The Life and Times of Post-Modernity

Keith Tester

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2002
• Print ISBN:
  9780415075459
• eBook ISBN:
  9781134859566
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism Theory
• Index: Social Sciences

'Postmodernity' is often claimed as a great transformation in society and culture. But is it? In this book Keith Tester casts a cautious eye on such grandiose claims. Tester draws on a series of themes and stories from European sociology and literature to show that many of the great statements from 'postmodernity' are misplaced. 'Postmodernity' is not the harbinger or expression of a new world. It is a reflection of the unresolved paradoxes and possibilities of modernity. The author establishes a clearly expressed and stimulating model of modernity to demonstrate the stakes and consequences of 'postmodernity'. This book uses a wealth of sources which are usually denigrated or ignored in the debates on 'postmodernity'. As such it sheds new light on old claims. But it never fails to acknowledge the profound insights of sociologists and other authors. The Life and Times of Post-Modernity is a continuation of the themes which Tester raised in his earlier books with Routledge, The Two Sovereigns and Civil Society .

Chapter 1
Bounds

Georg Simmel once began a book with words which seem to be an entirely appropriate way of beginning this book as well. He wrote that: ‘Man’s position in the world is defined by the fact that in every dimension of his being and his behavior he stands at every moment between two boundaries’ (Simmel 1971:353). Georg Simmel continued to briefly outline what he meant when he spoke of these boundaries. Perhaps inevitably he saw the boundaries which define the position of the human in the world, the boundaries which give the human a place and a direction, in terms of a series of dichotomies; higher and lower, greater and lesser, better and worse (however, it must be admitted that Simmel seems a little vague as to the basis and the precise meaning of that human being and community). But without these polar opposites and without their ability to locate the human and to make sense of activities and institutions, the world would be more or less (another dichotomy) meaningless to us. After all, ‘The boundary, above and below, is our means for finding direction in the infinite space of our worlds’ (Simmel 1971:353).

Without bounds, the human would be lacking in any ability to find direction in the world. Indeed, neither would the human be able to find a place in it. In other words, according to Simmel, boundaries are something like the precondition of purposeful activity and understanding. Without boundaries, the ‘space of our worlds’ would indeed be infinite. It would swamp us and stun us. As a corollary of that implication of boundlessness, without a definite place and a certain way of finding a direction, two of the most important possibilities which are fulfilled by boundaries, the world would be apprehended as absolutely immense. Consequently, the human would be defined as correspondingly small in relation to the infinite. The individual or for that matter the human species can only be big in the world if the limits of that world are placed firmly within fairly easy to understand conceptual and hermeneutic boundaries.

It seems to be the case that Simmel is hinting at a fundamentally aesthetic and a fundamentally Kantian view of things; without the boundaries which find place and locate the subjective agent of understanding, the human becomes small in relation to things. If you like, the human is a very small fish in a very big sea. Consequently, the things of the world are apprehended as sublime and, therefore, as possibly somewhat threatening. The boundaries not only find direction, as Simmel explicitly said, but they also lend security, hermeneutic certainty, and intelligibility. If you like, thanks to them the human is a potentially very big fish in a potentially very small sea. Boundaries make sure that the human does not have to confront the ambivalent sublimity of ‘the infinite space of our worlds’.

Now it must be admitted that Georg Simmel is more than a little bit vague as to the status of these boundaries. He takes them as given and simply seeks to know of their implications. Certainly, Simmel explains that boundaries serve to make the world and the human and individual existence in the world intelligible. But he does not seem to explain where the boundaries come from. Simmel is unprepared to enter into the problem of whether boundaries are individual representations, societal constructions, representations of species-being, or indeed, whether they are to be understood as approximating with Ideas in Reason or a priori categories. Simmel does not spell out whether the boundaries are defining of the societal or whether the societal, on the contrary, is in one way or another defining of the boundaries. Instead, he simply takes boundaries and existence in the world as given and seeks to unravel the nature of the interplay between them.

Simmel makes the claim that the boundaries and the existent (what Simmel calls ‘life’) can only be understood through their coming together (in other words, and to use the terminology of a different tradition in sociological discourse, Simmel is perfectly sensibly refusing to fall into the trap of the debate between structure and agency). Simmel is in no doubt that without boundaries, life in the world (that is, existence) would be largely barren. It would definitely be largely incomprehensible. After all,

participation in realities, tendencies, and ideas which involve a plus and a minus, a this side and a that side of our here and now… gives life two complementary, if often also contradictory, values: richness and determinacy.

(Simmel 1971:354)

Here, then, Simmel is saying that boundaries constitute so many attempts to define meanings, but the very existence and acceptance of the boundaries create firm ground (that is, given meanings), from which the social and societal can be defining of itself.

To be defined and to be self-defining are then two poles of the same continuum. Simmel writes that

these continua, by which we are bounded and whose segments we ourselves bound, form a sort of coordinate system, through which, as it were, the locus of every part and content of our life may be identified.

(Simmel 1971:354)

Or, and to put the matter another way, without boundaries a book like this, which claims to offer interpretations of the social and the societal, actually could not say anything. But books like this, which are embedded in and which seek to move a little beyond, the boundaries of the existing sociological discourse, are indeed possible. That is to highlight not only a contradiction in the status of boundaries but, much more importantly, it is to hint at why social and cultural activity is taken by the participants to be constitutive of itself (culture understood as the product of previous culture). Basically, for Simmel it is important to realize that the existence of a boundary is, in principle, the actual precondition for a social or a cultural activity which might seek to go beyond the boundary.

As Georg Simmel said, ‘the boundary is unconditional, in that its existence is constitutive of our given position in the world’ (Simmel 1971:354). But, and rather in contradiction to the unconditional, constitutive status of the boundary, it is also the case that ‘no boundary is unconditional, since every one can on principle be altered, reached over, gotten around’. Bringing these two dimensions of the boundary together, the combination of the existence of the unconditional and yet the practice of the conditional, Simmel comes to the confident conclusion that ‘this pair of statements appears as the explication of the inner unity of vital action’ (Simmel 1971:354). In other words, this is the philosopher’s stone of social and cultural analysis.

So, according to Simmel, the boundaries which give direction to existence, and which locate that existence, are the precondition of their own transcendence. This is because, without boundaries, without direction and location, social and cultural activity would itself be a simply pointless thrashing about in the world. Without boundaries, social and cultural activity would have no form; it would be nothing more than amorphous content. As such, Simmel argues that the boundaries create forms, and the forms are the basis of meaning and interpretation. This point was made quite clearly by Simmel in his important essay on ‘The Conflict in Modern Culture’. He suggests that the term culture refers to the process in which ‘life produces certain forms in which it expresses and realizes itself; works of art, religions, sciences, technologies, laws, and innumerable others’ (Simmel 1971:375).

Culture can be said to imply all of those enterprises in which life might realize itself. But culture also implies the enterprises in which life is realized in bounded forms. Cultural products are themselves forms which make life intelligible: ‘These forms encompass the flow of life and provide it with content and form, freedom and order’ (Simmel 1971:375). For example, thanks to the forms of modern art (say, cubism), we are now free to see the world in a different way. The continuity of that new way of seeing, of that new freedom (that is to say, its cultural longevity), is to some extent dependent on the extent to which the meanings and nature of cubism are established within boundaries (so that say, the cubist phase of Picasso can be identified readily and separated from his more conventionally figurative work). Freedom and order go together. Modern art established new forms which created new dimensions of life. But it could only do so if the forms of art took on a status independent of life (expressed in the principle of ‘art for art’s sake’).

But whilst it is necessary to emphasize this dialectical relationship between culture as form and life as activity (life as the transcendence of boundaries), the implied permanence of the boundaries means that they stand apart from the activity which in principle constitutes them. Certainly, the boundaries create the space and the ground for social and cultural activity. But they can only perform those functions of the intimation of hermeneutic confidence if they are themselves to some extent taken for granted. The bounded forms are fixed; they establish the meaning of life. The boundaries make life meaningful. But, and this is a very important point, the very meaningfulness of life as something with a location and most significantly a direction (i.e. life as going somewhere other than here), implies the flow of life over permanent boundaries. That is, life is a process and a going beyond of the time and place fixed in forms. In relation to the hard and fast boundaries which make life intelligible, life is fluid.

The contradiction between fixation and fluidity is the essence of the conflict of modern culture which Simmel announced. Once again, Georg Simmel puts the matter very well:

These forms are frameworks for the creative life which, however, soon transcends them. The bounded forms acquire fixed identities, a logic and lawfulness of their own; this new rigidity inevitably places them at a distance from the spiritual dynamic which created them and which makes them independent.

(Simmel 1971:375)

Form and life become distinct simply because life goes on whereas the forms established by the boundaries necessarily tend towards a degree of fixation. As such, the boundaries which make life intelligible are apprehended from the point of view of life as actually or potentially restraining. They are certainly understood as actually or potentially restrictive of freedom. As such, the boundaries are interpreted as manifesting tendencies towards reification.

An example of this dialectical conflict between life and form, between boundaries and transcendence, can be extracted from Georg Simmel’s discussion of the boundaries of the form of time. Simmel makes the point that with the concept of time, life is divided into a series of bounded spheres called the past, the present and the future. Through time, life is given a direction; a before and an after, a greater and a lesser. Consequently, life is also harnessed to notions of history and process. Without the direction lent by the boundaries of time (yesterday, today, tomorrow), life would simply be a permanent and inescapable folding back of the same. Moreover, the bounded form of time operates in such a way that the label of reality can only be applied to those conditions and relationships which are of the present. But as Simmel explains, ‘The present, in the strict logical sense of the term, does not encompass more than the absolute “unextendedness” of a moment. It is as little time as the point is space’ (Simmel 1971:359). In other words, the precise moment of the present is little more than a pinprick in a far greater canvas. The present is always here and now (it is something like the sense which Eliot tried to grasp in his poem Little Gidding, when he reduced the world to the ‘Now and in England’). But as soon as the present is conceived of as a moment in time, the situation changes rather a lot. Then, the present ‘denotes merely the collision of past and future, which two alone make up time of any magnitude, that is real time. But since the one is no longer, and the other not yet, reality adheres to the present alone’ (Simmel 1971: 359).

According to Georg Simmel then, time can be understood as a series of boundaries which can create the space for the identification and imposition of meaning in the world. Through the form of time, life is something which is intrinsically connected to process and to change. But, of course, whilst time makes sense of existence, that existence is not itself fully amenable to the rather mechanical rigidity of the boundaries. Once again, Simmel is trying to make the point that life actually transcends whatever boundaries might be applied to it. Whilst the form of time operates in such a way as to imply that reality is something only of the present and, therefore, itself somewhat outside of time (to some degree we are always ‘Now and in England’), life means that reality is applied also to the past and to the future (by way of a simple example: today I know of the reality which is my yesterday).

In other words, there is a contradiction, a cultural conflict, between the formal status of reality as the fixed present, and the lived status of reality as inherently fluid. Simmel says of the fixed real: ‘The subjectively lived life will not adjust to it. The latter feels itself, no matter whether logically justified or not, as something real in a temporal [i.e. fluid] dimension.’ Simmel continues to provide an example of the conflict between the form and life. He says that everyday speech understands by the phrase ‘the present’, ‘never the bare punctuality of its conceptual sense’. Rather everyday usage is ‘always including a bit of the past and a somewhat smaller bit of the future’ (Simmel 1971:359).

Through the example of time then, it is possible for Georg Simmel to argue that life is transcendent in relation to the forms, the boundaries which make that life make sense. Indeed for Simmel, if life is not understood as transcendental, if it is not supposed that it overflows static boundary markers, culture would be experienced as an overwhelming oppression and life itself would be hardly worth living. The very fact that we can speak of boundaries as items of interest is taken by Simmel as a proof of the ability to go beyond boundaries, know them for what they are and thus make the world anew. But of course, the opportunities for global reconstruction are rather limited since, to know of the possibility of making the world for ourselves, we actually have to stand within bounds. ‘Every limit is…transcended but of course only as a result of the fact that it is set, that is, that there exists something to transcend’ (Simmel 1971:358). The inside and the outside, the form and its transcendence cannot at all be separated. Rather, they only make sense if they are understood and analysed as the partners of a dialectic. As Simmel said, ‘That we do not simply stand within these boundaries, but by virtue of our awareness of them have passed beyond them—this is the sole consideration which can save us from despair over them, our own limitations and finitude’ (Simmel 1971:358).

Here, when Simmel suggests that our ability to transcend the boundaries is more or less the only thing which saves us from a desolate despair over our imprisonment by them, there is more than a hint of panic. After all, ‘life can express itself and realize its freedom only through forms; yet forms must also necessarily suffocate life and obstruct freedom’ (Simmel 1971:391). Simmel knows the analytic and the intellectual case that life should be possessed of the ability to transcend the boundaries which give it direction and meaning (and which thereby seek to pin it down). But he is also aware of the actual case that the boundaries are increasingly apprehended as ossifications and reifications which are able to operate as extremely efficient prisons.

Whilst form and life should operate together in a dialectical conflict which nevertheless implies some creative synthesis, form and life in fact seem to move apart. The form defines life and as such, life is denied the ability to be defining of itself. Simmel knew that ‘although these forms arise out of the life process, because of their unique constellation they do not share the restless rhythm of life, its ascent and descent, its constant renewal, its incessant divisions and reunifications’ (Simmel 1971:375). The boundaries are understood as increasingly tending to deny the legitimacy of the existence of that which is defined as incomprehensible, whereas life tends to involve the production of those incomprehensible things. Simmel’s panic revolves around the possibility that eventually the inherent incomprehensibility of life will be entirely bounded, entirely overcome.

Simmel feels that he knows the truth of social and cultural reality. Life is actually imprisoned. Hence, what should be the cause of hope easily edges over into a cause for despair. This is perhaps one of the central messages which is communicated by Georg Simmel’s work on the social and the cultural effects of money. In Simmel’s interpretation, the money-based economy, and the use of money as a symbol of value, has its home in the modern metropolis. The impact of money, just like the impact of the metropolis itself, on what exists prior to it is quite revolutionary. According to Simmel, ‘Money is concerned with what is common to all: it asks for the exchange value, it reduces all quality and individuality to the question: How much?’ (Simmel 1950:411). In other words, money has the effect of establishing form over life.

Money is understood by Simmel to be both a product and a representation of social activity in complex urban societies which are characterized by a division of labour. Money emerges out of a need to oil the wheels of life and exchange in the city, but instead of being a simple means, money emerges as something like an independent end. Instead of widening the milieu of life it actually narrows down boundaries quite dramatically. As such, money is a rational form which not only bounds life but which indeed goes so far as to imprison life by attempting to define it (the knowing of the price of everything and the value of nothing, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde). Consequently a conflict appears. ‘All intimate emotional relations between persons are founded in their individuality, whereas in rational relations man is reckoned with like a number, like an element which is itself indifferent. Only the objective measurable achievement is of interest’ (Simmel 1950:411).

Moreover, Simmel evidently could see little or no realistic reason to hope for a transcendence of those restricted and restricting boundaries. It would rather seem that in the face of the money economy, Simmel’s dialectical hope was somewhat called into question. After all, money constitutes a web of objectivity. It is involved in every urban, modern exchange relationship. Consequently therefore, the emotional or moral bonds are left virtually nowhere. Money as a system stands above the urbanized human and individual; it confronts her or him as a reality in itself. Indeed, ‘since money measures all objects with merciless objectivity, and since its standard of value so measured determines their relationship, a web of objective and personal aspects of life emerges which is similar to the natural cosmos’ (Simmel 1990:431). That similarity resides in the fact that both money and the cosmos are perceived and understood as being entirely cohesive and continuous milieux. Moreover, for Simmel both money and the cosmos are similarly understood as obeying the laws of causality.

With his study of money, Simmel is making and illustrating the point that the boundaries which locate the societal and which give it some kind of direction, can be established and reified to such an extent that they cease to be the framework of human and social freedom. Instead, they come to possess the kinds of properties which are more usually associated with natural forces. They restrict freedom by restricting life and by defining its nature. Consequently, ‘The individual has become a mere cog in an enormous organization.’ This organization, which encompasses the money economy, the city, the division of labour (that is, this organization which encompasses all those things which reduce life to questions of objective calculation), puts beyond the boundaries of the societal and the cultural ‘all progress, spirituality, and value in order to transform them from their subjective form into the form of the purely objective life’ (Simmel 1950:422). In many ways, Lukács’s analysis of reification can be read as an echo of themes from Simmel deflected through Marx. However, for Lukács’s own, fairly mean, assessment of the significance of Georg Simmel, see Lukács 1991.

Now, Georg Simmel’s reflection on the conflict in modern culture is profound and, in many ways, brilliant. It is interesting and demands scrutiny on its own terms. However, what is perhaps even more interesting is the extent to which the story told by Georg Simmel is so deeply insinuated in the consciousness of the modern. It might even be said that with Simmel, it is possible to find one of the clearest expressions of one of the most important myths of European modernity. Stories which have very similar narratives to that told by Simmel pepper modernity (although this is not to deny certain very profound ontological and moral differences. The stories are very different at the deeper epistemological levels, but as simple narratives and as myths they do betray major similarities. As myths of modernity they say comparable things). Karl Marx’s discussion of the fetish character of the commodity in capitalist relations of production can be read as a reflection on the ability of ossified cultural forms to become defining of existence and independent of it (Marx 1938). A somewhat less than entirely hopeful version of the myth-story can also be found in Edmund Husserl’s important ‘Vienna Lecture’.

According to Edmund Husserl, the European spirit was in a deep crisis by the middle of the 1930s. The crisis was a result of the development and establishment of naturalistic science. That science had drawn a sharp distinction between the natural, which was subjected to technical, objective methods of enquiry, and the subjectively meaningful life-world which was simply pushed off the agenda of those things which could be known. In other words, Husserl is approaching the argument that the investigation of th...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• The Life and Times of Post-Modernity
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Bounds
• Chapter 2: Identity
• Chapter 3: Nostalgia
• Chapter 4: Technology
• Chapter 5: Responsibility
• Chapter 6: Others
• Chapter 7: Conclusion
• Bibliography