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Durkheim was especially concerned with the issue of social order, how does modern society hold together given that society is composed of many individuals, each acting in an individual and autonomous manner, with separate, distinct, and different interests.
His first book, The Division of Labour in Society , was an exploration and explanation of these issues, and he finds the answer in the concept of social solidarity, common consciousness, systems of common morality, and forms of law. Because these forces and structures are not always effective in producing and maintaining social order, and because there is social change as the division of labour and society develop, there can be disruptions in social solidarity and common consciousness.
Durkheim connects these to what he calls the forced division of labour eg. He also considers anomie to be one cause suicide — in his book Suicide he explores the causes different suicide rates at different places and times in Europe, and explains why they differ.
Durkheim distinguished sociology from philosophy, psychology, economics, and other social science disciplines by arguing that society was an entity of its own. He argued that sociologists should study particular features of collective or group life and sociology is the study of social facts, things which are external to, and coercive of, individuals.
These social facts are features of the group, and cannot be studied apart from the collective, nor can they be derived from the study of individuals. Some examples are religion, urban structures, legal systems, and moral values such as family values.
Durkheim considers the beliefs, practices, and consciousness of the collective to be coercive on individuals as actors. In this sense, Durkheim has a structuralist approach, considering the social structures to exert a strong influence on social action.
Of course, it is individuals who act, but they do not act on a purely individual basis. Rather, they have obligations and duties, and generally act in ways that are strongly influenced by the structures of which they are part. Sociology can be distinguished from psychology in this way — noting that psychologists study individuals and their mental processes, whereas sociologists are concerned with the structures that influence social action and interaction. It is this study of society as a whole, individuals in their social relationships with other individuals, and the connections of these social relationships to society, that constitutes the subject matter of sociology.
This leads to the title of the chapter — society as sui generis — that is, society as a thing in itself, something of its own kind, or a thing apart. Emile Durkheim was born in Epinal in Lorraine, France. He was a contemporary of Weber , but probably never met Weber, and lived his adult life after Karl Marx died. Durkheim came from a Jewish background, and was a superior student at school and University.
He taught for a number of years, and then received an appointment to a position in philosophy at the University of Bordeaux in There he taught the subject of moral education and later taught the first course in sociology at a French university.
In he was appointed to a professorship at the Sorbonne, in Paris, where he remained until he died. Durkheim is often considered a conservative within the field of sociology, being concerned primarily with order, consensus, solidarity, social morality, and systems of religion. His theoretical analysis helped provide a basis for relatively conservative structural functional models of society.
However, Durkheim was involved politically in the Dreyfus affair, and condemned French racism and anti-Semitism. Durkheim might more properly be considered a political liberal, in that he advocated individual freedom, and opposed impediments to the free operation of the division of labour. In contemporary terms, he might be considered a social democrat, in that he favoured social reforms, while opposing the development of a socialist society. For Durkheim, these would promote more than just their own interests, the general interests of the society as a whole, creating solidarity in a society that had developed a complex division of labour.
In advocating this, he comes close to some versions of pluralism. Durkheim was not generally involved in politics, and can be considered a more academic sociologist than either Weber or Marx. In terms of the development of the field of sociology, Durkheim is especially important.
He was the first to offer courses in sociology in French universities, at a time when sociology was not well known or favoured. His writings are important within the field of sociology, in that several of them are basic works that sociology students today are expected to read and understand. Much of the manner in which sociology as an academic discipline is carried on follows Durkheim's suggestions and approach.
French sociology, in particular, follows Durkheim, and some of Durkheim's books are likely to serve as texts in French sociology. Much American sociology is also heavily influenced by Durkheim. In recent years, there has again been much attention paid to his writings. Division of Labor in Society. In The Division of Labor in Society Durkheim attempts to determine what is the basis of social solidarity in society and how this has changed over time. This was Durkheim's first major work, so it does not address all the issues that be considered important.
But in this work he began his study of how society is sui generis , an entity of its own. These two forms mechanical solidarity, which characterizes earlier or traditional societies, where the division of labour is relatively limited.
The form of social solidarity in modern societies, with a highly developed division of labour, is called organic solidarity. Durkheim argues that the division of labour itself which creates organic solidarity, because of mutual needs of individuals in modern soceity. In doing so, each person also receives some recognition of his or her own rights and contributions within the collectivity.
According to Giddens p. On the other hand, there are also moral ideas encouraging people to be well rounded, of service to society as a whole. These two seem contradictory, and Durkheim is concerned with finding the historical and sociological roots of each of these, along with how these two seemingly contradictory moral guidelines are reconciled in modern society.
This book can also be read with a view to illuminating Durkheim's methods. In the first chapter, he outlines his method, and the theory which could be falsified.
By looking at morality, he is not pursuing a philosophical course, mainly in the realm of ideas. That is, Durkheim is attempting to determine the roots of morality by studying society, and changes in society.
These forms of morality are social facts, and data from society must be obtained, and these used to discover causes. The data used by Durkheim are observable, empirical forms of data in the form of laws, institutions legal and other , norms and behaviour. In this book, Durkheim adopts a non-quantitative approach, but in Suicide his approach is more quantitative. In examining the roots of social solidarity, Durkheim regards the examination of systems of law as an important means of understanding morality.
Since law reproduces the principal forms of social solidarity, we have only to classify the different types of law to find therefrom the different types of social solidarity which correspond to it. Division , p. That is, since social solidarity is a concept that it not easily observable or measurable, Durkheim attempts to use systems of law as an index of forms and changes in socialsolidarity.
From this, Durkheim begins to build a proof of the division of labour as the basis for the different forms of solidarity. He then attempts to show the nature of society, how it changes over time, and how this results in the shift from mechanical solidarity to organic solidarity. Mechanical solidarity. Early societies tended to be small scale, localized in villages or rural areas, with a limited division of labour or only a simple division of labour by age and sex.
These societies are characterized by likeness, in which the members of the society share the same values, based on common tasks and common life situations and experiences. In these early societies, Durkheim argues that legal codes or the system of law tends to be repressive law or penal law.
If there is a crime in this society, then this crime stands as an offense to all, because it is an offense to the common morality, the shared system of values that exists.
Most people feel the offense, and regardless of how serious it is, severe punishment is likely to be meted out for it. Zeitlin notes p. Anything that offends the common conscience threatens the solidarity — the very existence of society. An offense left unpunished weakens to that degree the social unity. Punishment therefore serves the important function of restoring and reconstituting social unity. Penal law is concerned with sanctions only, and there is no mention of obligations.
Punishment is severe, perhaps death or dismemberment. Moral obligation and duty is not stated in the punishment, because this is generally understood. Rather the punishment is given, and that is the completion of the penalty. Some of the following quotes from The Division of Labor in Society show the nature of Durkheim's argument: In the quotes, note that the act is criminal because the act offends the collective conscience.
For Durkheim, the collective consciousness reaches all parts of society, has a distinct reality and is independent of individual conditions, and is passed on from one generation to the next. In this, it differs from particular or individual consciences. Division , pp. Quote 5. Collective Consciousness. The totality of beliefs and sentiments common to average citizens of the same society forms a determinate system which has its own life; one may call it the collective or common conscience.
We do not reprove it because it is a crime, but it is a crime because we reprove it. Referring to repressive or penal forms of punishment in early society, Durkheim notes that it may extend to:. This is because the passion which is the soul of punishment ceases only when exhausted. If, therefore, after it has destroyed the one who has immediately called it forth, there still remains force within it, it expands in quite mechanical fashion.
In contrast, modern legal codes are quite different, with punishment being less important. Instead, society is concerned with restoration of the original situation, rather than exacting revenge on the offender. This distinction between different types of legal codes and punishment may provide a means of noting what mechanical solidarity means.
Quote 6. Mechanical Solidarity. They must re-enforce themselves by mutual assurances that they are always agreed. The only means for this is action in common. In short, since it is the common conscience which is attacked, it must be that which resists, and accordingly the resistance must be collective. Thus, the analysis of punishment confirms our definition of crime. We began by establishing inductively that crime consisted essentially in an act contrary to strong and defined states of the common conscience.
We have just seen that all the qualities of punishment ultimately derive from this nature of crime. That is because the rules that it sanctions express the most essential social likeness. Thus we see what type of solidarity penal law symbolizes. They will as they will themselves, hold to it durably and for prosperity, because, without it, a great part of their psychic lives would function poorly. These quotes show how the collective consciousness works in societies without a highly developed division of labour.
The primary function of punishment, therefore, is to protect and reaffirm the conscience collective in the face of acts which question its sanctity. In order to carry this out, such societies develop forms of repressive or penal law. While the common values in these societies can change over time, this process of change is generally quite slow, so that these values are generally appropriate for the historical period in question.
At other times, the laws may be inappropriate, and might be maintained only through force. However, Durkheim generally considers this to be an exceptional circumstance, and one that is overcome. Organic solidarity. With the development of the division of labour, the collective consciousness begins to decline.
Each individual begins to have a separate set of tasks which he or she is engaged in. These different situations lead to quite a different set of experiences for each individual. The common situation which created the common collective consciousness is disturbed, and individuals no longer have common experiences, but have a great variety of different settings, each leading towards its own consciousness. As the developmen of the division of labour erodes the collective consciousness, it also creates a new form of solidarity.
This new form is organic solidarity, and is characterized by dependence of individuals on each other within the division of labour, and by a certain form of cooperation. There is a. Organic solidarity The growth of organic solidarity and the expansion of the division of labour are hence associated with increasing individualism. Giddens, p. Cuff et al. Thus the nature of the moral consensus changes. According to Durkheim, once a society achieves organic solidarity, it has finished its development.
Does his theories hold up under modern scrutiny? Skip to main content. Module 2: Culture and Society. Search for:. Practice 1. Show Answer a. Organic solidarity is most likely to exist in which of the following types of societies? Hunter-gatherer Industrial Agricultural Feudal.
Show Answer b. Show Glossary anomie: a situation in which society no longer has the support of a firm collective consciousness collective conscience: the communal beliefs, morals, and attitudes of a society mechanical solidarity: a type of social order maintained by the collective consciousness of a culture organic solidarity: a type of social order based around an acceptance of economic and social differences social integration: how strongly a person is connected to his or her social group.
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