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Georg Simmel's Theory on Culture

According to Georg Simmel in the pre-modern societies the relationships of subordination and super ordination between master and servant between employer and employee involved the total personalities of individuals. As a contrast to this in capitalist modern society there is a progressive liberation of the individuals. The concept of freedom emerges and the domination of employer on employee, master on servant becomes partial. In modern societies segmentation of roles and relations occurs .An individual plays multifaceted roles and in this process escapes domination of the total kind found in pre-modern societies such as the relationship between the lord of the manor and his serf in feudal European society.

Thus individualism emerges in societies that have an elaborate division of labor and a number of intersecting social circles. But along with individual freedom in modern societies a world of objects that put constraint on them and dominate their individual needs and desires surrounds human beings. Thus according to Georg Simmel modern individuals find themselves faced by another set of problems. In modern societies individuals will be frozen into social functions and in which the price of the objective perfection of the world will be the atrophy of the human soul.