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 happens only once, but this does not necessarily have to be the case. Despite its repetitive character, for instance, a ritual (such as a yearly celebration) can be experienced as unique, and in fact celebrations and rituals are the traditional prototypes of singular temporalities. In late modernity, however, there has been an increasing proliferation of one-off events. From festivals and sporting events to TED conferences, events can be experienced as singular just as much as professional or political projects.
In this case, time is not something that is habitually or routinely filled in order to achieve certain objectives beyond the present. For its participants, on the contrary, it has an intrinsic value of its own; it is experienced in the moment of its seemingly overwhelming complexity – in the presence of its presentness, so to speak.30 Whereas, in the mode of the general, temporality is desensitized to the present moment of activity and instrumentally oriented toward the future, in the mode of the particular it is present-oriented. However, such experiences might also involve references to the past: the memory of a previous event or the establishment of historical connections can serve to enrich the present. For this reason, historical narratives – which cultivate our “historical memory” of past events, moments, places, or people to the point of nostalgia – are likewise variations of temporality within the social logic of the particular.31
Singular collectives are not general, instrumentally rational associations or (idiosyncratic) “given” social milieus; rather, they are collectives that have a unique cultural value for their participants. According to one theory of modernization, they might be referred to as “particular groups,” yet in this case the semantics of the particular is meant to devalue them as insignificant elements with limited scope as compared to the vast and general organizations of modern society. In reality, however, these collectives are more than just a part of something grander; from the perspective of their members, they are, rather, complete cultural universes of their own with high degrees of communicative, narrative, and affective complexity and significance. This was already true of any family genealogy with its own collective consciousness, but also of early-modern guilds and corporations whenever they were more than just instrumentally rational institutions. In (late) modernity, the singularization of collectives might also occur, for instance, in cultural and aesthetic subcultures, in self-chosen religious collectives, as well as in nations or regional communities (though in a somewhat different way).