of.