Objective culture grows according to its own immanent logic; subjective culture grows according to the logic of the unfolding personality. Mastery of, say, an ethical argument, a botanical monograph, and the Schönberg quartets would be indicated by and subordinated to the form of one's emerging individuality in the latter case; in the former, to the developmental needs of the disciplines of ethics, botany, and music.

DEFINE: Distinguishes objective culture (disciplines with immanent laws) from subjective culture (shaped by personality), a core conceptual framework of Simmel's theory.

Georg Simmel, on individuality and social…, loc. 32