On The Cultural Conflict In The Horizon Of Simmel's Philosophy Of Money

Monetary economy promotes the social division, gives birth to the spirit ofself-responsibility of market-subject, which led to the awakening of the individual; whileat the same time, social division are also contributed to the social integration in functions,which in turn formed one-sided functional dismemberment and domination on individual.From the view of the philosophy of culture and the philosophy of life, Simmle sawthrough the undergoing of modern individuals and considered that this is an inherentconflict in culture itself. In Simmel's words, culture as a human creation, it should be theway and mean to enrich, and to cultivate individuals, which exist for the perfect of maneventually. But in modern society, objective cultural divorced from the control of thecreator more and more, and it was increasingly becoming an independent, oppressive andalien power which was opposed to man. This is what Simmel called the cultural conflictbetween objective culture and subjective culture.Then, how to understand the cultural conflict? In this paper, based on Simmel's"philosophy of money", reference to his philosophy of life, philosophy of culture,sociology and other related works at the same time, in accordance with the order of thelogic of deduction, we will study Simmel's theory of cultural conflict from the followingaspects.First: the foundation of cultural conflict. Simmel believes that cultural conflict isrooted in life itself. Life is the process of generating, moving, and overtaking, and it mustappear in a certain forms, while every form is bound to be replaced by a new form. Lifeimpulse will not be the crystallization in any form of life. This confrontation between lifeand its form is the original contradiction. Life and its forms are both opposite andinterdependent which exists in an individual, and there is no tendency to separate betweenthem. When the forms appear as "socialized forms" before the individual, the individual's life-force would become powerless, because these socialized forms are generated from theinteraction between people, and consequently they are creations of groups. Therefore,when the socialized forms are generated, the seed of confrontation and separation betweensubjective culture and objective culture are buried.Second: the social dynamics of cultural conflict. The opportunity of era wasneeded while the inner contradiction of culture comes into being in social life, namely, theemergence of a modern monetary economy. Society was promoted by money to divisionand integration, and gradually it became an organism, thus individuals becoming one of itscomponents. The third part of this paper from the perspective of the monetary nature,explains why money can be the driving force to form the structure of social structure.Because money as a general medium of exchange, it has the characteristics without any ofidentity and content, as a result, it can play an intermediary function, becomes the "joint"and "blood" of society, and play the function of division, integration and structure insociety, which led to the formation of modern society.Third: the real logic of cultural conflict generated in modern society. The fourthpart of this paper, from the analysis of the inner contradictions in changes of cultural form,spreads completely the real logic in the process of that the division of labor and moneypromoted the cultural conflict into reality. The division of labor promoted the separationand conflict between objective culture and subjective culture, led to the expansion ofobjective culture at the cost of the damage and suppression to individual's personalintegrity. This process was inextricably intertwined with the development of monetaryeconomy. Money is not only a facilitator of the division of labor, but also as the mostgeneral media and means which help the products enter the links of exchanging andconsuming, thus, it become an enforcement of objective logic.Fourth: the modern experiences in the cultural conflict. Money as a socialdynamics, not only in the macro level promotes the formation of a cultural conflict, but also in the micro level impacts the spiritual feelings of individual. That is a variety ofmodern experiences: the survival state of atoms; purpose was overcome by means; valuewas distorted, only money in eyes; expert at intellectual calculation while emotiondeclining; the hollowing freedom.Fifth: the reaction of individuals who live in the cultural conflicts. Facing with thesuppression on personality from the objective culture, as well as the indifferentrelationship among people under the monetary economy, modern individuals respond withcomplying and resistance, such as the reserved indifference, chasing fashion, indulging inentertainment, and keen to adventure and so on. However, in the view of Simmel, theseexternal resistances seemed only the natural reaction, which did not change theembarrassment of their situation. Therefore, Simmel hoped to realize the spiritual internalintegration in aesthetic activities and the subjective religion. Of course, Simmel's spiritualsalvation program has its limitations.Sixth: cultural conflict and the plight of modernity. Simmel's cultural conflicttheory is essentially a path of interpretation of modernity. The last part of this paperthrough the comparison of thoughts in modernity of Simmel, Marx and Weber, would liketo deepen the understanding of Simmel's theory of cultural conflict, and analyses the wayout of the plight of modernity, as well as analyses the modernity in the context of China,and hope to get some valuable inspiration from the Confucian culture.