Objectified cultural forms always lag behind the life that created them
Evidence
No sooner has a form been objectified than it seems in some measure constricting or inappropriate to the vital processes which called it into being. From this tension arise the dynamics of culture history, a result of “the deep contradiction between life’s eternal flux and the objective validity and authenticity of the forms through which it proceeds.” — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 83
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: The tension between life and form drives cultural change. — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 820; Cultural forms ossify and drift apart from the life that created them — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 837; Life and its cultural forms are fundamentally in tension — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 837 (+11 more)
Related
- Cultural forms ossify and drift apart from the life that created them (similarity 0.89)
- Each cultural form is inevitably replaced by its successor (similarity 0.88)
- Life and its cultural forms are fundamentally in tension (similarity 0.87)
- Cultures represent themselves as fixed but are always changed by history (similarity 0.87)
- The tension between life and form drives cultural change. (similarity 0.85)
- Culture as constitutive of practice retains contingency and is never finally determined (similarity 0.85)
- Culture is a constant battlefield with no permanent victories (similarity 0.83)
- Cultures do not die but become undead, persisting as mere lifestyle options (similarity 0.82)
- Form-versus-life conflict anticipates modern structure-versus-antistructure debates (similarity 0.82)
- Conceptualization inevitably imposes form on formless life (similarity 0.82)
- Even the swastika has no fixed cultural meaning (similarity 0.81)
- Cultural form-content relations offer verifiable access to past life where lived experience does not. (similarity 0.80)
- Subjective and objective culture necessarily oppose each other (similarity 0.80)
- Music led culture by giving the new palpable form, a capacity now lost (similarity 0.80)
- Mass-produced culture enforces a rigidity that exceeds any genuine historical style (similarity 0.79)