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Georg Simmel’s political thought: Socialism and Nietzschean aristocratism

“…), in the ‘ideal of social-eudaemonistic continuity’ (Simmel, 1892/1989: 352; cf. Lichtblau, 1996: 111, fn. 66; Köhnke, 1996: 319f.…”

“…In Simmel’s war writings, too, the elements of the political thinking outlined above are present at central points. Thus, ‘like many of his contemporaries, he places the outbreak of war in 1914 in the closest possible relationship to the programme of a revaluation of all values proclaimed by Nietzsche and his expectation of the advent of a new man ’ (Lichtblau, 1996: 124).…”

“…On the whole, the ‘increase in nervous life’ triggered by the rapid transformations, which Simmel perceptively diagnosed as the ‘age of nervousness’ (Radkau, 1998; Ullrich, 2014) in 1903 in ‘Die Großstädte und das Geistesleben’ (Simmel, 1903/1995: 116), was perceived by educated bourgeois intellectuals and scholars as less a social crisis than a cultural ‘decay’ and profound ‘ cultural crisis ’ (Drehsen and Sparn, 1996; Lichtblau, 1996: 13ff. ; Merlio, 2010) – a view that was reinforced by the affirmative reception of Friedrich Nietzsche’s cultural critique.…”

“…If Simmel’s political thought and normative positions have been dealt with at all, then, apart from his ideas on Europe, the nationalist statements he made in connection with the First World War have been in the foreground (see among others Joas and Knöbl, 2008: 186ff. ; Leck, 2000; Lichtblau, 1996: 392–419; Watier, 1991: 167–206). One of the few authors to have elaborated the core idea of Simmel’s political thought is Köhnke (1996).…”

“…has also convincingly demonstrated that the ‘individual law’ is the guiding principle of Simmel’s work and even of his life, but he has related this primarily to the sociological, increasingly life-philosophical oeuvre, not systematically – as will be done in the present study – to Simmel’s political-normative positions. In order to bring Simmel’s political position of ‘aristocratic individualism’ together with the ‘individual law’ and the related Nietzsche reception, in addition to Köhnke’s work, Lichtblau’s (1984, 1996) research on Simmel and Nietzsche is particularly relevant. Based on this, I will show at the end of the article (section 4) that there is a considerable affinity between Simmel’s and Weber’s political and normative standpoints, due to the shared educated bourgeois ideal of personality, which – condensed in the theorem of the ‘individual law’ – is essentially shaped by the Nietzsche reception that was widespread among sociologists at the time (see Baier, 1982; Fleischmann, 1964: 201).…”