The ambivalence of indifference in modern society

Marx and Simmel

Abstract

Marx’s and Simmel’s efforts toward a diagnosis of modern society are focused on the experience of man’s estrangement from the world, from himself and from others. While each of these authors developed different theoretical concepts to describe and evaluate this situation, for both of them phenomena of indifference are the most fundamental properties of modernity. What makes Marx and Simmel particularly interesting for us today, in spite of their obviously different approaches, are the ambivalences with which they criticized these phenomena. The first part of this paper will examine the categories of alienation, reification, objectification and indifference, as well as give a short sketch of how Marx deals with this problem. It will then show how Simmel develops a description of indifference in modern society and how he tries to solve the problem of its ambivalence.