Sociability’s democratic reciprocity fails across different social classes

Evidence

If one expresses this not in terms of the impulse but rather in terms of success, the principle of sociability may be formulated thus: everyone should guarantee to the other that maximum of sociable values (joy, relief, vivacity) which is consonant with the maximum of values he himself receives. As justice upon the Kantian basis is thoroughly democratic, so likewise this principle shows the democratic structure of all sociability, which to be sure every social stratum can realize only within itself, and which so often makes sociability between members of different social classes burdensome and painful. But even among social equals the democracy of their sociability is a play. — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 377

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Lofland’s stranger categorization and to class-stratified public-space navigation in the essay’s Julius material. — connects to: Objective status markers are excluded from pure social interaction — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 375; Sociability among equals is an artificial stylized game, not a return to natural self — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 378; Social generalization, though distorting, is what makes social relations possible — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 177 (+7 more)

Related

• Sociability among equals is an artificial stylized game, not a return to natural self (similarity 0.85)
• Objective status markers are excluded from pure social interaction (similarity 0.82)
• Social generalization, though distorting, is what makes social relations possible (similarity 0.81)
• Differentiated schooling reproduces rather than abolishes class divisions (similarity 0.80)
• Pretended sociable equality is art-like play, not a lie, until reality intrudes (similarity 0.80)
• Bourgeois democracy renders invisible the class operation that produces consent (similarity 0.80)
• Identical interaction forms recur across radically different social groups (similarity 0.79)
• Casual sociability perpetuates the injustice it seems to soften (similarity 0.79)
• Sociability has upper and lower thresholds for individual input (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Social generalization, though distorting, is what makes social relations possible #qualifies (0.60) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 177
• Micro-level symbolic encounters carry relative autonomy from the social structure #complicates (0.60)