In contrast, objective culture can be partially independent from subjective culture, insofar as “cultivated”—that is, cultivating—objects have been created whose availability for cultural purposes is not fully utilized by subjects. Particularly in periods of social complexity and an extensive division of labor, the accomplishments of culture come to constitute an autonomous realm, so to speak. Things become more perfected, more intellectual, and to some degree more controlled by an internal, objective logic tied to their instrumentality; but the supreme cultivation, that of subjects, does not increase proportionately. Indeed, in view of the enormous increase of objective culture, in which the world of things is parcelled out to countless workers, subjective culture could not increase. Thus far at least, historical development has moved toward a steadily increasing separation between objective cultural production and the cultural level of the individual. The dissonance of modern life—in particular that manifested in the improvement of technique in every area and the simultaneous deep dissatisfaction with technical progress—is caused in large part by the fact that things are becoming more and more cultivated, while men are less able to gain from the perfection of objects a perfection of the subjective life.

XREF: Echoes Marx's alienation and the Frankfurt School's culture critique; parallels Weber's rationalization thesis.

XREF: Connects to Marx's alienation of labor and Weber's disenchantment thesis—objective culture's autonomy mirrors those earlier critiques. SEED: Could fuel an essay on why technological sophistication fails to produce personal fulfillment, updating Simmel's gap for the AI era.

Georg Simmel, on individuality and social…, loc. 565