Urban reserve conceals a latent antipathy that functions as a form of socialization

Evidence

The mental attitude of the people of the metropolis to one another may be designated formally as one of reserve. If the unceasing external contact of numbers of persons in the city should be met by the same number of inner reactions as in the small town, in which one knows almost every person he meets and to each of whom he has a positive relationship, one would be completely atomized internally and would fall into an unthinkable mental condition. Partly this psychological circumstance and partly the privilege of suspicion which we have in the face of the elements of metropolitan life (which are constantly touching one another in fleeting contact) necessitates in us that reserve, in consequence of which we do not know by sight neighbors of years standing and which permits us to appear to small-town folk so often as cold and uncongenial. Indeed, if I am not mistaken, the inner side of this external reserve is not only indifference but more frequently than we believe, it is a slight aversion, a mutual strangeness and repulsion which, in a close contact which has arisen any way whatever, can break out into hatred and conflict. … Actually this latter would be as unnatural to us as immersion into a chaos of unwished-for suggestions would be unbearable. From these two typical dangers of metropolitan life we are saved by antipathy which is the latent adumbration of actual antagonism since it brings about the sort of distanciation and deflection without which this type of life could not be carried on at all. … What appears here directly as dissociation is in reality only one of the elementary forms of socialization. — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 754

Categorization

• DEFINE: Simmel’s account of urban reserve directly theorizes the mechanism behind Julius’s blasé attitude and civil inattention.
• XREF: This is the causal core of the essay: sensory overload produces reserve, which is the precursor to Lofland’s civil inattention. — connects to: Antipathy is a protective element essential to urban living. — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 285; The skill urbanites develop for public navigation is deployed defensively to avoid others; Urban life is possible because strangers remain categorically identifiable (+1 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that antipathy is not dissociation but a form of socialization inverts the commonsense reading of urban coldness.

Related

• The skill urbanites develop for public navigation is deployed defensively to avoid others (similarity 0.84)
• Antipathy is a protective element essential to urban living. (similarity 0.84)
• Urban interaction rests on a hierarchy of sympathies, indifferences, and aversions. (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Antipathy is a protective element essential to urban living. #expands (0.70) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 285
• The skill urbanites develop for public navigation is deployed defensively to avoid others #exemplifies (0.60)
• Urban life is possible because strangers remain categorically identifiable #contradicts (0.55)
• Solitary instincts conflict with the gregarious self-interest required for society #corroborates (0.50) — Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 2471