ABSTRACT
These words introduced Simmel’s discussion of The Metropolis and Mental Life over half a century ago.1 If anything his diagnosis of the modern condition is even more relevant today.
We are constantly made aware that ours is a mass society. Material objects are manufactured in large quantities; television programmes beam out to audiences composed of millions of independent viewers; huge farms produce massive quantities of food, which are processed into uniform, standardized edibles.2 Although the adjective ‘mass’ simply means large or big, unconsciously, when connected with the term society, the image becomes frightening and unattractive. Often we retreat from this unpleasantness by seeking the more comfortable concept of smallness to be found in images of peasant communities.
