28-31The body as a source of society

28-31The body as a source of society

Marx, Durkheim and Simmel have been viewed as conceptualizing the

social environment as an autonomous, self-sustaining system (Althusser,

1969; Lukes, 1973; Turner, 1986). While Simmel is often portrayed as a

methodological individualist (or interactionist) who rejected the notion of

‘society’, his conception of the money economy provides a vision of the eco

nomic basis of social life possessed of an obduracy worthy of a Durkheimian

‘social fact’ and a pervasiveness and consequentiality that stand comparison

with Weber’s vision of ‘mechanical capitalism’ (Turner, 1986). What each of

them has written about the physical capacities and experiences of individu

als, however, suggests that the body plays an independent and essential

causal role in the formation of societal phenomena. The body is an impor

tant source of society as a result of those capacities and dispositions which

enable it to transcend its natural state and create a social environment.