A Biographical Sketch
Emile Durkheim was born on April 15, 1858, in Epinal, France. He was descended from a long line of rabbis and studied to be a rabbi, but by the time he was in his teens, he had largely disavowed his heritage (Strenski, 1997:4). From that time on, his lifelong interest in religion was more academic than theological (Mestrovic, 1988). He was dissatisfied not only with his religious training but also with his general education and its emphasis on literary and esthetic matters. He longed for schooling in scientific methods and in the moral principles needed to guide social life. He rejected a traditional academic career in philosophy and sought instead to acquire the scientific training needed to contribute to the moral guidance of society. Although he was interested in scientific sociology, there was no field of sociology at that time, so between 1882 and 1887 he taught philosophy in a number of provincial schools in the Paris area.
His appetite for science was whetted further by a trip to Germany, where he was exposed to the scientific psychology being pioneered by Wilhelm Wundt (Durkheim, 1887/1993). In the years immediately after his visit to Germany, Durkheim published a good deal, basing his work, in part, on his experiences there (R. Jones, 1994). These publications helped him gain a position in the department of philosophy at the University of Bordeaux in 1887 (Pearce, 2005). There Durkheim offered the first course in social science in a French university. This was a particularly impressive accomplishment, because only a decade earlier, a furor had erupted in a French university after the mention of Auguste Comte in a student dissertation. Durkheim’s main responsibility, however, was teaching courses in education to schoolteachers, and his most important course was in the area of moral education. His goal was to communicate a moral system to the educators, who he hoped would then pass the system on to young people in an effort to help reverse the moral degeneration he saw around him in French society. The years that followed were characterized by a series of personal successes for Durkheim. In 1893 he published his French doctoral thesis, The Division of Labor in Society, as well as his Latin thesis on Montesquieu (Durkheim, 1892/1997; W. Miller, 1993). His major methodological statement, The Rules of Sociological Method, appeared in 1895, followed (in 1897) by his empirical application of those methods in the study Suicide. By 1896 he had become a full professor at Bordeaux. In 1902 he was summoned to the famous French university the Sorbonne, and in 1906 he was named professor of the science of education, a title that was changed in 1913 to professor of the science of education and sociology. The other of his most famous works, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, was published in 1912. Durkheim is most often thought of today as a political conservative, and his influence within sociology certainly has been a conservative one. But in his time, he was considered a liberal, and this was exemplified by the active public role he played in the defense of Alfred Dreyfus, the Jewish army captain whose court-martial for treason was felt by many to be anti-Semitic (Farrell, 1997).
Durkheim was deeply offended by the Dreyfus affair, particularly its anti-Semitism (Goldberg, 2008). But Durkheim did not attribute this anti-Semitism to racism among the French people. Characteristically, he saw it as a symptom of the moral sickness confronting French society as a whole (Birnbaum and Todd, 1995). He said: When society undergoes suffering, it feels the need to find someone whom it can hold responsible for its sickness, on whom it can avenge its misfortunes: and those against whom public opinion already discriminates are naturally designated for this role. These are the pariahs who serve as expiatory victims. What confirms me in this interpretation is the way in which the result of Dreyfus’s trial was greeted in 1894. There was a surge of joy in the boulevards. People celebrated as a triumph what should have been a cause for public mourning. At least they knew whom to blame for the economic troubles and moral distress in which they lived. The trouble came from the Jews. The charge had been officially proved. By this very fact alone, things already seemed to be getting better and people felt consoled. (Lukes, 1972:345).
Thus, Durkheim’s interest in the Dreyfus affair stemmed from his deep and lifelong interest in morality and the moral crisis confronting modern society. To Durkheim, the answer to the Dreyfus affair and crises like it lay in ending the moral disorder in society. Because that could not be done quickly or easily, Durkheim suggested more specific actions such as severe repression of those who incite hatred of others and government efforts to show the public how it is being misled. He urged people to “have the courage to proclaim aloud what they think, and to unite together in order to achieve victory in the struggle against public madness” (Lukes, 1972:347). Durkheim’s (1928/1962) interest in socialism is also taken as evidence against the idea that he was a conservative, but his kind of socialism was very different from the kind that interested Marx and his followers. In fact, Durkheim labeled Marxism as a set of “disputable and out-of-date hypotheses” (Lukes, 1972:323). To Durkheim, socialism represented a movement aimed at the moral regeneration of society through scientific morality, and he was not interested in short-term political methods or the economic aspects of socialism. He did not see the proletariat as the salvation of society, and he was greatly opposed to agitation or violence. Socialism for Durkheim was very different from what we usually think of as socialism; it simply represented a system in which the moral principles discovered by scientific sociology were to be applied. Durkheim, as we will see throughout this book, had a profound influence on the development of sociology, but his influence was not restricted to it (Halls, 1996). Much of his impact on other fields came through the journal L’année sociologique, which he founded in 1898. An intellectual circle arose around the journal with Durkheim at its center. Through it, he and his ideas influenced such fields as anthropology, history (especially the “Annales school” [Nielsen, 2005b]), linguistics, and—somewhat ironically, considering his early attacks on the field—psychology. Durkheim died on November 15, 1917, a celebrated figure in French intellectual circles, but it was not until over twenty years later, with the publication of Talcott Parsons’s The Structure of Social Action (1937), that his work became a significant influence on American sociology.
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Durkheim argued that primitive societies have a stronger collective conscience,
that is, more shared understandings, norms, and beliefs. The increasing division of
labor has caused a diminution of the collective conscience. The collective conscience
is of much less significance in a society with organic solidarity than it is in a society
with mechanical solidarity. People in modern society are more likely to be held
together by the division of labor and the resulting need for the functions performed
by others than they are by a shared and powerful collective conscience. Nevertheless,
even organic societies have a collective consciousness, albeit in a weaker form that
allows for more individual differences.
Anthony Giddens (1972) points out that the collective conscience in the two
types of society can be differentiated on four dimensions—volume, intensity, rigidity,
and content (see Table 3.1). Volume refers to the number of people enveloped by the
collective conscience; intensity, to how deeply the individuals feel about it; rigidity,
to how clearly it is defined; and content, to the form that the collective conscience
takes in the two types of society. In a society characterized by mechanical solidarity,
the collective conscience covers virtually the entire society and all its members; it is
believed in with great intensity; it is extremely rigid; and its content is highly religious
in character. In a society with organic solidarity, the collective conscience is limited
to particular groups; it is adhered to with much less intensity; it is not very rigid; and
its content is the elevation of the importance of the individual to a moral precept.
Dynamic Density
The division of labor was a material social fact to Durkheim because it is a pattern
of interactions in the social world. As indicated above, social facts must be explained
by other social facts. Durkheim believed that the cause of the transition from mechanical to organic solidarity was dynamic density. This concept refers to the number of
people in a society and the amount of interaction that occurs among them. More
people means an increase in the competition for scarce resources, and more interaction
means a more intense struggle for survival among the basically similar components
of society.
The problems associated with dynamic density usually are resolved through differentiation and, ultimately, the emergence of new forms of social organization. The rise
of the division of labor allows people to complement, rather than conflict with, one
another. Furthermore, the increased division of labor makes for greater efficiency, with
the result that resources increase, making the competition over them more peaceful.
This points to one final difference between mechanical and organic solidarity.
In societies with organic solidarity, less competition and more differentiation allow
people to cooperate more and to all be supported by the same resource base. Therefore, difference allows for even closer bonds between people than does similarity.
Thus, in a society characterized by organic solidarity, there are both more solidarity
and more individuality than there are in a society characterized by mechanical solidarity (Rueschemeyer, 1994). Individuality, then, is not the opposite of close social bonds
but a requirement for them (Muller, 1994).
Repressive and Restitutive Law
The division of labor and dynamic density are material social facts, but Durkheim’s
main interest was in the forms of solidarity, which are nonmaterial social facts.
Durkheim felt that it was difficult to study nonmaterial social facts directly, especially something as pervasive as a collective conscience. In order to study nonmaterial social facts scientifically, the sociologist should examine material social
facts that reflect the nature of, and changes in, nonmaterial social facts. In The
Division of Labor in Society, Durkheim chose to study the differences between law
in societies with mechanical solidarity and law in societies with organic solidarity
(Cotterrell, 1999).
Durkheim argued that a society with mechanical solidarity is characterized by
repressive law. Because people are very similar in this type of society, and because
they tend to believe very strongly in a common morality, any offense against their
shared value system is likely to be of significance to most individuals. Since everyone
feels the offense and believes deeply in the common morality, a wrongdoer is likely
to be punished severely for any action that offends the collective moral system. Theft
might lead to the cutting off of the offender’s hands; blaspheming might result in the
removal of one’s tongue. Even minor offenses against the moral system are likely to
be met with severe punishment.
In contrast, a society with organic solidarity is characterized by restitutive law,
which requires offenders to make restitution for their crimes. In such societies, offenses
are more likely to be seen as committed against a particular individual or segment of
society than against the moral system itself. Because there is a weak common morality, most people do not react emotionally to a breach of the law. Instead of being
severely punished for every offense against the collective morality, offenders in an
organic society are likely to be asked to make restitution to those who have been
harmed by their actions. Although some repressive law continues to exist in a society
with organic solidarity (for example, the death penalty), restitutive law predominates,
especially for minor offenses.
In summary, Durkheim argues in The Division of Labor that the form of moral
solidarity has changed in modern society, not disappeared. We have a new form of
solidarity that allows for more interdependence and closer, less competitive relations
and that produces a new form of law based on restitution. However, this book was
far from a celebration of modern society. Durkheim argued that this new form of
solidarity is prone to certain kinds of social pathologies.
Normal and Pathological
Perhaps the most controversial of Durkheim’s claims was that the sociologist is able
to distinguish between healthy and pathological societies. After using this idea in
The Division of Labor, Durkheim wrote another book, The Rules of Sociological
Method (1895/1982), in which, among other things, he attempted to refine and defend
this idea. He claimed that a healthy society can be recognized because the sociologist
will find similar conditions in other societies in similar stages. If a society departs
from what is normally found, it is probably pathological.
This idea was attacked at the time, and there are few sociologists today who
subscribe to it. Even Durkheim, when he wrote the “Preface to the Second Edition”
of The Rules, no longer attempted to defend it: “It seems pointless for us to revert to
the other controversies that this book has given rise to, for they do not touch upon
anything essential. The general orientation of the method does not depend upon the
procedures preferred to classify social types or distinguish the normal from the pathological” (1895/1982:45).
Nevertheless, there is one interesting idea that Durkheim derived from this argument: the idea that crime is normal (Smith, 2008) rather than pathological. He argued
that since crime is found in every society, it must be normal and provide a useful
function. Crime, he claimed, helps societies define and delineate their collective conscience: “Imagine a community of saints in an exemplary and perfect monastery. In
it crime as such will be unknown, but faults that appear venial to the ordinary person
will arouse the same scandal as does normal crime in ordinary consciences. If therefore that community has the power to judge and punish, it will term such acts criminal and deal with them as such” (1895/1982:100).
In The Division of Labor, he used the idea of pathology to criticize some of the
“abnormal” forms the division of labor takes in modern society. He identified three
abnormal forms: (1) the anomic division of labor, (2) the forced division of labor, and
(3) the poorly coordinated division of labor. Durkheim maintained that the moral
crises of modernity that Comte and others had identified with the division of labor
were really caused by these abnormal forms.
The anomic division of labor refers to the lack of regulation in a society that
celebrates isolated individuality and refrains from telling people what they should do.
Durkheim further develops this concept of anomie in his work on suicide, discussed
later. In both works, he uses the term to refer to social conditions in which humans
lack sufficient moral restraint (Bar-Haim, 1997; Hilbert, 1986). For Durkheim, modern society is always prone to anomie, but it comes to the fore in times of social and
economic crises.
Without the strong common morality of mechanical solidarity, people might not
have a clear concept of what is and what is not proper and acceptable behavior. Even
though the division of labor is a source of cohesion in modern society, it cannot
entirely make up for the weakening of the common morality. Individuals can become
isolated and be cut adrift in their highly specialized activities. They can more easily
cease to feel a common bond with those who work and live around them. This gives
rise to anomie. Organic solidarity is prone to this particular “pathology,” but it is important to remember that Durkheim saw this as an abnormal situation. The modern
division of labor has the capacity to promote increased moral interactions rather than
reducing people to isolated and meaningless tasks and positions.
While Durkheim believed that people needed rules and regulation to tell them
what to do, his second abnormal form pointed to a kind of rule that could lead to
conflict and isolation and therefore increase anomie. He called this the forced division
of labor. This second pathology refers to the fact that outdated norms and expectations
can force individuals, groups, and classes into positions for which they are ill suited.
Traditions, economic power, or status can determine who performs what jobs regardless of talent and qualification. It is here that Durkheim comes closest to a Marxist
position:
If one class in society is obliged, in order to live, to take any price for its
services, while another class can pass over this situation, because of the resources
already at its disposal, resources that, however, are not necessarily the result of
some social superiority, the latter group has an unjust advantage over the former
with respect to the law.
(Durkheim, 1895/1982:319)
Finally, the third form of abnormal division of labor is evident when the
specialized functions performed by different people are poorly coordinated. Again
Durkheim makes the point that organic solidarity flows from the interdependence of
people. If people’s specializations do not result in increased interdependence but simply in isolation, the division of labor will not result in social solidarity.
Justice
For the division of labor to function as a moral and socially solidifying force in modern society, anomie, the forced division of labor, and the improper coordination of
specialization must be addressed. Modern societies are no longer held together by
shared experiences and common beliefs. Instead, they are held together through their
very differences, so long as those differences are allowed to develop in a way that
promotes interdependence. Key to this for Durkheim is social justice:
The task of the most advanced societies is, then, a work of justice. . . . Just as the
idea of lower societies was to create or maintain as intense a common life as
possible, in which the individual was absorbed, so our ideal is to make social
relations always more equitable, so as to assure the free development of all our
socially useful forces.
(Durkheim, 1893/1964:387)
Morality, social solidarity, justice—these were big themes for a first book in a
fledgling field. Durkheim was to return to these ideas again in his work, but never
again would he look at them in terms of society as a whole. He predicted in his
second book, The Rules of Sociological Method (1895/1982:184), that sociology itself
would succumb to the division of labor and break down into a collection of specialties. Whether this has led to an increased interdependence and an organic solidarity
in sociology is still an open question.
Suicide
It has been suggested that Durkheim’s study of suicide is the paradigmatic example
of how a sociologist should connect theory and research (Merton, 1968). Indeed,
Durkheim makes it clear in the “Preface” that he intended this study not only to
contribute to the understanding of a particular social problem, but also to serve as an
example of his new sociological method. (For a series of appraisals of Suicide nearly
100 years after its publication, see Lester, 1994.)
Durkheim chose to study suicide because it is a relatively concrete and specific
phenomenon for which there were comparatively good data available. However,
Durkheim’s most important reason for studying suicide was to prove the power of
the new science of sociology. Suicide is generally considered to be one of the most
private and personal acts. Durkheim believed that if he could show that sociology
had a role to play in explaining such a seemingly individualistic act as suicide, it
would be relatively easy to extend sociology’s domain to phenomena that are much
more readily seen as open to sociological analysis.
As a sociologist, Durkheim was not concerned with studying why any specific individual committed suicide (for a critique of this, see Berk, 2006). That was
to be left to the psychologists. Instead, Durkheim was interested in explaining differences in suicide rates; that is, he was interested in why one group had a higher
rate of suicide than did another. Psychological or biological factors may explain
why a particular individual in a group commits suicide, but Durkheim assumed
that only social facts could explain why one group had a higher rate of suicide
than did another. (For a critique of this approach and an argument for the need to
include cultural and psychological factors in the study of suicide, see Hamlin and
Brym, 2006.)
Durkheim proposed two related ways of evaluating suicide rates. One way is to
compare different societies or other types of collectivities. Another way is to look at
the changes in the suicide rate in the same collectivity over time. In either case, crossculturally or historically, the logic of the argument is essentially the same. If there is
variation in suicide rates from one group to another or from one time period to
another, Durkheim believed that the difference would be the consequence of variations
in sociological factors, in particular, social currents. Durkheim acknowledged that
individuals may have reasons for committing suicide, but these reasons are not the
real cause: “They may be said to indicate the individual’s weak points, where the
outside current bearing the impulse to self-destruction most easily finds introduction.
But they are no part of this current itself, and consequently cannot help us to understand it” (1897/1951:151).
Durkheim began Suicide by testing and rejecting a series of alternative ideas
about the causes of suicide. Among these are individual psychopathology, alcoholism,
race, heredity, and climate. Not all of Durkheim’s arguments are convincing (see, for
example, Skog, 1991, for an examination of Durkheim’s argument against alcoholism). However, what is important is his method of empirically dismissing what he
considered extraneous factors so that he could get to what he thought of as the most
important causal variables.
In addition, Durkheim examined and rejected the imitation theory associated with
one of his contemporaries, the French social psychologist Gabriel Tarde (1843–1904).
The theory of imitation argues that people commit suicide (and engage in a wide range
of other actions) because they are imitating the actions of others. This social-psychological
approach was the most important competitor to Durkheim’s focus on social facts. As a
result, Durkheim took great pains to discredit it. For example, Durkheim reasoned that
if imitation were truly important, we should find that nations that border on a country
with a high suicide rate would themselves have high rates, but an examination of the
data showed that no such relationship existed. Durkheim admitted that some individual
suicides may be the result of imitation, but it is such a minor factor that it has no significant effect on the overall suicide rate.
Durkheim concluded that the critical factors in differences in suicide rates were
to be found in differences at the level of social facts. Different groups have different
collective sentiments, 4
which produce different social currents. It is these social currents that affect individual decisions about suicide. In other words, changes in the
collective sentiments lead to changes in social currents, which, in turn, lead to changes
in suicide rates.
The Four Types of Suicide
Durkheim’s theory of suicide can be seen more clearly if we examine the relation
between the types of suicide and his two underlying social facts—integration and
regulation (Pope, 1976). Integration refers to the strength of the attachment that
we have to society. Regulation refers to the degree of external constraint on people. For Durkheim, the two social currents are continuous variables, and suicide
rates go up when either of these currents is too low or too high. We therefore
have four types of suicide (see Table 3.2). If integration is high, Durkheim calls
that type of suicide altruistic. Low integration results in an increase in egoistic
suicides. Fatalistic suicide is associated with high regulation, and anomic suicide
with low regulation.
Egoistic Suicide
High rates of egoistic suicide (Berk, 2006) are likely to be found in societies or groups
in which the individual is not well integrated into the larger social unit. This lack of
integration leads to a feeling that the individual is not part of society, but this also
means that society is not part of the individual. Durkheim believed that the best parts
of a human being—our morality, values, and sense of purpose—come from society.
An integrated society provides us with these things, as well as a general feeling of
moral support to get us through the daily small indignities and trivial disappointments.
Without this, we are liable to commit suicide at the smallest frustration.
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The lack of social integration produces distinctive social currents, and these
currents cause differences in suicide rates. For example, Durkheim talked of societal
disintegration leading to “currents of depression and disillusionment” (1897/1951:214).
Politics is dominated by a sense of futility, morality is seen as an individual choice,
and popular philosophies stress the meaninglessness of life. In contrast, strongly integrated groups discourage suicide. The protective, enveloping social currents produced
by integrated societies prevent the widespread occurrence of egoistic suicide by,
among other things, providing people with a sense of the broader meaning of their
lives. Here is the way Durkheim puts it regarding religious groups:
Religion protects man against the desire for self-destruction. . . . What constitutes
religion is the existence of a certain number of beliefs and practices common to all
the faithful, traditional and thus obligatory. The more numerous and strong these
collective states of mind are, the stronger the integration of the religious
community, also the greater its preservative value.
(Durkheim, 1897/1951:170)
However, Durkheim demonstrated that not all religions provide the same degree
of protection from suicide. Protestant religions with their emphasis on individual faith
over church community and their lack of communal rituals tend to provide less protection. His principal point is that it is not the particular beliefs of the religion that
are important, but the degree of integration.
Durkheim’s statistics also showed that suicide rates go up for those who are
unmarried and therefore less integrated into a family, whereas the rates go down in
times of national political crises such as wars and revolutions, when social causes
and revolutionary or nationalist fervor give people’s lives greater meaning. He
argues that the only thing that all of these have in common is the increased feeling
of integration.
Interestingly, Durkheim affirms the importance of social forces even in the case
of egoistic suicide, where the individual might be thought to be free of social constraints. Actors are never free of the force of the collectivity: “However individualized
a man may be, there is always something collective remaining—the very depression
and melancholy resulting from this same exaggerated individualism. He effects communion through sadness when he no longer has anything else with which to achieve
it” (Durkheim, 1897/1951:214). The case of egoistic suicide indicates that in even the
most individualistic, most private of acts, social facts are the key determinant.
Altruistic Suicide
The second type of suicide discussed by Durkheim is altruistic suicide. Whereas
egoistic suicide is more likely to occur when social integration is too weak, altruistic
suicide is more likely to occur when “social integration is too strong” (Durkheim,
1897/1951:217). The individual is literally forced into committing suicide.
One notorious example of altruistic suicide was the mass suicide of the followers
of the Reverend Jim Jones in Jonestown, Guyana, in 1978. They knowingly took a
poisoned drink and in some cases had their children drink it as well. They clearly
were committing suicide because they were so tightly integrated into the society of
Jones’s fanatical followers. Durkheim notes that this is also the explanation for those
who seek to be martyrs (Durkheim, 1897/1951:225), as in the terrorist attack of
September 11, 2001. More generally, those who commit altruistic suicide do so
because they feel that it is their duty to do so. Durkheim argued that this is particularly likely in the military, where the degree of integration is so strong that an
individual will feel that he or she has disgraced the entire group by the most trivial
of failures.
Whereas higher rates of egoistic suicide stem from “incurable weariness and
sad depression,” the increased likelihood of altruistic suicide “springs from hope, for
it depends on the belief in beautiful perspectives beyond this life” (Durkheim,
1897/1951:225). When integration is low, people will commit suicide because they
have no greater good to sustain them. When integration is high, they commit suicide
in the name of that greater good.
Anomic Suicide
The third major form of suicide discussed by Durkheim is anomic suicide, which is
more likely to occur when the regulative powers of society are disrupted. Such disruptions are likely to leave individuals dissatisfied because there is little control over
their passions, which are free to run wild in an insatiable race for gratification. Rates
of anomic suicide are likely to rise whether the nature of the disruption is positive
(for example, an economic boom) or negative (an economic depression). Either type
of disruption renders the collectivity temporarily incapable of exercising its authority
over individuals. Such changes put people in new situations in which the old norms
no longer apply but new ones have yet to develop. Periods of disruption unleash
currents of anomie—moods of rootlessness and normlessness—and these currents
lead to an increase in rates of anomic suicide. This is relatively easy to envisage in
the case of an economic depression. The closing of a factory because of a depression
may lead to the loss of a job, with the result that the individual is cut adrift from
the regulative effect that both the company and the job may have had. Being cut off
from these structures or others (for example, family, religion, and state) can leave
an individual highly vulnerable to the effects of currents of anomie.
Somewhat more difficult to imagine is the effect of an economic boom. In
this case, Durkheim argued that sudden success leads individuals away from the
traditional structures in which they are embedded. It may lead individuals to quit
their jobs, move to a new community, perhaps even find a new spouse. All these
changes disrupt the regulative effect of extant structures and leave the individual in boom periods vulnerable to anomic social currents. In such a condition, people’s
activity is released from regulation, and even their dreams are no longer restrained.
People in an economic boom seem to have limitless prospects, and “reality seems
valueless by comparison with the dreams of fevered imaginations” (Durkheim,
1897/1951:256).
The increases in rates of anomic suicide during periods of deregulation of social
life are consistent with Durkheim’s views on the pernicious effect of individual passions when freed of external constraint. People thus freed will become slaves to their
passions and as a result, in Durkheim’s view, commit a wide range of destructive acts,
including killing themselves.
Fatalistic Suicide
There is a little-mentioned fourth type of suicide—fatalistic—that Durkheim discussed only in a footnote in Suicide (Acevedo, 2005; Besnard, 1993). Whereas
anomic suicide is more likely to occur in situations in which regulation is too weak,
fatalistic suicide is more likely to occur when regulation is excessive. Durkheim
(1897/1951:276) described those who are more likely to commit fatalistic suicide as
“persons with futures pitilessly blocked and passions violently choked by oppressive
discipline.” The classic example is the slave who takes his own life because of the
hopelessness associated with the oppressive regulation of his every action. Too much
regulation—oppression—unleashes currents of melancholy that, in turn, cause a rise
in the rate of fatalistic suicide.
Durkheim argued that social currents cause changes in the rates of suicides.
Individual suicides are affected by these underlying currents of egoism, altruism,
anomie, and fatalism. This proved, for Durkheim, that these currents are more than
just the sum of individuals, but are sui generis forces, because they dominate the
decisions of individuals. Without this assumption, the stability of the suicide rate for
any particular society could not be explained.
Suicide Rates and Social Reform
Durkheim concludes his study of suicide with an examination of what reforms could
be undertaken to prevent it. Most attempts to prevent suicide have failed because it
has been seen as an individual problem. For Durkheim, attempts to directly convince
individuals not to commit suicide are futile, since its real causes are in society.
Of course, the first question to be asked is whether suicide should be prevented
or whether it counts among those social phenomena that Durkheim would call normal
because of its widespread prevalence. This is an especially important question for
Durkheim because his theory says that suicides result from social currents that, in a
less exaggerated form, are good for society. We would not want to stop all economic
booms because they lead to anomic suicides, nor would we stop valuing individuality
because it leads to egoistic suicide. Similarly, altruistic suicide results from our virtuous tendency to sacrifice ourselves for the community. The pursuit of progress, the
belief in the individual, and the spirit of sacrifice all have their place in society, and
cannot exist without generating some suicides.
Durkheim admits that some suicide is normal, but he argues that modern society has seen a pathological increase in both egoistic and anomic suicides. Here his
position can be traced back to The Division of Labor, where he argued that the anomie
of modern culture is due to the abnormal way in which labor is divided so that it
leads to isolation rather than interdependence. What is needed, then, is a way to
preserve the benefits of modernity without unduly increasing suicides—a way of
balancing these social currents. In our society, Durkheim believes, these currents are
out of balance. In particular, social regulation and integration are too low, leading to
an abnormal rate of anomic and egoistic suicides.
Many of the existing institutions for connecting the individual and society have
failed, and Durkheim sees little hope of their success. The modern state is too distant
from the individual to influence his or her life with enough force and continuity. The
church cannot exert its integrating effect without at the same time repressing freedom
of thought. Even the family, possibly the most integrative institution in modern society, will fail in this task because it is subject to the same corrosive conditions that are
increasing suicide.
Instead, what Durkheim suggests is the need of a different institution based on
occupational groups. We will discuss these occupational associations more below, but what
is important here is that Durkheim proposes a social solution to a social problem.
The Elementary Forms of Religious Life
Early and Late Durkheimian Theory
Before we go on to Durkheim’s last great sociological work, The Elementary Forms
of Religious Life (1912/1965), we should say some things about the way in which his
ideas were received into American sociology. As we said, Durkheim is seen as the
“father” of modern sociology, but, unlike biological paternity, the parentage of disciplines is not susceptible to DNA tests and therefore must be seen as a social construction. To a large degree, Durkheim was awarded his status of “father” by one of
America’s greatest theorists, Talcott Parsons (1937), and this has influenced subsequent views of Durkheim.
Parsons presented Durkheim as undergoing a theoretical change between Suicide
and The Elementary Forms. He believed that the early Durkheim was primarily a
positivist who tried to apply the methods of the natural sciences to the study of society, while the later Durkheim was an idealist who traced social changes to changes
in collective ideas. Even though Parsons (1975) later admitted that this division was
“overdone,” it has made its way into many sociologists’ understanding of Durkheim.
For the most part, sociologists tend to find an early or a late Durkheim they agree
with and emphasize that aspect of his work.
There is some truth to this periodization of Durkheim, but it seems to be more
a matter of his focus than any great theoretical shift. Durkheim always believed
that social forces were akin to natural forces and always believed that collective
ideas shaped social practices as well as vice versa. However, there is no doubt that after Suicide, the question of religion became of overriding importance in Durkheim’s
sociological theory. It would be wrong to see this as a form of idealism. In fact,
we see in the text that Durkheim was actually worried that he would be seen as too
materialistic since he assumed that religious beliefs are dependent upon such concrete social practices as rituals.
In addition, Durkheim, in his later period, more directly addressed how individuals internalize social structures. Durkheim’s often overly zealous arguments for
sociology and against psychology have led many to argue that he had little to offer
on how social facts affected the consciousnesses of human actors (Lukes, 1972:228).
This was particularly true in his early work, where he dealt with the link between
social facts and individual consciousness in only a vague and cursory way. Nevertheless,
Durkheim’s ultimate goal was to explain how individual humans are shaped by social
facts. We see his clear announcement of that intent in regard to The Elementary Forms
of Religious Life: “In general, we hold that sociology has not completely achieved its
task so long as it has not penetrated into the mind . . . of the individual in order to
relate the institutions it seeks to explain to their psychological conditions. . . . Man
is for us less a point of departure than a point of arrival” (Durkheim, cited in Lukes,
1972:498–499). As we will see in what follows, he proposed a theory of ritual and
effervescence that addressed the link between social facts and human consciousness,
as did his work on moral education.
Theory of Religion—The Sacred and the Profane
Raymond Aron (1965:45) said of The Elementary Forms of Religious Life that it was
Durkheim’s most important, most profound, and most original work. Randall Collins and
Michael Makowsky (1998:107) call it “perhaps the greatest single book of the twentieth
century.” In this book, Durkheim put forward both a sociology of religion and a theory
of knowledge. His sociology of religion consisted of an attempt to identify the enduring
essence of religion through an analysis of its most primitive forms. His theory of knowledge attempted to connect the fundamental categories of human thought to their social
origins. It was Durkheim’s great genius to propose a sociological connection between
these two disparate puzzles. Put briefly, he found the enduring essence of religion in the
setting apart of the sacred from all that is profane (Edwards, 2007). This sacred is created through rituals that transform the moral power of society into religious symbols that
bind individuals to the group. Durkheim’s most daring argument is that this moral bond
becomes a cognitive bond because the categories for understanding, such as classification, time, space, and causation, are also derived from religious rituals.
Let us start with Durkheim’s theory of religion. Society (through individuals)
creates religion by defining certain phenomena as sacred and others as profane. Those
aspects of social reality that are defined as sacred —that is, that are set apart from the
everyday—form the essence of religion. The rest are defined as profane —the commonplace, the utilitarian, the mundane aspects of life. On the one hand, the sacred brings
out an attitude of reverence, awe, and obligation. On the other hand, it is the attitude
accorded to these phenomena that transforms them from profane to sacred. The question
for Durkheim was, What is the source of this reverence, awe, and obligation?
Here he proposed to both retain the essential truth of religion while revealing
its sociological reality. 5
Durkheim refused to believe that all religion is nothing but
an illusion. Such a pervasive social phenomenon must have some truth. However, that
truth need not be precisely that which is believed by the participants. Indeed, as a
strict agnostic, Durkheim could not believe that anything supernatural was the source
of these religious feelings. There really is a superior moral power that inspires
believers, but it is society and not God. Durkheim argued that religion symbolically
embodies society itself. Religion is the system of symbols by means of which society
becomes conscious of itself. This was the only way that he could explain why every
society has had religious beliefs but each has had different beliefs.
Society is a power that is greater than we are. It transcends us, demands our
sacrifices, suppresses our selfish tendencies, and fills us with energy. Society, according to Durkheim, exercises these powers through representations. In God, he sees
“only society transfigured and symbolically expressed” (Durkheim, 1906/1974:52).
Thus society is the source of the sacred.
Beliefs, Rituals, and Church
The differentiation between the sacred and the profane and the elevation of some
aspects of social life to the sacred level are necessary but not sufficient conditions for
the development of religion. Three other conditions are needed. First, there must be
the development of a set of religious beliefs. These beliefs are “the representations
which express the nature of sacred things and the relations which they sustain, either
with each other or with profane things” (Durkheim, 1912/1965:56). Second, a set of
religious rituals is necessary. These are “the rules of conduct which prescribe how a
man should comport himself in the presence of these sacred objects” (Durkheim,
1912/1965:56). Finally, a religion requires a church, or a single overarching moral
community. The interrelationships among the sacred, beliefs, rituals, and church led
Durkheim to the following definition of a religion: “A religion is a unified system of
beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a Church,
all those who adhere to them” (1912/1965:62).
Rituals and the church are important to Durkheim’s theory of religion because
they connect the representations of the social to individual practices. Durkheim often
assumes that social currents are simply absorbed by individuals through some sort of
contagion, but here he spells out how such a process might work. Individuals learn
about the sacred and its associated beliefs through participating in rituals and in the
community of the church. As we will see below, this is also how individuals learn
the categories of understanding (Rawls, 1996). Furthermore, rituals and the church
keep social representations from dissipating and losing their force by dramatically
reenacting the collective memory of the group. Finally, they reconnect individuals to
the social, a source of greater energy that inspires them when they return to their
mundane pursuits.
Why Primitive?
Although the research reported in The Elementary Forms was not Durkheim’s own,
he felt it necessary, given his commitment to empirical science, to embed his thinking
on religion in published data. The major sources of his data were studies of a clan-based
Australian tribe, the Arunta, who, for Durkheim, represented primitive culture.
Although today we are very skeptical of the idea that some cultures are more primitive than others, Durkheim wanted to study religion within a “primitive” culture for
several reasons. First, he believed that it is much easier to gain insight into the essential nature of religion in a primitive culture because the ideological systems of primitive religions are less well developed than are those of modern religions, with the
result that there is less obfuscation. Religious forms in primitive society could be
“shown in all their nudity,” and it would require “only the slightest effort to lay them
open” (Durkheim, 1912/1965:18). In addition, whereas religion in modern society
takes diverse forms, in primitive society there is “intellectual and moral conformity”
(Durkheim, 1912/1965:18). This makes it easier to relate the common beliefs to the
common social structures.
Durkheim studied primitive religion only in order to shed light on religion
in modern society. Religion in a nonmodern society is an all-encompassing collective conscience. But as society grows more specialized, religion comes to occupy
an increasingly narrow domain. It becomes simply one of a number of collective
representations. Although it expresses some collective sentiments, other institutions
(for example, law and science) come to express other aspects of the collective
morality. Durkheim recognized that religion per se comes to occupy an ever narrower domain, but he also contended that most, if not all, of the various collective
representations of modern society have their origin in the all-encompassing religion
of primitive society.
Totemism
Because Durkheim believed that society is the source of religion, he was particularly
interested in totemism among the Australian Arunta. Totemism is a religious system
in which certain things, particularly animals and plants, come to be regarded as sacred
and as emblems of the clan. Durkheim viewed totemism as the simplest, most primitive
form of religion, and he believed it to be associated with a similarly simple form of
social organization, the clan.
Durkheim argued that the totem is nothing but the representation of the clan
itself. Individuals who experience the heightened energy of social force in a gathering
of the clan seek some explanation for this state. Durkheim believed that the gathering
itself was the real cause, but even today, people are reluctant to attribute this power
to social forces. Instead, the clan member mistakenly attributes the energy he or she
feels to the symbols of the clan. The totems are the material representations of the
nonmaterial force that is at their base, and that nonmaterial force is none other than
society. Totemism, and more generally religion, are derived from the collective morality and become impersonal forces. They are not simply a series of mythical animals,
plants, personalities, spirits, or gods.
As a study of primitive religion, the specifics of Durkheim’s interpretation have
been questioned (Hiatt, 1996). However, even if totemism is not the most primitive
religion, it was certainly the best vehicle to develop Durkheim’s new theory linking
together religion, knowledge, and society.
Although a society may have a large number of totems, Durkheim did not view
these totems as representing a series of separate, fragmentary beliefs about specific
animals or plants. Instead, he saw them as an interrelated set of ideas that give the
society a more or less complete representation of the world. In totemism, three
classes of things are connected: the totemic symbol, the animal or plant, and the
members of the clan. As such, totemism provides a way to classify natural objects
that reflects the social organization of the tribe. Hence, Durkheim was able to argue
that the ability to classify nature into cognitive categories is derived from religious
and ultimately social experiences. Later, society may develop better ways to classify
nature and its symbols, for example, into scientific genera and species, but the basic
idea of classification comes from social experiences. He expanded on this idea that
the social world grounds our mental categories in his earlier essay with his nephew
Marcel Mauss:
Society was not simply a model which classificatory thought followed; it was its
own divisions which served as divisions for the system of classification. The first
logical categories were social categories; the first classes of things were classes of
men. . . . It was because men were grouped, and thought of themselves in the form
of groups, that in their ideas they grouped other things, and in the beginning the
two modes of grouping were merged to the point of being indistinct.
(Durkheim and Mauss, 1903/1963:82–83)
Sociology of Knowledge
Whereas the early Durkheim was concerned with differentiating sociology from philosophy, he now wanted to show that sociology could answer the most intractable
philosophical questions. Philosophy had proposed two general models for how humans
are able to develop concepts from their sense impressions. One, called empiricism,
contends that our concepts are just generalizations from our sense impressions. The
problem with this philosophy is that we seem to need some initial concepts such as
space, time, and categories even to begin to group sense impressions together so that
we can generalize from them. Consequently, another school of philosophy, apriorism,
contends that we must be born with some initial categories of understanding. For
Durkheim, this was really no explanation at all. How is it that we are born with these
particular categories? How are they transmitted to each new generation? These are
questions that Durkheim felt the philosophers could not answer. Instead, philosophers
usually imply some sort of transcendental source. In other words, their philosophy
has a religious character, and we already know what Durkheim thinks is the ultimate
source of religion.
Durkheim contended that human knowledge is not a product of experience alone,
nor are we just born with certain mental categories that are applied to experience.
Instead our categories are social creations. They are collective representations. Marx had already proposed a sociology of knowledge, but his was purely in the negative
sense. Ideology was the distortion of our knowledge by social forces. In that sense, it
was a theory of false knowledge. Durkheim offers a much more powerful sociology
of knowledge that explains our “true” knowledge in terms of social forces.
Categories of Understanding
The Elementary Forms presents an argument for the social origin of six fundamental
categories that some philosophers had identified as essential to human understanding:
time, space, classification, force, causality, and totality. Time comes from the rhythms of
social life. The category of space develops from the division of space occupied by society.
We’ve already discussed how in totemism classification is tied to the human group. Force
is derived from experiences with social forces. Imitative rituals are the origin of the
concept of causality. Finally, society itself is the representation of totality (Nielsen, 1999).
These descriptions are necessarily brief, but the important point is that the fundamental
categories that allow us to transform our sense impressions into abstract concepts are
derived from social experiences, in particular experiences of religious rituals. In these
rituals, the bodily involvement of participants in the ritual’s sounds and movements creates feelings that give rise to the categories of understanding (Rawls, 2001).
Even if our abstract concepts are based on social experiences, this does not
mean that our thoughts are determined by society. Remember that social facts acquire
laws of development and association of their own, and they are not reducible to their
source. Although social facts emerge out of other social facts, their subsequent development is autonomous. Consequently, even though these concepts have a religious
source, they can develop into nonreligious systems. In fact, this is exactly what
Durkheim sees as having happened with science. Rather than being opposed to religion, science has developed out of religion.
Despite their autonomous development, some categories are universal and necessary. This is the case because these categories develop in order to facilitate social
interaction. Without them, all contact between individual minds would be impossible,
and social life would cease. This explains why they are universal to humanity,
because everywhere human beings have lived in societies. This also explains why
they are necessary.
Hence society cannot leave the categories up to the free choice of individuals
without abandoning itself. To live, it requires not only a minimum moral consensus
but also a minimum logical consensus that it cannot do without either. Thus, in
order to prevent dissidence, society weighs on its members with all its authority.
Does a mind seek to free itself from these norms of all thought? Society no longer
considers this a human mind in the full sense, and treats it accordingly.
(Durkheim, 1912/1965:16)
Collective Effervescence
Nevertheless, there are times when even the most fundamental moral and cognitive
categories can change or be created anew. Durkheim calls this collective effervescence (Ono, 1996; Tiryakian, 1995). The notion of collective effervescence is not well
spelled out in any of Durkheim’s works. He seemed to have in mind, in a general
sense, the great moments in history when a collectivity is able to achieve a new and
heightened level of collective exaltation that in turn can lead to great changes in the
structure of society. The Reformation and the Renaissance would be examples of
historical periods when collective effervescence had a marked effect on the structure
of society. As described later, effervescence is possible even in a classroom. It was
during such a period of collective effervescence that the clan members created totemism. Collective effervescences are the decisive formative moments in social development. They are social facts at their birth.
To summarize Durkheim’s theory of religion, society is the source of religion,
the concept of God, and ultimately everything that is sacred (as opposed to profane). In a very real sense, then, we can argue that the sacred, God, and society
are one and the same. Durkheim believed that this is fairly clear-cut in primitive
society and that it remains true today, even though the relationship is greatly
obscured by the complexities of modern society. To summarize Durkheim’s sociology of knowledge, he claimed that concepts and even our most fundamental
categories are collective representations that society produces, at least initially,
through religious rituals. Religion is what connects society and the individual,
because it is through sacred rituals that social categories become the basis for
individual concepts.
Moral Education and Social Reform
Durkheim did not consider himself to be political and indeed avoided most partisan
politics as not compatible with scientific objectivity. Nevertheless, as we’ve seen, most
of his writings dealt with social issues, and, unlike some who see themselves as objective
scientists today, he was not shy about suggesting specific social reforms, in particular
regarding education and occupational associations. Mike Gane (2001:79) writes that
Durkheim “believed the role of social science was to provide guidance for specific
kinds of social intervention.”
Durkheim saw problems in modern society as temporary aberrations and not as
inherent difficulties (Fenton, 1984:45). Therefore, he believed in social reform. In
taking this position, he stood in opposition to both the conservatives and the radicals
of his day. Conservatives saw no hope in modern society and sought instead the restoration of the monarchy or of the political power of the Roman Catholic Church.
Radicals like the socialists of Durkheim’s time agreed that the world could not be
reformed, but they hoped that a revolution would bring into existence socialism or
communism.
Both Durkheim’s programs for reform and his reformist approach were due to
his belief that society is the source of any morality. His reform programs were dictated
by the fact that society needs to be able to produce moral direction for the individual.
To the extent that society is losing that capacity, it must be reformed. His reformist
approach was dictated by the fact that the source for any reform has to be the actually existing society. It does no good to formulate reform programs from the viewpoint of
an abstract morality. The program must be generated by that society’s social forces
and not from some philosopher’s, or even sociologist’s, ethical system. “Ideals cannot
be legislated into existence; they must be understood, loved and striven for by the
body whose duty it is to realize them” (Durkheim, 1938/1977:38).
Morality
Durkheim offered courses and gave public lectures on moral education and the sociology of morals. And he intended, had he lived long enough, to culminate his oeuvre
with a comprehensive presentation of his science of morals. The connection that
Durkheim saw between sociology and morality has not until recently been appreciated
by most sociologists:
It is not a coincidence, it seems to me, that the new emphasis on Durkheim should
be in the areas of morality, philosophy, and intellectual milieu; it is indicative of a
growing reflective need of sociology for ontological problems, those which relate
professional concerns to the socio-historical situation of the profession. Whereas
only a decade or so ago many sociologists might have been embarrassed if not
vexed to discuss “ethics” and “morality,” the increasing amorality and immorality
of the public and private sectors of our society may be tacitly leading or forcing us
back to fundamental inquiries, such as the moral basis of modern society, ideal and
actual. This was a central theoretical and existential concern of Durkheim.
(Tiryakian, 1974:769)
As we have said, Durkheim was centrally concerned with morality, but it is not
easy to classify his theory of morality according to the typical categories. On the one
hand, he was a moral relativist who believed that ethical rules do and should change in
response to other social facts. On the other hand, he was a traditionalist because he did
not believe that one could simply create a new morality. Any new morality could only
grow out of our collective moral traditions. He insisted that one must “see in morality
itself a fact the nature of which one must investigate attentively, I would even say
respectfully, before daring to modify” (Durkheim, cited in Bellah, 1973:xv). Durkheim’s
sociological theory of morality cuts across most of the positions concerning morality
today and offers the possibility of a fresh perspective on contemporary debates over
such issues as traditional families and the moral content of popular culture.
Morality, for Durkheim, has three components. First, morality involves discipline, that is, a sense of authority that resists idiosyncratic impulses. Second, morality
involves attachment to society because society is the source of our morality. Third, it
involves autonomy, a sense of individual responsibility for our actions.
Discipline
Durkheim usually discussed discipline in terms of constraint upon one’s egoistic
impulses. Such constraint is necessary because individual interests and group interests
are not the same and may, at least in the short term, be in conflict. Discipline confronts
one with one’s moral duty, which, for Durkheim, is one’s duty to society. As discussed
above, this social discipline also makes the individual happier because it limits his or her limitless desires and therefore provides the only chance of happiness for a being
who otherwise would always want more.
Attachment
But Durkheim did not see morality as simply a matter of constraint. His second element in morality is attachment to social groups—the warm, voluntary, positive aspect
of group commitment—not out of external duty but out of willing attachment.
It is society that we consider the most important part of ourselves. From this point
of view, one can readily see how it can become the thing to which we are bound.
In fact, we could not disengage ourselves from society without cutting ourselves
off from ourselves. Between it and us there is the strongest and most intimate
connection, since it is a part of our own being, since in a sense it constitutes what
is best in us. . . . Consequently, . . . when we hold to ourselves, we hold to
something other than ourselves. . . . Thus, just as morality limits and constrains
us, in response to the requirements of our nature, so in requiring our commitment
and subordination to the group does it compel us to realize ourselves.
(Durkheim, 1925/1961:71–72)
These two elements of morality—discipline and attachment—complement and
support each other because they are both just different aspects of society. The former
is society seen as making demands on us, and the latter is society seen as part of us.
Autonomy
The third element of morality is autonomy. Here Durkheim follows Kant’s philosophical definition and sees it as a rationally grounded impulse of the will, with the
sociological twist that the rational grounding is ultimately social.
Durkheim’s focus on society as the source of morality has led many to assume
that his ideal actor is one who is almost wholly controlled from without—a total
conformist. However, Durkheim did not subscribe to such an extreme view of the
actor: “Conformity must not be pushed to the point where it completely subjugates
the intellect. Thus it does not follow from a belief in the need for discipline that it
must be blind and slavish” (cited in Giddens, 1972:113).
Autonomy comes to full force in modernity only with the decline of the myths
and symbols that previous moral systems used to demand discipline and encourage
attachment. Durkheim believed that now that these myths have passed away, only
scientific understanding can provide the foundation for moral autonomy. In particular,
modern morality should be based on the relation between individuals and society as
revealed by Durkheim’s new science of sociology. The only way for this sociological
understanding to become a true morality is through education.
Moral Education
Durkheim’s most consistent attempts to reform society in order to enable a modern
morality were directed at education (Dill, 2007). Education was defined by Durkheim
as the process by which the individual acquires the physical, intellectual, and, most important to Durkheim, moral tools needed to function in society (Durkheim,
1922/1956:71). As Lukes (1972:359) reports, Durkheim had always believed “that the
relation of the science of sociology to education was that of theory to practice.” In 1902,
he was given the powerful position of head of the Sorbonne’s education department. “It
is scarcely an exaggeration to say that every young mind in Paris, in the decade prior
to World War I, came directly or indirectly under his influence” (Gerstein, 1983:239).
Before Durkheim began to reform education there had been two approaches.
One saw education as an extension of the church, and the other saw education as the
unfolding of the natural individual. In contrast, Durkheim argued that education should
help children develop a moral attitude toward society. He believed that the schools
were practically the only existing institution that could provide a social foundation
for modern morality.
For Durkheim, the classroom is a small society, and he concluded that its collective effervescence could be made powerful enough to inculcate a moral attitude.
The classroom could provide the rich collective milieu necessary for reproducing
collective representations (Durkheim, 1925/1961:229). This would allow education to
present and reproduce all three elements of morality.
First, it would provide individuals with the discipline they need to restrain the
passions that threaten to engulf them. Second, education could develop in the students
a sense of devotion to society and to its moral system. Most important is education’s
role in the development of autonomy, in which discipline is “freely desired,” and the
attachment to society is by virtue of “enlightened assent” (Durkheim, 1925/1961:120).
For to teach morality is neither to preach nor to indoctrinate; it is to explain. If we
refuse the child all explanation of this sort, if we do not try to help him understand
the reasons for the rules he should abide by, we would be condemning him to an
incomplete and inferior morality.
(Durkheim, 1925/1961:120–121).
Occupational Associations
As discussed, the primary problem that Durkheim saw in modern society was the lack
of integration and regulation. Even though the cult of the individual provided a collective representation, Durkheim believed that there was a lack of social organizations
that people could feel part of and that could tell people what they should and should
not do. The modern state is too distant to influence most individuals. The church tends
to integrate people by repressing freedom of thought. And the family is too particular
and does not integrate individuals into society as a whole. As we’ve seen, the schools
provided an excellent milieu for children. For adults, Durkheim proposed another
institution: the occupational association.
Genuine moral commitments require a concrete group tied to the basic organizing principle of modern society, the division of labor. Durkheim proposed the development of occupational associations. All the workers, managers, and owners involved
in a particular industry should join together in an association that would be both
professional and social. Durkheim did not believe that there was a basic conflict of
interest among the owners, managers, and workers within an industry. In this, of course, he took a position diametrically opposed to that of Marx, who saw an essential conflict of interest between the owners and the workers. Durkheim believed that
any such conflict occurred only because the various people involved lacked a common
morality, which was traceable to the lack of an integrative structure. He suggested
that the structure that was needed to provide this integrative morality was the occupational association, which would encompass “all the agents of the same industry
united and organized into a single group” (Durkheim, 1893/1964:5). Such an organization was deemed to be superior to such organizations as labor unions and employer
associations, which in Durkheim’s view served only to intensify the differences
between owners, managers, and workers. Involved in a common organization, people
in these categories would recognize their common interests as well as their common
need for an integrative moral system. That moral system, with its derived rules and
laws, would serve to counteract the tendency toward atomization in modern society
as well as help stop the decline in the significance of collective morality.
Criticisms
As mentioned earlier, Durkheim’s reception into American sociology was strongly
influenced by Talcott Parsons, who presented Durkheim as both a functionalist and a
positivist. Although I don’t feel that these labels fairly characterize Durkheim’s position, a number of criticisms have been directed at his ideas on the basis of these
characterizations. Since the sociology student is bound to come across these criticisms
they are briefly addressed here.
Functionalism and Positivism
Durkheim’s focus on macro-level social facts was one of the reasons his work played
a central role in the development of structural functionalism, which has a similar,
macro-level orientation (see Chapter 7 ). However, whether Durkheim himself was a
functionalist is open to debate and depends upon how one defines functionalism.
Functionalism can be defined in two different ways, a weak sense and a strong sense.
When Kingsley Davis (1959) said that all sociologists are functionalists, he referred
to the weak sense: that functionalism is an approach that attempts “to relate the parts
of society to the whole, and to relate one part to another.” A stronger definition of
functionalism is given by Jonathan H. Turner and A. Z. Maryanski (1988), who
define it as an approach that is based on seeing society as analogous to a biological
organism and attempts to explain particular social structures in terms of the needs
of society as a whole.
In this second sense, Durkheim was only an occasional and, one might say,
accidental functionalist. Durkheim was not absolutely opposed to drawing analogies
between biological organisms and social structures (Lehmann, 1993a:15), but he did
not believe that sociologists can infer sociological laws by analogy with biology.
Durkheim (1898/1974:1) called such inferences “worthless.”
Durkheim urged that we distinguish functions from the historical causes of
social facts. The historical study is primary because social needs cannot simply call structures into existence. Certainly, Durkheim’s initial hypothesis was always that
enduring social facts probably perform some sort of function, but he recognized that
some social facts are historical accidents. Furthermore, we see in Durkheim no attempt
to predefine the needs of society. Instead, the needs of a particular society can be
established only by studying that society. Consequently, any functionalist approach
must be preceded by a historical study.
Despite this theoretical injunction, it must be admitted that Durkheim did sometimes slip into functional analysis (J. Turner and Maryanski, 1988:111–112). Consequently, there are many places where one can fairly criticize Durkheim for assuming
that societies as a whole have needs and that social structures automatically emerge
to respond to these needs.
Durkheim also is often criticized for being a positivist, and indeed, he used the
term to describe himself. However, as Robert Hall notes, the meaning of the term has
changed:
The term “positive” was needed to distinguish the new approach from those of the
philosophers who had taken to calling their ethical theories “scientific” and who
used this term to indicate the dialectical reasoning they employed. In an age in
which one could still speak of the “science” of metaphysics, the term “positive”
simply indicated an empirical approach.
(Hall, 1987:137)
Today, positivism refers to the belief that social phenomena should be studied with
the same methods as the natural sciences, and it is likely that Durkheim would accept
this. However, it has also come to mean a focus on invariant laws (S. Turner, 1993),
and we find little of that in Durkheim. Social facts were, for Durkheim, autonomous
from their substrate, but also autonomous in their relation to other social facts. Each
social fact required historical investigation, and none could be predicted on the basis
of invariant laws.
Summary
The two main themes in Durkheim’s sociology were the priority of the social over
the individual and the idea that society can be studied scientifically. These themes
led to his concept of social facts. Social facts can be empirically studied, are external
to the individual, are coercive of the individual, and are explained by other social
facts. Durkheim differentiated between two basic types of social facts—material and
nonmaterial. The most important focus for Durkheim was on nonmaterial social
facts. He dealt with a number of them, including morality, collective conscience,
collective representations, and social currents.
Durkheim’s first major work was The Division of Labor in Society, in which he
argued that the collective conscience of societies with mechanical solidarity had been
replaced by a new organic solidarity based on mutual interdependence in a society
organized by a division of labor. He investigated the difference between mechanical
and organic solidarity through an analysis of their different legal systems. He argued
that mechanical solidarity is associated with repressive laws while organic solidarity
is associated with legal systems based on restitution.
Durkheim’s next book, a study of suicide, is a good illustration of the significance
of nonmaterial social facts in his work. In his basic causal model, changes in nonmaterial social facts ultimately cause differences in suicide rates. Durkheim differentiated
among four types of suicide—egoistic, altruistic, anomic, and fatalistic—and showed
how each is affected by different changes in social currents. The study of suicide was
taken by Durkheim and his supporters as evidence that sociology has a legitimate place
in the social sciences. After all, it was argued, if sociology could explain so individualistic
an act as suicide, it certainly could be used to explain other, less individual aspects of
social life.
In his last major work, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, Durkheim
focused on another aspect of culture: religion. In his analysis of primitive religion,
Durkheim sought to show the roots of religion in the social structure of society. It is
society that defines certain things as sacred and others as profane. Durkheim demonstrated the social sources of religion in his analysis of primitive totemism and its roots
in the social structure of the clan. Durkheim concluded that religion and society are
one and the same, two manifestations of the same general process. He also presented
a sociology of knowledge in this work. He claimed that concepts and even our most
fundamental mental categories are collective representations that society produces, at
least initially, through religious rituals.
Although Durkheim was against any radical change, his central concern with
morality led him to propose two reforms in society that he hoped would lead to a
stronger collective morality. For children, he successfully implemented a new program
for moral education in France that focused on teaching children discipline, attachment
to society, and autonomy. For adults, he proposed occupational associations to restore
collective morality and to cope with some of the curable pathologies of the modern
division of labor.
The chapter concludes with some criticisms of Durkheim’s theories. There are
serious problems with his basic idea of the social fact, with his assumptions about
human nature, and with his sociology of morality.
