International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society, Vol. 11, No. 3, 1998 Overcoming Flawed Dichotomies: The Impact of Georg Simmel on American Sociology* Helmut Michael Staubmann Once a creative process has assumed the form of objectified mind, then each one of a wide variety of highly divergent interpretations of it is equally admissible, to the extent that each is self-sufficiently conclusive, exact, and factually satisfactory.1 Georg Simmel, On Historical Understanding (1957 [1918]: 73) On 25 March 1918, the end of the war already in sight, Georg Simmel wrote a letter to Count Hermann Keyserling in which he described his vi- sion of the postwar period. This was the Great War, experienced by many of Simmers contemporaries as the absolute apocalyptic catastrophe, not as it would become known and historically enumerated as World War I. The ultimate beneficiary of this "suicide of Europe," which had been committed by means of this war, Simmel wrote, would prove to be America. It would inaugurate a new phase of world history in the movement from East to West—from its origins in Asia, its shift from there to Europe, and now its movement to America. As a consequence, Europe would be for the Ameri- cans what Greece had been for the Romans of the imperial age: an inter- esting travel destination full of ruins and memories of historical greatness, and a source for artists and scientists, and windbags as well (see Simmel 1968: 243-44). Almost two months later, in a second letter, Simmel reiter- ated his views, with considerable expansions: Thus I am convinced that, in the final analysis, the conduct of this war will favor America, just as the one between Athens and Sparta favored Alexander and Rome; I am convinced that the compass needle of world history is turning to the West, just as it once shifted from Asia to Europe; I am convinced that the time is coming when Europe will be for America what Athens was for the later Romans: a travel destination for youths in need of culture, full of interesting ruins and great memo- ries, a source providing artists, scholars, and long-winded know-it-alls .... Of course, one could be supranational to a certain extent and say: if an American world-culture once emerges—though our capacity to anticipate the form which that *Review essay of Gary D. Jaworski, Georg Simmel and the American Prospect. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1997. 501 © 1998 Human Sciences Press, Inc.