139By providing us with the tools for understanding the Metropolis, Simmel paves
the way for an analysis of the Metropolis as a (necessary) instrument of domination
in capitalist development. This development can take place only if the social domain
is integrated in the logic of commodities. In Cacciari’s view, an analysis like this be-
longs to negative thought. Even so, Simmel does not succeed, according to Cacciari,
in following the logic of negativity through to its conclusions. Simmel argues that the
metropolis, despite its being governed by the money economy, and by the principle
that everything is calculable and quantifiable, remains the place par excellence for
the development of individual freedom. The metropolis offers freedom of move-
ment, freedom of action, a liberation from prejudice and traditional ties; all this cre-
ates an opportunity for everyone to develop unique personalities to the full. With this
thesis, according to Cacciari, Simmel postulates a synthesis between “Metropolis
and mental life” and refuses to accept the full consequences of his own analysis: “It
is a synthesis that recuperates the value of community, of the ‘Gemeinschaft,’in or-
der to reaffirm it in society, in the ‘Gesellschaft’; it recuperates the individualized free-
dom and equality of that Gemeinschaftand makes them the mainstay of the ideology
of this Gesellschaft. But this synthesis is precisely what the theory of the negative
would deny.”^168
With precisely those elements in mind that, in Cacciari’s view, lead logically to
the conclusion that every possibility of a “synthesis” is lacking, Simmel performs an
operation that reduces them to sociohistorical circumstances. It is clear from this, ac-
cording to Cacciari, that he is incapable of grasping the truly fundamental character
of this crisis and of realizing that this makes any synthesis essentially impossible. He
pursues the logic of negativity only to the point where it breaks decisively with every
possibility of synthesis and control. At this point Simmel abandons his quest and in-
stead undertakes an attempt to rescue nostalgic and superseded bourgeois values
such as individuality and personal freedom. With this maneuver Simmel incorporates
the negative in a system of thought that in the end serves the (ideological) function
of achieving the transition from city to Metropolis, but without his being in any way
aware of the ideological purport of his discourse. Cacciari considers that Simmels
“synthesis” is symptomatic of the historical impossibility of capitalist development
to achieve any understanding of its own character, the basic features of which are ra-
tionality, abstraction, and the rejection of the old values.
In his study of Baudelaire, Benjamin goes further than Simmel, according to
Cacciari. Benjamin’s central thesis is that Baudelaire’s lyric poetry is a record of an ex-
perience of shock. The poet regarded it as his task to parry these shocks, no matter
where they came from, with his physical and mental personality. In Baudelaire, more-
over, the hidden presence of the metropolitan masses makes itself felt constantly,
finding expression in the imagery and rhythm of his verse. The metropolis affects in-
dividuals in their deepest core. Both the shock experiences and the superficial en-
counters that are dealt with in Baudelaire’s poetry are typical of the changing
structure of experience. The form that his work takes is therefore also permeated138