Functional differentiation frees individuals from role-dictated behavior

Evidence

To be sure, the organs bind each group element to themselves and thus to one another; but the decisive point is that the direct interactions that preceded this system drew the totality of a human being into special achievements that required disproportionate expenditures of energy. He who is not a judge for his whole life long, but only when the community is called together, not only is inhibited in his actual functioning, but is also encumbered in the execution of the judicial office by inappropriate conceptions and interests, in a manner entirely different from the professional judge. In contrast, he is only involved with the court in an advanced situation when his whole interest is really engaged in it. As long as each head of a household is a priest, he must function in that capacity whether he feels like it or not; but once there is a church with a professional priest, he enters it only when he feels the urge and thus really has his heart in it. — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 708

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Differentiation of roles from serfdom enabled spatial mobility and distant relations — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 602; Social consensus precedes individual competence in judgment — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 268; Human armies and social insects solved the same weapon trade-off by role specialization — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 133 (+10 more)

Related

• Law frees interactions from face-to-face control, enabling unconsidered specialist conduct (similarity 0.83)
• Social types can embody an all-dominating orientation to the world (similarity 0.81)
• Functional differentiation makes social structures contingent and permanently revisable (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Human armies and social insects solved the same weapon trade-off by role specialization #exemplifies (0.75) — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 133
• Individuality emerges from the layering and clash of overlapping social types #corroborates (0.65) — Janet Burroway; Elizabeth Stuckey-French; Ned Stuckey-French, Writing Fiction, Tenth Edition, 284
• Activity-based intelligence replaces identity with behavioral templates as targeting basis #exemplifies (0.50)
• Social types can embody an all-dominating orientation to the world #qualifies (0.40) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 157
• Individual motives become social only through forms of mutual interaction #expands (0.35) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 194
• Social consensus precedes individual competence in judgment #expands (0.30) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 268