which sociology used to refer – is not especially helpful to this sort of analysis, I should at least explain why this is so.12 One central problem is the widely variable meaning of these concepts and thus their unclear reference to the sphere of phenomena associated with the particular. Depending on who is using them, the terms individualism and individuality can designate extra-social idiosyncrasies or socially certified uniqueness or the particular within the framework of a general order. Sometimes the concept of individuality is used to denote idiosyncrasies. In other cases, these concepts refer to various facets of the individualism of equality, which was characteristic of classical modernity: to the equal rights that people have, to the equal worth that each person is ascribed, to the self-responsible and self-interested nature of certain activity – to every particular thing in the same way. Georg Simmel thus spoke of a modern and rationalistic individualism of the equal and general and juxtaposed it to the Romantic tradition’s individualism of the particular.13 Because we are concerned with the distinction between the social logic of singularities and that of the general, any concept that can unabashedly refer to both is, of course, out of the question.
That was the first problem with the concept of individualism: it is too broad and ambiguous. The second problem is that in other respects it is too narrow, and this is because it typically refers to human subjects alone. As I have already stressed on several occasions, however, it is paramount to keep in mind that the social fabrication of singularities is not restricted to subjects but rather encompasses all the other entities of the social named above: objects, spaces, temporalities, and collectives. A society of singularities cannot be understood if one remains fixated on the subject.14
Objects, Subjects, Spaces, Times, and Collectives in the Social Logic of Singularities
It cannot be repeated enough that all five entities of the social, which I discussed above in connection with the social logic of the general, can become the object of processes of singularization, too: objects and things, human subjects, collectives, spaces, and temporalities. One important feature of the intersectional term “singularity” is that it makes it possible to describe and relate socio-cultural particularities from every social entity. This can be illustrated in brief with a few examples of characteristic forms of singularization from the past and the present.
All forms of society have regarded a select number of entities as singularized objects with their own complexity and density (surprisingly, this social tendency to singularize entities from the world of objects and things has received less scholarly attention than one might suppose).15 Paradigmatic examples of singular objects are material objects such as relics, other cult objects, and works of art such as paintings and sculptures, which only exist in one exemplar and to which Walter Benjamin famously ascribed an “aura.”16 Buildings, furniture, and items of clothing can likewise be perceived, produced, and valued as singular. To exist in just a single exemplar, however, is not a necessary precondition for singularity in the sense intended here. Even objects that have a variable or technically reproducible material basis can be singularized. This is true, for instance, of religious, literary, or philosophical texts, which are frequently certified as original by being attributed to an author, and it is also true of music, photographs, films, and political symbols. Theories, narratives, and images are singularities that circulate in a variety of media formats.17
A specific example is the collection of various different objects under one identifiable brand, which is associated with the promise of uniqueness within the realm of cultural capitalism or with a particular aesthetic style.18 Entities of organic nature can also be singularized: house pets, gardens, or the desert and the Alps as particular places of biodiversity, for example.19 In every case, singularized things and objects are more than functional instruments; they either offer something in addition to that or they are exclusively cultural, affectively operating entities. As such, they are not stable throughout time but rather have their own object biographies. Generally, the elements and relations that constitute the inherent complexity and inner density of singular objects are highly diverse, and this is the case for obvious reasons. In this regard, materials, forms, and colors can play just as much a role as semantics, syntax, and the narrative, harmonic, melodic, or argumentative structures of texts, music, or theories.20
As mentioned above, the fashioning of singular human subjects has traditionally been treated under the misleading rubric of individuality. Subjects are singularized when their uniqueness is socially recognized and valued and when they actively engage in and cultivate certain techniques that invite this recognition.21 In such cases, singularization means subjectification: the subject achieves an acknowledged degree of inherent complexity that defies typification (though this was and remains a possibility).22 Singularized subjects cannot be reduced to functional roles or hereditary groups. Magi, prophets, and rulers, to whom Max Weber ascribed the attribute of charisma, have traditionally been subjects who could claim to be inimitable.23 In modernity, artists and other creative people were the first to form milieus in which originality was both desired and demanded.24
Any number of a subject’s characteristics and activities can be regarded as singular: his or her behavior, cultural products, appearance, bodily features, and biography. However, these things have to be performed in some way so as not to be mere idiosyncrasies but to be recognized as unique. The singularization of the subject is a process in which self-modeling and self-singularization go hand in hand with the control and singularization enacted by others. In late modernity, techniques for singularizing subjects have become ubiquitous, both in the professional world, where extraordinary performance is desired, and the private sphere. Typically, then, subjectification and objectification (the social fabrication of objects) – that is, the singularization of people and the singularization of things – are closely connected to one another: subjects make themselves distinct through the uniqueness of their objects (through their internet profiles, for instance, or through the way in which their apartments are decorated).25 All of this makes it clear that the idea of indivisibility, which the old concept of the individual of course entails, is inapplicable to techniques of singularization, because here uniqueness is in fact composed of a variety of components or modules.26
When spaces are singularized, they are elevated to what theorists of space have come to call places.27 The difference between space and place is the same as the difference between spaces in the social logic of the general and spaces in the social logic of singularization. Places are singular spaces in which material objects are arranged, endowed with meaning, and offered to be perceived in such a way that they are experienced as inherent complexities with specially composed spatial densities – as spaces unconfined by the standardization to which spaces are subjected in the social logic of the general. Such places are not simply used and passed through; rather, they seem valuable and emotionally attractive to those participating in them. Charming cities such as Venice and Paris – with their layouts and atmospheres, but also with the cultural associations and memories associated with them – are historical prototypes for “intrinsically logical” places.28 Yet places of worship, palaces, sacred buildings, exceptional landscapes, monuments, and even apartments and atmospherically rich office landscapes in the creative branches can also be special places in this sense. Whereas, in the logic of the general, all spaces are meant to fulfill a particular function in the same way, the logic of the particular turns spaces into places of identification. Here, to some extent, space is not extensive but rather intensive. Here it is the locality of the space that interests people. Only a space that has been condensed into a place can become a locus of memory and a setting with atmosphere.29
Temporalities are singularized when they do not take on the form of a typified custom or rationalized routine but are rather oriented around a unique point in time with its own density. Its duration can vary, ranging from a very brief moment in the here and now to a longer episode with a clear beginning and end. Singularized time thus has the form of an event that is actively and intensively experienced. Uniqueness can indeed mean that something
