Whole groups strengthen as their parts become impersonal and interchangeable

Evidence

The reason for this change rather lies in the whole group which is composed of such subdivisions and whose requirements are autonomous and not the same as the life principles of its parts. In the measure in which the whole unit gains in content and strength, its parts lose their own significance at least in the beginning, and at the stage preceding the highest development, as we shall see presently. The parts transfer their own significance to the larger group. They are the more useful, the less they embody their own ideas and the more, as colorless parts, they receive some position and significance from their contributions to the whole. — Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, 3454

Categorization

• XREF: Directly parallels Durkheim’s mechanical vs. organic solidarity and Durkheim’s division of labor — whole strengthens as parts homogenize. — connects to: Efforts to be different routinely converge into uniformity. — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 164