Selina+Valles+Essay+Review

In Georg Simmel’s essay of “Group Expansion and the Development of the Individual”, he explained that an individual’s personality is influenced from the group that he is included in and that individuality only goes as far as it is in relation with group expansion. He explained, “Individuality in being and action generally increases to the degree that the social circle encompassing the individual expands” (p. 300). As a certain group tends to grow, it will eventuality bring about more opportunities or “social differentiation” (300). As groups grow either similarly or in opposite directions, they will reach a point in which they become similar. Growing groups will give way to differentiation within those groups or specialization. In time, regardless of the relationships between subgroups, they eventually become similar due to the fact that “ After all, the number of fundamental human formations upon which a groups can build is relatively limited” (p.300). In past times, equality among workers only lasted to a certain degree. With every person working in a group for the same purpose and same job, it left out the opportunity for people to be good at whatever they did because there was no competition in the system. Simmel gave an example of guild workers (301). The production of the worker was limited to what all the guild workers had achieved. In such a way, the master only sold what his workers had produced instead of the most he could possibly produced which limited the guild master’s business to a smaller business. This equality among the guild workers finally was dissolved and inequality occurred. The workers began to specialize in their work. Whoever could produce the most and at the same rate of quality did well. Now, what the master guild man produced was influenced by his potential of producing. The guild workers were in beginning at a stand still in what was produced due to the fact it kept equality among businessmen. Later on, however, it brought about freedom to competition and the business expanded. A similar situation occurred in Simmel’s example of the serfs (302). The serf had worked in property that was not his own. The owner and laborer were working for the same goal. The serf never could call the land which he worked his own. When finally the system dropped the owner and the serf became different, their relationship became dependent to one another. Simmel went to say that the size of the group in which we are involved in influences our individuality. The smaller the social circle we are in the more restriction we have on our individuality. A large group gives people more of an opportunity to grow and form different personality without beginning judged as much. This is due to the fact that in a larger group many different subgroups tend to form while in a smaller group the growth is limited. People in smaller setting tend to be closely tied to family and the people that are around them. Freedom to develop individuality is limited to how the rest of the people in the group see it. Even so, Simmel explained that a small group lacks in individual freedom but as whole it practices individuality from the rest of the other groups (303). On the hand, the larger group provides personal individuality, freedom, but our “uniqueness” as a whole is limited (303). His example of the Quakers gave a good explanation. The Quakers are different from the rest of society and have uniqueness as a whole group, but as far as individual family matters or just in the personal freedom of individuality it is limited and guarded. With the group increasing and subgroups getting more differentiated our personal individuality increases as well, but it also changes our freedom of wants because it is limited. We can decide how we want to be or act but our options of who we may want to be in limited in the sense that it can be limited to what is out of our list of choices. Whatever our choice is it is probably going to be what the collective is doing or people in our group. So, we may think that whatever we chose is out of freedom to choose whatever we want, but in reality, it is chosen by our group. Thus, our individual freedom is limited; we choose only to the given choices that are present by the whole group. Discussion questions: Is it possible to break out of the limited freedom of individuality and attain total freedom of personality? In what ways could this process of become free individual lead to? From the guild merchants till now, what will people start to head toward? Do you think we have reached a point where people believe they are free to be who they want to be or what radical direction could people go for?