Simmel and "The Crowd" - An Observation of Mass Culture

            Georg Simmel, a 19^th century German sociologist and philosopher, states at the end of his essay, The Metropolis and Mental Life, “It is not our task either to accuse or to pardon, but only to understand.” This observational, almost passive, stance is easily assigned to works of art, historical events, and modern life. By viewing The Crowd (1928), it’s easy to see why Simmel would make the observations that he does regarding mass culture. The film’s protagonist, John, is the epitome of the metropolitan man that Simmel describes. Throughout the story, John and his wife Mary personify the psychological, economic, and revolutionary effects that a metropolis can have on its residents.

            The psychological impact of a metropolitan lifestyle is not insignificant. Living in a crowded, face-paced world activates much more nervous stimulation than a quieter, small-town life does. This over-stimulation of the brain, Simmel asserts, leads to exhaustion, which, in turn, leads to a numbness of feeling at all. Our protagonist moves to the big city in order to make a name for himself, but finds it much more challenging than he thought. When the clock strikes five at his cookie cutter-type office, the men make a mad dash for the locker room, a mad dash downstairs, where they wait for their women who are making mad dashes out of their office buildings, so that they can all run onto the trolley and get on with their exciting night. It seems that during this sequence the frames per second are increased a bit. Whether or not that’s true, it sets the tone for the hectic world that John finds himself in. This high activity level leads John and his friends to live lives run by intellect. Simmel notes that in a small town, people rely on deep emotions and personal relationships. Because the city life is not conducive to these types of relationships, the brain is valued above all else here. When John’s friend asks him to go out, he initially declines, blaming a need to study. His friend uses logic to convince him to come. He meets Mary and they hit it off. The night escalates very quickly. John, the metropolitan man, is seeking more excitement, more stimulation, and the evening ends with John proposing to Mary and Mary accepting. This need to hurry up and do something big causes them to get married perhaps before they were ready to. Years go by, they fight, they make up, children are born. Throughout, however, John’s attitude about life, about Mary, and about himself begins to change. He fades quickly from an excited city-lover to a hardened, blasé spectator. He has filled his life with so many big and exciting things that nothing seems big and exciting anymore. This is showcased beautifully when he and his family go to the beach. Mary is frustrated, the kids are somewhat out of control, and John never puts his ukulele down.

            This cold, emotionless state reflects the economic model of the time. In 1903 when The Metropolis and Mental Life was published, there were still many farmers who bartered for goods – true even at the release of the film 20 years later. In cities, though, all exchanging of goods were taking place with currency. This removes the intimacy created between people by use of a direct supply and demand relationship. In the film, John and Mary struggle financially. Their first home is a studio apartment with barely enough room for the two of them. John claims multiple times in the film that he’s waiting for his ship to come in and then they will have all the nice things they need. He eventually gets an $8 raise, but has two children which doesn’t really put them in a better situation. When he finally does sell an ad slogan, receiving the $500 payment is the happiest day of his life. He takes no pride in the product produced, nor seems to care about its impact on others in his community. Because they have the “cold, hard cash” everything in their world seems to be falling into place as both Mary and John daydream about what they will do with the money. And then his daughter is hit by a truck.

            Suddenly everything John has known, believed in, and stood for is called into question. As the girl lay dying, the hustle and bustle of the city outside carries on. John tries to silence the innumerable throngs of people from the window, and then in the street. A police officer tells him that no one cares about his dying baby. He turns around in the crowd as the stampede of overly stimulated city-folk rush in the opposite direction, itching for a little more excitement. That image, the one chosen for the cover of the movie even, speaks volumes to the change that John is experiencing. “The crowd laughs with you always... but it will cry with you for only a day.” The busy life of the city doesn’t hold the same magic that it used to. He can’t focus at work, his home life falls apart, and John falls into a deep depression. Simmel says,

“The self-preservation of certain personalities is brought at the price of devaluing the whole objective world, a devaluation which in the end unavoidably drags one’s own personality down into a feeling of the same worthlessness.” (Simmel)

The rut of the everyday and the unimportance John feels at his own life cause him to attempt suicide. He’s only saved when his son expresses his love for his father. After hearing that he is special, John finds the will to live again. This is Simmel’s main observation: that the overly-simulated, intellect-heavy, non-stop life of a metropolitan man leads that man to react, to revolt in a way, against the sheep-like conditions of his current state. In the end, John feels unique within his own circle of family. The last scene at the show indicates that his small circle (John, Mary, and son) are perfectly content, but that John’s influence may be branching out to include a wider circle, indicated by the man sitting next to him. We may be consoled thinking that John has broken free from the restraints of the city life. The filmmakers, however, pan out to reveal a huge crowd of people enjoying the show, all laughing rather creepily. It doesn’t take but a few seconds to lose John and his family in the masses and we realize that the crowd is made up of an infinite number of smaller social circles in which people can be individuals, but overall, they are still part of “The Crowd.”

            The film ends with the warning: “We do not know how big the crowd is, and what opposition it is... until we get out of step with it.” The film is clearly pointing out the irony of a crowd mentality that values the individual. Simmel isn’t as quick to label or judge. Again he states, “It is not our task either to accuse or to pardon, but only to understand.” His understanding of the crowd mentality opened the eyes of the filmmakers and helped them to form their own decisions, their own “pardons” or “judgments” and to comment on them. We, as readers and viewers, should feel free to do the same.