Stoetzler Durkheim ’ s and Simmel ’ s reactions to antisemitism and their reflection in their views on modern society

If one ever asked oneself what sociology is all about, one could do worse than consulting Auguste Comte’s 1822 manifesto, Prospectus des travaux scientifiques n8cessaires pour r8organiser la societ8, the Plan of the Scientific Works Necessary for the Reorganization of Society. It sketches out the historical-structural task that the new discipline, whose name Comte later popularized, was supposed to fulfil, namely to end-but-preserve—as the Germans would say, aufzuheben—the Revolution: safeguard its achievements from reaction as well as from further revolutions. Sociology would do so by separating the good bits of modernity from the bad bits. The former Comte saw as grounded in a secular, macrohistorical trend of European history and civilization, the latter in the undisciplined hubris of troublemakers led astray by metaphysical nonsense peddled by the Enlightenment, or more precisely, by the non-positivistic strand of the Enlightenment. Sociology would study and understand the laws of history and silence the metaphysical troublemakers. Sociology’s commitment to making that messy thing called society safe for modernity (the industrial-capitalist world system of nation states constituted and populated by modern individuals) remained tricky. Spanners were thrown into the machinery left, right, and centre by people who were not so positive about the positive state of society. Rather ironically, most of those who continued and developed the Comtean project of sociology did so by basing it on some of those ghastly metaphysical ideas from the Enlightenment, notably those of Immanuel Kant. Sociology, at least in France and Germany, emerged mostly as a set of differing blends of positivism and Kantian, or neo-Kantian, idealism. Even more ironic, though, is the fact that there were some admirers and followers of at least some aspects of Comte’s philosophy who were rather hostile to the progressivist, more liberal project into which positivism as sociology had morphed

thoughtofitasbeing somehow Jewish. The rejection of,orresentmentagainst, post-Enlightenment moderncivilization took thereforeoften the formofantisemitism. In Germanya nd France in the periodo ft he formation of classical sociologytwo keyevents in the history of antisemitism in particular stood out in occupying the minds of intellectuals including those whowere engaged in the process of theorizing modernsociety, the Berlin Antisemitism Dispute of 1879 to 1881 in which notables of German national liberalism reacted to the emergence of organizedforms of political antisemitism, 5 and, on amuch larger,truly national scale, the Dreyfus affair in France from 1894 to 1906, whose most widely discussed phase began in 1898 when leading intellectuals reacted to the captain's sentencing. 6 The Berlin Antisemitism Dispute centred on Heinrich vonT reitschke's expressions of supportfor the antisemitic movementwhose critics included Moritz Lazarus, an importantfigureinthe developmentofthe social sciences in Germanya nd am ajor influence on Georg Simmel, 7 and liberal notables likeM ax We ber's father Max We berSr. Treitschke's lectures were large events thatmany Berlin students with an interest in society, politics and historywould have attended. It seems safe to assume that no one in the milieu out of which classical sociologye merged in Germanyc ould have been unaware of the dispute on antisemitism, and yet the canonical textscontain practically nothing on it. The case is somewhat differentinFrance where the (in retrospect)undisputed father figure of the discipline, Emile Durkheim, was not only practically and crucially involved in the battle against the antisemitic attack on the republic but intervened very publicly with oneo fh is best-known essays into the affair," L'individualisme et les intellectuels", 'Individualism and the Intellectuals', em-ploying keyaspects of his sociologyinhands-on combat. 8 It is importanttonote, though,that even this keyt ext in the struggle with antisemitism does not even mention either Jews or antisemitism but discusses and defends one of the categories that reactionary, antisemitic Kulturkritik attacked:m oderni ndividualism.
From the perspective of ahistoryofsociological responses to antisemitism, the most obvious German counterpartt oD urkheim's L'individualismee tl es intellectuels would be Lazarus' 1880 anti-antisemitic intervention, Wash eißt national?,' Whatd oesn ational mean?' 9 In this chapter Iw ill explore al ess obvious cross-border (non-)connection that is closer in terms of its contemporaneity: Iwill tryt ob ring Durkheim's 1898 text into ad ialogue with a lecture by Lazarus' much better known student,Georg Simmel, from1896, Das Geld in der modernen Cultur,' Money in ModernC ulture' 10 ,t hat contains key ideas of his later monograph, the Philosophyo fM oney. 11 This text does not explicitly contain anything on antisemitism, either,but Iwould liketosuggest that these sociological classics can be read as responses to the type of reactionary critique of moderncivilization that underlies the antisemitism of for examplethe anti-Dreyfusards and their counterparts in Germany.
Ta lking about Durkheim and Simmel in the same breath is rather tempting also because they lived such parallel lives. Both were born in 1858, althoughat verydifferentplaces:Durkheim in the provincial town of Epinal in the Vo sges, Simmel in Berlin. Durkheim was the son of arabbi and abandoned his owninitial plan to study for the rabbinate in favour of philosophy. Simmel was aProtestant of Jewish family background and also was primarily trained in philosophy; his father was an industrialist. Both died quiteyoung in 1917 and 1918 respectively. Both were Kantians of sorts, although Durkheim was also influenced by Comte, Simmel, verydifferent, by Bergson. Durkheim's principal objective was to developa'science of morality' adequatet ot he societyo ft he Third Republic to 8E  which the 'science of social facts' was to provide crucial fundaments and support. One formativeinfluence in Durkheim's intellectual developmentwas avisit to Germanyi n1 885/6 (after he had alreadyw ritten several reviews of works by German sociologists) thatresulted in his long essayonLa science positivedela morale en Allemagne. 12 In this essayh ed iscussed positively the historism of GustavSchmollerand praised Adolph Wagner's 'organic' concept of society. The factthatW agner was aleading antisemite Durkheim either failed to pick up at this point, or must have found irrelevant. In spite of his own( comparatively mild) antisemitict endencies, 13 Schmoller was an early supporter of Simmel's career:S immel studied in the environmentt hat the young Durkheim found rather attractive.In1889 Simmel gave atalk on The PsychologyofMoney,which later fed into "Money in ModernCulture", in Schmoller's seminar on political economy. Simmel's early developmentwas shaped decisively by Moritz Lazarus, ap ioneer of what is nowc ultural anthropology, which was also an emerging interest of Durkheim. From Lazarus, Simmel learned what Adorno later recognized as his most importantcontribution, the "returnofphilosophy" to concrete subjects, things, rather than systemic speculation. 14 Lazarus had been acrucial figure in the Berlin Jewish community and, not unlikeDurkheim, a'community spokesman' and organizer of the struggle against antisemitism.Durkheim and Simmel were in 1896 and 1898 respectively at pivotal points in their careers:each had published several well-respected books, and they were both in the process of re-focusing their attention in preparationofwhat would emerge as their 'later', and perhaps most influential, works.M oreover,b oth sawe ach other as close allies in the projecto ff orming "une sociologie vraiments cientifique" 15 ,a nd Simmel had contributed, following Durkheim's invitation, one of the two programmaticarticles in the first issue of AnnØesociologique in 1898 whose editorial board he was am ember of.S immel was removed, though, from the editorial board after the first issuedue to Durkheim's disapproval of passages in Simmel's manuscript that concerned two subjects, Zionism and the concept of honourpassages which Durkheim cut without Simmel's agreement. Firstly,Durkheim did not welcome anymentioning of Zionism in the journal as he feared due to his ownJ ewishness he would automatically be perceived as asupporter of it. Sec- ondly,S immel provided a' formal' analysis of honour as an entirely socially constituted, content-wise nearly arbitrarym eans by which social circles maintain their exclusivity,a nd it seems Durkheim feared this-veryt ypically Simmelian-'formal-sociological' analysiscouldundermine the Dreyfusard defence of the captain's honour.A lthougha rguably Simmel's position is not incompatible with Durkheim's in theory, in the specific circumstances Durkheim as editor preferred to provoke Simmel's departure: la sociologievraiments cientifique had to takeaback seat when there was reason to fear it might interfere with pressing political necessities. Nevertheless, Durkheim and Simmel continued to communicate as friends and colleagues, and in particular Simmel's work on the sociologyofreligion was of greatinfluence on Durkheim's later Les formes ØlØmentaires de la viereligieuse. 16 Individualism and the Intellectuals was Durkheim's intervention in the Dreyfus affair in the periodi mmediately following Emile Zola'sf amous piece J'accuse in early 1898 when 'the affair' took on increasingly broader dimensions and more general relevancy as an exemplaryi nstance of the struggle over the right-wingassault on the modern, secular French republic. This is probably the one text that comes closest to being an explicit engagementwith antisemitism from within the canon of classical, pre-WW1 sociology. 17 Like On the PsychologyofMoney of 1889, Simmel's "Money in ModernCulture" of 1896 was an importantstep in the process of his developing the keyideas in his landmark "Philosophy of Money" of 1900. Although Simmel was-very differentinthis respecttoDurkheim-decidedly and deliberately 'unpolitical', my proposition in this chapteri st hat Simmel's text can be read as much as Durkheim's as ar efutation of antisemiticr easoning-althought here are no grounds to argue that Simmel 'intended' it to be such-and thatitprovides an at 16 Rammstedt, Durkheim-SimmelscheProjekt (see note 15), p. 448. 17 See also Durkheim's shortt ext Anti-Semitism and Social Crisis. Emile Durkheim, Anti-Semitism and Social Crisis. Translated by Chad Alan Goldberg,in: Sociological Theory26/4 (2008), p. 321-323. This is not ad eveloped theoretical text but as horto ccasional piece. Nevertheless,itclearly indicatesa'Durkheimian' theoretical perspectiveo nantisemitism. Durkheim chooses anational frame of interpretation, opposing German and Russian antisemitisms which are "chronic," "traditional," and "aristocratic" to French antisemitism which "constitutes an acute crisis, due to passing circumstances" (Durkheim, Anti-Semitism and SocialC risis, p. 322). In France, it is the "superficial symptom of as tate of social malaise": "when society suffers, it needs someone to blame," and it "naturally" uses "pariahs" "whom opinionalready disfavors" as "expiatoryvictims." Durkheim adds that "secondaryc ircumstances mayh avep layed ar ole," including "certain failings of the Jewish race." These are not in fact causes, though, as they are "compensated by incontestable virtues," and anyway, "the Jews lose their ethnic characterwith extreme rapidity."The issue is a"serious moral disturbance" thatcannot be eradicated in the shortterm, but the governmentcan remindthe public of its morality by "repress[ing]severely all incitement to hatred" and by "enlightening the masses" (Durkheim,Anti-Semitism and Social Crisis, p. 323).
least equally confidentd efense of modern, liberal civilization to Durkheim's, while also sharing some of its ambiguities.

Durkheim's Individualism and the intellectuals
Durkheim's Individualism and the Intellectuals was ar esponse to the article AprsleProcs by Ferdinand Brunetire, 18 ahighly regarded literarycriticand anti-Dreyfusard, that in turnh ad been ar eaction to Zola's J'accuse and the Manifesto of the intellectuals organized around the same time by ag roup of scholars and writers. 19 Brunetire's article had made the points thatatleast 'some Jews' contributed to the emergence of antisemitism throughthe dominantrole they allegedly played in French societyand that the army was akeystone of social cohesion and national unity, and not as HerbertSpencer had it an anachronistic survivalofbarbarism in the age of industry and commerce. It culminated in a polemic against pompous intellectuals whospread individualism and anarchy, undermining the authorityo fa rmya nd state. Brunetire was ap hilosophical rationalist whoh ad been seen as an exponento ft he positivistic tendencyi n literarycriticism,treating literaryhistoryasanevolutionaryprocess, 20 and was famous for his attacks on what he sawasZola's 'scientific materialism'.Hehad already been the focus of amomentous debate when he denounced in an article of 1895 the materialistic spirit of moderns cience, 21 advocating the alignmento f science with religion. Around this time he had becomeanadmirer of Pope Leo XIII whose Thomism and accommodationist approach to the modernw orld -such as in the 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum-must have helped makethe notion of as ynthesis of Comtean positivism and Catholicism that was then common on the French rightm ore plausible. Brunetire's position resonates with Comte's ownattacks on individualism, although in Comte's case these had been part of an anti-Protestant, rather than an anti-Jewish agenda. Durkheim's rejoinder to Brunetire is written in the spirit of what Isuggest was the alternativesynthesis of positivism with Kantian idealism. At thelevel of the intendedm eaning,i ti so bvious that Durkheim argued against clericalism and in defence of the republic'sp rofessed commitmentt o' the ideas of 1789', whose Aufhebung-realization-cum-overcoming-positivism aimed to be.A reader wholooks for the ambivalences, contradictions and fissures in the text will find most interesting,though, to what extentthe overlap between the two perspectivesproduces ambiguities in Durkheim's position thatmirrorthose in Brunetire's. To put it bluntly,the question is, how'conservative'isDurkheim's republicanism, and how'liberal' is Brunetire's antisemitism?Itisevidentthat not only 'individualism' but also 'positivism' mean in this context different things to differentp eople. Durkheim's efforti nt his text to clarifyh is understanding of the concept of 'individualism' arguably resulted from his own awareness of the ambiguities involved.
Durkheim states that the contributions by Zola and Brunetire have shifted the debate from one of facts about Dreyfus to one of 'principle' and then picks one of the issuesa ddressed by Brunetire:t he relationship between individualism and the nation. He eloquently bypasses the issue thatl ies at an intermediate level between adiscussion of facts and one of principles, namely the antisemitic character of the Dreyfus affair,which Brunetire had discussed in the first of three sections of his AprsleProcs. Durkheim implies therewith thathe understandsthe rejection of the individualism of 'the intellectuals' whoare said to be arrogant enough to question the reasoning of state and militaryhierarchyto be at the heartofthe antisemitism of the anti-Dreyfusards. He respondstothe denunciation of the 'intellectuals' and their individualism as hostile to stateand nation by turning the accusationo nthe accuser :n ot individualism but those whod enounce it are anti-national. To this purpose he constructsaconcept of individualism that is, in the methodological sense of the term, non-individualistic:not only is individualism, likeany other social fact, constituted by society, but it is also,for France at least, the decisivesocial factthat makes the national societycohere.
Durkheim presents his principal argumentright at the beginning of the text, after the two introductoryp aragraphs:" af irst ambiguity,"" une premire Øquivoque," needs to be cleared up before all else: "In order to prosecute individualism more easily, it has been confused with the narrow utilitarianism and the utilitarian egoism of Spencer and thee conomists.
[…] It is indeed an easy game to denounce as an ideal without grandeur this mean commercialism which reduces societytonothing more than avast apparatus of production and exchange, and it is exceedingly clear that all social life would be impossible if there did not exist interests superior to the interests of theindividuals. Nothing is moredeserved than that such doctrines are treated as anarchistic, and we can shakeh ands on this issue. The handshakeo ffered by Durkheim is underwritten by the shared Comtean anti-individualism thatDurkheim modifies throughhis conception of aquasisolidaristic formo f, as it were, politically correct individualism that has gone throughaKantian-idealist reformulation. Durkheim goes on to argue that the anti-Dreyfusards attack the anarchistic-economistic-Spencerian conceptofindividualism in bad faith:they must knowthat it is an irrelevancynot even held by manye conomists anymore. Durkheim probably had in mind here the Katheder-socialists of the 'historical school' around Schmoller whose historicist rejection of rationalism he had applauded earlier. 23 Durkheim argues that the anti-Dreyfusards really attack what he proposes is the actual individualism prevalentinthe French Republic which is idealist rather than utilitarian. Durkheim adds that their putting raisond ' Ø tat abovet he inviolable rights of an individual (such as Dreyfus) to fair legal processisinfactakin to the utilitarian doctrine of the greatest happiness of the greatest number which likewise fails to acknowledge the inviolabilityofindividual human rights. By contrast, the Kantian idealist individualism defended by Durkheim is one to which anotion of the generically human is sacred: "Whoever makes an attempt on am an's life, on am an's liberty,o naman's honor, inspires in us af eeling of horror analogousi ne very wayt ot hat which the believer experienceswhen he sees his idol profaned. Such an ethic […] is areligion in which man is at once the worshipper and the god.

[ …] This religion is individualistic […]." 24
Durkheim claims that individualism in this sense is not only 'a' sortofreligion but it is 'the' religion for the modernperiod: "Not only is individualism distinct from anarchy, but it is henceforththe only system of beliefs which can ensurethe moral unityofthe country." 25 It is a"truism" that "onlyareligion can bring about this harmony."However,"it is known todaythatareligion does not necessarily imply symbols and rites, properly speaking,ort emples and priests" 26 :"essentially,itisnothing other than abodyofcollective beliefs and practices endowed with aspecial authority."This authorityresults from the factthat "as soon as a goal is pursued by an entire people, it acquires, in consequence of this unanimous adherence, as orto fm oral supremacy"a nd "a religious character." Durkheim recuperates therewith the conceptofthe religious from his opponents, along with thatofthe national, arguing that individualism "has penetrated our institutions and our customs, it hasbecome partofour wholelife, […] our entire moral organization," thatis, it is central to French national culture and society. 27 Durkheim writes that "all that societies requireinorder to hold together is that their members fix their eyes on the same end and come together in asingle faith." 28 This faith, to Durkheim, is individualism;ifsome misuse individualism for egoistic ends, this provesnothing against it.
It is worth noting that Durkheim presupposes in this argumentthe existence of 'a people' (peuple) that is able unanimously to pursue as hared goal. This presupposition is reflected in the immediatelyfollowing statement, introduced with "from adifferentangle," that for "a society" (clearly used here synonymous with 'a people') to be coherent(i. e.,todefine and 'unanimously' to pursue goals) there needs to exist "a certain intellectual and moral community." Durkheim's gloss on the 'truism' is rather circular :religion (broadly understood) is needed to warrantm oral unity, but religion is also the resulto fc ommon goal-oriented action of 'a people' that in turnpresupposes the moral unitythat it is supposed to warrant. The most stable categoryinthis argument is actuallythe one that is least explicated, the 'people'.
Of religion Durkheim goes on to saythat it always changes so that "the religion of yesterdaycould not be the religion of tomorrow."Hethen asks the question what new religion can replace the old onew hich Brunetire and others are artificially trying to resurrect.D urkheim's argumenti sh ere that "the only possible [religion] can only be the religion of humanity, of which the individualistic ethic is the rational expression." Here Durkheim switches from an idealist-normativeargumenttoapositivistic-factual one:hepresents what actually is a(perfectly valid) liberal, Kantian-idealist normativeclaim-we ought 26  to promoteindividualism as the only formofquasi-religion thatmodernsociety needs-as if it was ac onclusion arriveda tb yw ay of empirical observation: individualism positively is the religion of modernsociety. This movetransforms the normative-idealist demandintoascientific insight in the law-likenecessityof ah istorical realityt hato ne should not oppose, which is in keeping with the Comtean conception of what sociologyo ughtt od o: understand the laws of historysoastoadapt human agencyt othem and sail with their winds. Durkheim's argumenthere is that societies grow and expand, circumstancesbecome more diverse and more mobile, and hence traditions and social practices need to "maintain astateofplasticityand instability,"while advanced division of labour also diversifies the contents of men's minds:" the members of as ingle social groupwill no longer have anything in common other than their humanity."The "idea of the human person (personnne humaine)i ng eneral," althoughi ti s "given differentnuances according to the diversity of national temperaments," is "thereforethe only idea which would survive,unalterableand impersonal, above the changing tides of particular opinions," 29 and "the sentiments which it awakens are the only ones to be found in almost all hearts": Durkheim's argumentn ot only collapses an ormativea rgument into an empirical one-the universalist, liberal normative ideal is posited as if it was a 'necessary' social reality anyway-but is also empirically dubious:' general humanity' is regrettably not at all the only thing modernindividuals acknowledge they share with others. Durkheim's claim thati ndividualism and the'religionofhumanity' by necessitymust become the only possible quasi-religion in the moderncontext is a nonsequitur, and anormative, not to sayrather wishful thought. His further claim that "if there is one countryamong all others in which the individualist cause is truly national, it is our own" is likewise aclaim that the Dreyfus affair itself disproved. Durkheim's keyargumentthatthe unfair treat-mentofDreyfus constitutes an unpatriotic actrests on rather shaky foundations: Durkheim fails to give acompelling reason why, as the anti-Dreyfusards believe, nationalism, antisemitism or Catholicism,oracombination of all these could not just as well, or even more effectively,f ulfil the function of being the 'religion' required by moderns ociety. Acenturya nd ab it later,w ith the resurgence of religious 'fundamentalisms' of all sorts that are in practice strongly political affirmations of religion, it seems not toofar-fetched to conclude thatquite often religion is the 'religion' of modernsociety. Durkheim's agreementwith the anti-Dreyfusards that societal cohesionmust be warranted by some sortofreligion would only work as the basisofanantiantisemitic argument if he was able to offer robust supportfor his claim that only "individualism properly understood"(to use the termT ocqueville coinedina related context)can be thatreligion. Durkheim is in breach here of one of his own justly celebrated methodological premises:j ust because it is functionally and logically needed by society, it will not necessarily come about. There is much in Durkheim's argument that Brunetire and other anti-Dreyfusards couldadopt without needing to comet ot he anti-antisemiticc onclusion that Durkheim suggests follows from it.

Simmel's Money in modern culture
Simmel's 1896 lecture Money in modernc ulture 31 starts from ar eflection on modernity( Neuzeit)i nc ontradistinction to the Middle Ages:w hile "in the Middle Ages ah uman being finds himself in compulsorym embership (bindender Zugehörigkeit)ofavillage (Gemeinde)oranestate, afeudal association or ac orporation," 32 modernity, on the one hand, has givent he personality "incomparable inner and outer freedom of movement," on the other it has given "equally incomparable objectivity" to "the material (sachliche)contents of life" to the effectt hat "the things' ownl aws( die eigenen Gesetze der Dinge)i ncreasinglyassertthemselves (gelangenmehr und mehr zur Herrschaft)" as objective laws-a notion that is not amillion miles from Durkheim's concept of the faits sociaux. Simmel describes the contradictory effects of "the money economy"thathefinds central to the modernization process and plays out its positive and negativeeffects against eachother,ending on areligious note in a(perhaps surprising) efforttoreconcile the contradictions that his lecture takes accountof. The factthat Simmel puts money rather than, say, 'divisionoflabour' or 'mode of production' at the centreo ft he modernization process puts his argument in direct competition with the Kulturkritik type of literature of the time, including manyantisemitic tracts, that tend to pointtomoney as the root of all the evils of moderncivilization. Simmel poses the question, here as elsewhereinhis work, howevilmoney really is. Althoughthere is no evidence thatSimmel deliberately 'intended' to confrontt hatl iterature, it seems reasonable to assume that his choice of focus reflects ac ertain spirit of the time to the effectt hat Simmel's argumento nm oney and modernityc an also be read as an anti-antisemitic argument, albeit in amore indirectfashion than Durkheim's. One of the main lines of reasoning in Simmel's lecture is that 'the money economy' enhances independence and autonomyo ft he person and thus is a preconditiono fm oderni ndividualismi nD urkheim's sense, but also makes possible new forms of unity. For example the "enormous successes"ofmodern trade unions have been made possible by the neutralityofmoney that"eliminates everything personala nd specific" and unites people impersonally for a course of action. "Thus when one laments the alienating and separating effectof monetarytransactions, one shouldnot forget" that money "creates an extremely strong bond among the members of an economic circle": money always "points to other individuals," so that" the modernp erson is dependento ni nfinitely more suppliers and supply sources than was the ancientGermanic freeman or the later serf." 33 Simmel asserts that money "establishesi ncomparably more connections among people than ever existed in the days of feudalism or arbitrary unification (gewillkürten Einung)t hatt he guild romantics (Associations-Romantiker)most highly celebrate." 34 Simmel makes quite explicit here whom he argues against:those wholamentalienation, celebrateancientGermanic or other village communal life, Associations-Romantiker. Simmel defendsh erem odern forms of association against Gemeinschaft (community)-style arguments. His argumentdiffers markedly fromthe wayinwhich Durkheim for example sought inspiration from medieval corporations for his proposition to create intermediaryinstitutions between state and individual in the concluding chapter of Le At the same time, Simmel seems to accept as validmanyobjections to modern culturet hatw ould also be put forward by romantic Kulturkritik such as that money produces alienation along with autonomy. Simmel makesatwo-pronged argument: "the conversion of ap ossession into money" is experienced as a liberation, as the value of that possession is not anymore "captured in one particular form" and can subsequently takea ny arbitraryf orm, but it also produces "a vapidityoflife and aloosening of its substance." 37 Simmel relates to this "the restlessness and the dissatisfaction of our times": "Thequalitativeside of objectslose their psychological importance throughthe money economy;the continuously required estimation in terms of monetaryvalue eventually causes this to seem the only valid one;moreand more quickly one lives past the specific meaning of things that cannot be expressed in economic terms. Itsrevenge, as it were, is that dark,soverym odernfeeling that the core and meaning of life slips throughour fingers again and again, that definite satisfactions become ever rarer,that all the effort and activity is not actuallyworthwhile." 38 Equivalence with money devalues even "objects themselves." Money is common; only the individual is noble; 39 because money is equal to manythings, it "pulls the highest down to the level of the lowest." Simmel backs up this argumentwith asentence thatcould be straight out of any kulturpessimistische polemic against democracy:it is "the tragedy of everylevelling process that it leads directly to the position of the lowest element. Forthe highest can always descend to the lowest, but anything lowseldom ascends to the highest level." The main theoretical pointo fS immel's lecture is thatt he ever increasing range of means thatlead to more means complicate modernlife and push life's goals ever further out of sight,culminating in thatuniversal means, money.Due to its universality and ubiquity, Simmel argues, one "cannot ignore the frequent lamentt hatm oney is the Godo fo ur times." This formulation goes back to Heinrich Heine whoa dded (in the thirty-second dispatch of Lutetia)t hat "Rothschild is his prophet." In Heine, though,t his was not a kulturkritischer 'lament' but asarcastic commentonJames Rothschild's conspicuous wealth and in particular the exaggerated respectpaid to him by the ordinarymortals who visited him in his Pariso ffice. 40 Half acenturylater,inthe differentcontext of Simmel's day, this much-quotedformulation had indeed becomea'lament' and had acquired awell-establishedantisemiticsubtext, and this seems to be what Simmel is pointing to. Simmel explores the homologyofmoney and Godinseveral directions in his efforttounderstand what makes it so plausible:God is, according to Nicholasof Cusa, "the coincidentiao ppositorum," which means that "all the varieties and contrasts of the world reach unityinHim"; the idea of Godand, even more so, "the idea that we possess Him" creates arich mixture of feelings of peace and security, and the "feelings stimulated by money have apsychological similarity to this in their owna rena." As the "equivalento fa ll values," it "becomes the centreinwhich the most opposing,alien and distantthings find what they have in common and touch eachother." 41 Money,l ikeGod,grants "elevation over the individual" and inspires "trust in its omnipotence."Likemagic, it can conjureup those lower,particular objects at anygiven momentbyre-metamorphosing into them: "This feeling of securityand calm which the possession of moneyprovides,this convictionofpossessinginitthe intersection of all values, constitutes psychologically,or, as it were, formally,the pointofcomparison that givesthe deeper justification to that complaintabout money as the Godofour times." 42 Simmel indicates here that in spite of its antisemitic subtext he aims not to dismiss the kulturkritische 'lament' but tries to discover its 'deeper' meaning.
Next, Simmel argues that the money economym akes modernl ife both abstracta nd petty: it necessitates "continuous mathematical operations in everydaylife," including the necessity constantly to reduce "qualitativevalues to quantitativeones" and anew extentof"exactness, sharpness and precision,"but also allows to calculated ifferences in value down to the penny, resulting in a