Emile Durkheim 1858 1917 Division of Labour in

Emile Durkheim (1858 -1917) Division of Labour in Society Rules of Sociological Method and Study of Suicide Elementary Forms of Religious Life Conclusion Discussion Overall Review Jack (0863549), William (0863591), Lydia (0659193)

The Division of Labor (DOL) in Society: Introduction Why is there a DOL universal across societies? Should we attempt to resist this trend or embrace it? hypothesis: DOL serves to generate social solidarity we cannot measure social solidarity directly. measure it indirectly: law (1. repressive 2. restitutory)

Mechanical Solidarity : Crime Mechanical Solidarity: • similarity of individuals same beliefs + DOL (basic level) • associated with repressive laws Crime: • • • acts repressed by punishments crimes offend individuals ‘universally’ Conscience collective: collective values (social norms) act criminal “because” it offends conscience collective defined in terms of conscience collective

Mechanical Solidarity : punishment (I) Punishment: • emotional reaction where does punishment come from? • Individual: basis of the passionate vengeance vs. most crimes came from religion • E. D. : offenses to religion = offenses to society itself legal repression vs. 'diffused repression’ (immoral acts) • Legal repression is organized.

Mechanical Solidarity : punishment (II) OH!, but in what does this organization consist? • submitting criminal activity a collective body judgment (development of a criminal court) definition of punishment: • a reaction of passionate feeling, graduated in intensity, society exerts mediation of an organized body over members (who violated rules of conduct)

Mechanical Solidarity : Repressive Law VS. Civil Law • • • repressive law vs. civil law (Restitutory) crimes affect conscience collective types of offenses (repressive law) offend transcendent values criminal activity reinforces the conscience collective organization into courts a division of labor response

Mechanical Solidarity : Quick Conclusion • Crime contrary to common consciousness • something in common solidarity (similarity) mechanical solidarity. • offenses individuals react universally. • repressive laws social cohesion • Without punishment would not see borders of acceptable behavior. • difference among members mechanical solidarity (decrease) collective consciousness (decrease)

Organic Solidarity: Defining a restitutory law and its types (I) Organic Solidarity: Differentiation and Interdependence • Restitutory laws: restore what was previously • Not part of the common consciousness specific areas (e. g. contract law) Types of restitutory law: • 1) Negative Laws: link people to things not people to people • stock market trading floor? • needs other laws to govern the transactions

Organic Solidarity: Defining a restitutory law and its types (II) Types of restitutory law (cont’d): • 2) Positive Laws: link people to one another uniting from DOL (e. g. domestic law) • - WHAT can happen • - NORMAL form of FUNCTION • Positive law clearest (for E. D. ) CONTRACTS. 2 methods to divide labor - Simple: do the same thing - Composite: a task divided into dissimilar things - contract = exchange one person + what they do another person + what they do DOL interdependencies

Mechanical Solidarity and Organic Solidarity (I) Mechanical Solidarity links individual to society DIRECTLY beliefs and sentiments common to all collective type Strong: ideas common to all people outweigh ideas common to individuals. • Maximum: collective consciousness completely envelops our total consciousness • individual does not belong to himself • the Borg (Star Trek): part of a collective. • • The Borg (Star Trek) - Bill Bishop

Mechanical Solidarity and Organic Solidarity (II) Organic Solidarity • links individual to society via sub-parts of society • "system of different and special functions united by definite relationships. " • "higher animals. each organ special characteristics and autonomy: greater the unity of the organism more marked the individualization of the parts. " (p. 85) 2 types of solidarity I<------------------------------------------>I Mechanical (Hunters, gatherers) Vs. Organic (modern industrial sectors) The division of labor transformations in social solidarity (mechanical

The Causes: illustration of where the DOL comes from (I) WHY do we find the DOL everywhere? Each form of DOL particular causes. BUT general fact: DOL "develops regularly as history proceeds". "This fact" constant causes E. D. : a 'segmentary' society social organization (mechanical solidarity) local, isolated groups segmentary society (decrease) partitions dividing social segments more permeable DOL rises

The Causes: illustration of where the DOL comes from (II) • expansion of DOL increase in social interaction (functional differentiation) • more individuals in contact with one another able to mutually act + react upon one another = drawing together and active exchange = dynamic density • division of labor (directly proportional to) dynamic density of society 2 causes of the DOL: • 1) Dynamic Density (increase) 2) VOLUME (increase) *a fundamental cause a particular mechanism (darwinian competition)

The Causes: illustration of where the DOL comes from (III) Increases in dynamic density 1. ) Increases in dynamic from 1) Population concentration 2) transformation and development of towns 3) speed and means of communication and transmission - cyclic process 2. ) Increase in VOLUME of people (matters when increase in density) DOL progresses continuously (social development) societies more dense + voluminous 3. ) (SOME credit) environment room for technological shifts But WHY does this occur? Darwinian competition?

The Causes: illustration of where the DOL comes from (IV) • "If labour more divided societies (more voluminous and concentrated) struggle for existence more demanding • Darwinian selection: dissimilar occupations can coexist dissimilar objectives. • "concentration in the social mass (with a growth in population) determines progress of DOL" • “DOL struggle for existence: a mild end. coexist alongside + a greater number means of supporting themselves. " • (Note: this must happen in a society that is previously constituted (needs regulatory structures) progress of the DOL)

Durkheim’s Rules of Sociological Method and the Study of Suicide

Social Facts Definition: • “A social fact is every way of acting, fixed or not, capable of exercising on the individual and external constraint; or again, every way of acting which is general throughout a given society, while at the same time existing in its own right independent of its individual manifestations. “

Social Facts Not amenable to explanations on the biological or psychological level “Treat social facts as objects” Three basic characteristics: Ø Collectiveness Ø Externality Ø Constraints

Collective V. S. General Collective General Exist in the whole Exist in every part —not the other way around —e. g. collective emotion

Collective V. S. General

Externality Every man is born into an on-going society 1. Existing organization or structure Ø E. g. : “the church-member finds the beliefs and practices of his religious life ready-made at birth” 2. Existing Relationships/Systems Ø Language, currency, profession, etc.

Constrains Endowed with coercive power Independent of one’s own will External Coercions: l ——Legal system Internalized Rules l ——Moral obligation

Rules of Sociological Method 1. All preconceptions must be eradiated 2. Objective, clear definition ü The definition does not depend on the researcher, but on the nature of things ü E. g: Crime as “punished actions”

Rules of Sociological Method 3. Investigate social facts from collective characteristics ü Family: legal structure--the right of succession ü Customs and popular beliefs: proverbs and epigrams

Suicide • “There is for each people a collective force of a definite amount of energy , impelling men to self-destruction. The victim’s acts which at first seem to express only his personal temperament are really the supplement and prolongation of a social condition which they express externally” Types of Suicide: • Egoistic , Altruistic, Anomic, Fatalistic

Egoistic Suicide Less degree of structural integration: “Detached from society” ü Pre-dominantly Catholic countries < protestant ones. ü married persons < Unmarried individuals (of comparable age) ü The greater the number of children in the family, the lower the suicide rate. ü In times of national political crisis and war, Suicide rates decline.

Altruistic suicide Strong integrations make suicide an obligation or honor in certain situations Obligatory and Optional Altruistic Suicide Rest upon a strong collective conscious ü Hindu: widows commit ritual suicide ü High rates of suicide among the army

Anomic Suicide ANOMIE: A condition of relative normlessness in a whole society or in some of its component groups. Social regulations break down, and individuals are left to their own devices. Complete anomie is impossible, but groups may differ in the degree of anomie Often happens through rapid social changes

Anomic Suicide Both Economy Crisis and Blooming lead to a rise in suicide rate. --Both a quick downward or uplift mobility lead to loss of norms in previous life status --Rich people are affected more --“poverty protects against suicide because it is a restraint in itself”

Fatalistic Suicide Too strong regulation Futures blocked and passions choked by oppressive discipline People see no hope

Summary Egoistic Integration Regulation Change in Solidarity Society Low _ _ Low Altruistic High _ _ High Anomie _ Weak Rapid _ Fatalistic _ Strong Almost no change _

Durkheim’s Elementary Forms of Religious Life

Durkheim's Understanding of Religion ØPrimary characteristic of religion: It divides the world into the two domains of sacred and profane. --Opposed fundamentally as separate worlds --Not only may gods and spirits be sacred, but also things like rocks, trees, pieces of wood, in fact anything. --For what makes something sacred is not that it is somehow connected to the divine but that it is the subject of a prohibition that sets it radically apart from something else, which is itself thereby made profane.

The Origin of the Sacred Animism and Naturism? • Durkheim simply refuses to accept that people would have found either dreams or natural phenomena extraordinary enough to have felt the need to create religion because of them.

Totemism Australian totemism: the most basic type available for study. Tribes are divided into clans whose solidarity derives not from kinship, but from a religious relationship between its members. The relationship is based on a sacred association between the clan, its members and a totemic entity, usually a local animal or plant species.

Totemic Beliefs ØTotemic emblem, --a design representing the clan's totemic entity, was sacred. --Its sacredness lay in the fact that it conferred sacredness on whatever was marked with it. ØTotemic entity --Where the totemic entity was an animal or a plant, its sacredness was a matter of it being prohibited as ordinary food to clan members. --Use of their blood in rituals in order to confer power ØHuman clan members --Older men of the clan were regarded as more sacred than the younger ones.

Origins of Totemic Belief • Animals and plants chosen as totem entities are by no means intrinsically impressive, in no way capable of themselves of generating religious feelings (such as awe). • Consequently, the religious feelings involved in totemism must have been derived from elsewhere. • Totemism is not essentially about the totemic entity, the animal, plant or whatever represented in the totemic emblem • It is about the clan itself as symbolised by the emblem. • For it is the experience of the social group alone that is capable of generating in people the kind of intense feelings that sustain religion.

Durkheim's argument people are susceptible to the moral authority exerted by respected individuals and social groups. --Such authority when experienced in group situations is able to take people beyond themselves people cannot readily identify the source of the stimulation. They can only suppose it is something from altogether outside the world of their personal understanding. --The sacred is that something. The sacred reality is a projection of a social reality. --In totemism the sacred totemic emblem symbolises the clan: the sacred reality is actually the clan itself.

Collective effervescence • “In the midst of an assembly animated by a common passion, we become susceptible of acts and sentiments of which we are incapable when reduced to our own forces; and when the assembly is dissolved and when, finding ourselves alone again, we fall back to our ordinary level, we are then able to measure the height to which we have been raised above ourselves. ”

Ritual Behaviours • Positive: making things happen

Ritual Behaviours Negative: things that were forbidden • Keeping the sacred out of contact with the profane. • e. g, the sacred ritual objects might be touched only by persons who themselves had been made sacred by initiation. • Again, the totemic entity, if an animal or plant, was regarded as in a sense kin and too sacred to be eaten even by initiates. • Many sacred rituals were required to be performed naked on account of ordinary clothing and ornaments being profane.

The Theory of Religious Forces • The sacred is ultimately the expression of social forces acting on the individual • These forces are not intrinsic to the objects or other realities to which they are assigned. • The assignment is merely arbitrary • The forces are in fact mobile, capable of spreading from one kind of thing to another.

The Dualism of Human Nature Ø Macro–Society V. S. Micro-Individuals Ø Homo Duplex: “On the one hand is our individuality – and more particularly, our body in which it is based; on the other is everything in us that expresses something other than ourselves. ” Ø “Constitutional Duality of Human Nature”: • THE BODY = THE PROFANE • THE SOUL = THE SACRED

Human Intelligence – The 2 States of consciousness 1. Sensory Activity o o o ü Egoistic Unique to Individual Cannot detach sensation from organism One merely expresses our organisms and the objects around us, it is sensory and we cannot separate ourselves from it 2. Conceptual Thought o o ü Can be Shared “Held in Common to a plurality of men. ” The second originates from society and surpasses, shapes and directs our seemingly random ends The 2 States of Consciousness contradict each other.

Conclusion Emile Durkheim (1858 -1917) • Question - what is the glue that binds society together? How is social order possible? (Durkheim: solidarity as the moral bonds) • Key concepts - Social solidarity, social cohesion, social facts, anomie • Focus/lens - society is possible because people share norms and values and a sense of how the different components of social life are integrated into a larger picture

Conclusion • Sociology’s primary subject of study “social facts”. • E. g. church, state, schools • E. g. morality, collective conscience, social currents “ways of acting, thinking and feeling, external to the individual + power of coercion control • Shared religious beliefs, values, +norms binding individuals together + formation of a society.

Conclusion Emile Durkheim AN OM IE Organic ties of solidarity Mechanical ties of solidarity

Conclusion Functionalism: the whole is more than the sum of its parts An organic model of society

Conclusion: Identity and modernity • the shift towards modernity disrupts individuals’ sense of social identity and belonging • This can lead to a loss of meaning, or social displacement • This can be measured in social facts such as suicide, rising crime levels, social disorder, revolution • Can we find a new social ‘glue’ that can hold us together? The scream Edvard Munch (1893) ‘The Scream’

Conclusion: Anomie Now that traditional external authorities such as religion are in decline, how will the individual be inculcated with the compliance and sociability • ‘The process of change tends to that makesdevelop situations in which the society possible old norms no longer restrain Doh! individual behaviour and new norms are either absent or unacceptable. Such anomie, or normlessness, give rise to personal disorganization and a specific type of suicide that Durkheim calls anomic suicide’ • Hinkle and Hinkle, The Development of Modern Sociology, Random House, NY, 1968, Homer Simpson (1993) 51 ‘The Scream’

Discussion: Is there a paradox of organic solidarity based on DOL? What would it be? Why? • People: individuated Vs. more dependent on society • Different social roles • Beliefs shared not sufficient to fulfill tasks • Vs. dependent on everyone else to fulfill our tasks vitally dependent

Discussion: Organic Solidarity vs. Contractual Order • Is “organic solidarity” a different way of saying that contracts and exchange (based on selfinterests) comprise the foundation of social order? • Is Durkheim repeating theory of Adam Smith and Spencer? Why?

Discussion: Organic Solidarity vs. Contractual Order • NO • Contracts self-interests transient and external in nature • organic solidarity: prior to individual exchanges and contracts something more than self-interests • Social and moral authority in organic solidarity + its restitutory law

Discussion: Is Durkheim a Functionalist? • Durkheim: analogies to biology and evolution of organism • A social phenomena discussed in terms of its function in a society • Some argue Durkheim is a functionalist

Discussion: Is Durkheim a Functionalist? • Durkheim: functional arguments Vs. causal explanations Function of DOL does not explain its existence historical explanation Unintended consequence remains in existence binds society division of labor – Function: as the basis of organic solidarity – Cause: material and moral density (concentration of people, transportation and communication, complexity of contact…)

Discussion: Durkheim on pre-industrial societies • Some argue that Durkheim understated the level of interdependence and reciprocity in preindustrial societies and greatly overstated the role of repressive law in such societies. Do you agree? Why?

Discussion: Durkheim on pre-industrial societies • No need to regard the two models of integration as empirically existing realities. • Ideal types (in Weberian sense). • Possibly both forms are always present. • Different comparative weights and relationships.

Discussion: Problems with DOL • ED has made it sounds like as if there is no problem associated with DOL. All is good, and entirely functional. • In societies where there are highly developed DOL and a balance among system integration as well as social integration, things would work efficiently. • But were/are there problems with DOL? • What was Durkheim’s response?

Discussion: Problems with DOL • Problems with the DOL are not systematic with the DOL result from abnormal forms of DOL 1) Class conflict: industrialization (developed too quickly) vs. economic enterprises (not yet developed values and rules) 2) Forced DOL: people positions unsuitable talents/ abilities (e. g. base on inheritance) 3) Managerial deficiency enterprise not organized to get the best out of its members (solidarity grows more skilled the workers? )

Discussion: Differences between egoistic and anomic suicide? ü Integration VS Regulation ü Egoistic suicide is related to the growth of individualism in contemporary societies, therefore it is hardly avoidable ü Anomic suicide derives from the lack of moral regulation. It is pathological, and therefore not inevitable.

Discussion: Is there an Anti-individualistic tendency in Durkheim's articles? ü Social Integration and regulation are necessary for individual life ü However, too strong regulation also leads to losing individual life value ü Finding a balance between societal and individual claims.

Discussion: Are there similarities among Marx , Weber and Durkheim? What are they?

Discussion: All three appreciated the contradictory nature of modernity • Marx – conflict between technical progress and growing alienation of working class • Weber – benefits of rationality against stifling of human creativity (the iron cage) • Durkheim: growing interdependence and individuality, yet more normlessness (anomie)

Discussion: All three appreciated the contradictory nature of modernity • concerned with many other contradictions in modernity as well. E. g. Weber: triumph of rationality Vs. “disenchantment” of the world or our life it brought about… • value-judgments and sociology?

Discussion • What would be the possible views among Marx , Weber and Durkheim when they look at education and crime?

Discussion: Durkheim, Weber and Marx on education • Durkheim, appropriate human capital ensures the functioning of the social system • Weber, Andrew Hopkins and labelling theory ‘Teachers expectations can significantly affect their pupils’ performance’. As a consequence we often end up with a ‘self-fulfilling prophesy’ R. Rosenthal, and L. Jacobsen (1968), Pygmalion in the Classroom, NY, Holt Rinehart and Winston. • Marx, Andrew Hopkins and the reproduction of class from cradle to grave and Marginson on the ‘marketisation’ (or ‘commodification’) of your education

Discussion: Durkheim, Weber and Marx on crime • Durkheim – crime is ‘an integrative element in any healthy society’ (Rules of Sociological Method, p. 98) • Weber – ‘Deviance is not a quality that lies in behavior itself, but in the interaction between the person who commits the act and those who respond to it’ (Becker, p. 14) • Marx - the laws of every epoch reflect the interests of the ruling class ‘Stealing the Common’ The law locks up the man or woman Who steals a goose from off the common; But leaves the greater villain loose Who steals the common from the goose Grosz, ‘The court of the ruling class’

Discussion: What do you think about the natures of works and perspectives of Marx , Weber and Durkheim? Are there any differences?

Discussion: Marx and Durkheim Marx • DOL each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him cannot escape. • communist society nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity to hunt (morning), fish (afternoon), rear cattle (evening)……criticise after dinner

Discussion: Marx and Durkheim determine moral character of DOL • What is “moral”? – everything that is a source of solidarity, forces man to take account of other people, to regulate his actions (vs. his own egoism). • DOL undermine/enhance social solidarity?

Discussion: A differentiation: agency and structure Do you agree? Why? Structure Agency Weber Durkheim

Discussion: A differentiation: agency and structure Do you agree? Why? • Buddha: all distinctions are false • useful analytical devices • we can talk about the differences between Weber and Durkheim backed up by textual evidences • no perfect category/distinction that is the “right” one

Overall Review: Marx • Economic relations and structures a society’s political and cultural structures. • People enter economic relations: independent of their will + divided into different classes based on such relations. • Class struggle driving force of social change

Overall Review: Weber • Sociology start from understanding the individual actors + the motives and meaning they attribute to their actions • Individuals’ actions not only driven by their material interests also by their values, beliefs, and worldviews. • social actions have multiple motives social relationship and structure need to be understood from multiple dimensions.

Overall Review: Durkheim • Sociology’s primary subject of study “social facts”. – church, state, schools – morality, collective conscience, social currents “ways of acting, thinking and feeling, external to the individual+ power of coercion, by reason of which they control him. • Shared religious beliefs, values, and norms essential to binding individuals together + formation of a society.

Overall Review: Different focuses? • It is useful and valuable to discuss the different focuses and even some of the conflicting views hold by the thinkers. • One just needs to be also sensitive to the oversimplification that goes with it.