Emile Durkheim is one of the three big names in Modern Social theory next to Karl Marx and max weber
Durkheim's called the father of Sociology the formal study of society so he focused on social rather than
Individual explanations for things when looking at racism, for example, he wouldn't look at individual Psychology and circumstances
He'd look at stuff like economic inequality or media or migration
Durkheim had a name for this social stuff. He called them social facts so norms culture values law morality
Population size political institutions technology, they're all social facts social facts affect one another and they affect people
But while social facts have their roots in individuals they can't be understood at the level of the individual
Law and morality aren't things that exist inside the heads of individuals they exist in the network of interactions between people
Like how consciousness exists not in any one neuron nor pineal gland
But in the networks that they form point being durkheim was into social explanations
so I've got a basic idea of what to accounts about let's look at one of these big ideas, so
Solidarity is the cohesion in society what holds it together. It's the feeling the individual members have that they were part of the whole
Durkheim proposed two different ways that solidarity can work
mechanical solidarity for pre-Modern societies and organic solidarity for modern societies
What's pre-modern mechanical Society like well?
let's say you're a bloke called sven you'd be white and
Bearded and you'd believe in thor
And you'd farm potatoes for a living and everyone around you would also be bearded white people also called sven who also believed in thor
And also farm potatoes and since you and everyone else you interact with does basically the same stuff as you they have the same
Experiences as you hold the same values [of] course realistically there will probably be some
Differences and divisions men and women might have different social roles there might be a leader of some kind with greater responsibilities and privileges
But the point is that for the most part people in their societies are bound together by commonalities similitudes and likenesses.
What Durkheim calls collective consciousness.
Religion is a big part of this, but all the little shared experiences matter too. It all contributes to the basis of Pre-Modern mechanical solidarity
Similarity now Modern Society is obviously very different there are lots of different people with different gods different jobs different
Experiences different values there isn't a lot of similarity here, so what holds society together
the answer according to durkheim is
Interdependence what this means is that while all these people are very different they rely on each other
unlike sven here who is pretty much self sufficient as long as he's content with potatoes the modern person relies on the butcher and the
Policeman and the Banker and the teacher in the bus driver and the child laborers who make our clothes and the person who makes the
Intertubes work we need each other and that's what holds Modern Society together the analogy here
is that organic Society is like a human body with individual organs each doing their own specialized job to keep the whole system working.
There's still some collective consciousness here some similarity
but it's limited [to] some very general and indeterminate ways of thought and sentiment which leaves [a] room open for a growing variety of
Individual differences those are Durkheim's words
And they're a pretty good reflection of modern society right we all have pretty different experiences and values
But there are some basics that we all share in how we live and think and feel. One thing in particular
That's valued by Most Modern western Societies is individualism, Emphasis on the value and interests of the individual rather than wider society
Individualism is particularly visible in the culture of consumerism
The endless acquisition of things in order to gratify the self that is economically and socially
Foundational in the Modern World, I mean just turn on a TV
We are constantly told that we are free unique
individuals living and thinking and buying in whatever ways satisfies or expresses asked personally, so
Individualism is one of the few things collectively valued by Modern Society durkheim likens up to a religion
But he also points out that even though individualism is collectively valued
It doesn't promote social solidarity because it's not to society that it attaches us. It is to ourselves.
So one of the few things that just about everyone does have in common in Western Modern Society ironically does not unite us
we are very much separate individuals [bound] together largely by our reliance on one another so one of the key differences between
Mechanical and Organic solidarity is division of labor in a pre-Modern society everyone does basically the same stuff
Especially if you take it back to hunter-Gatherer societies, but in modern societies everyone has these highly specialized roles
Specialization is powerful individual people can make specific individual [bids] which come together to make something that no one person could have made alone
But a consequence of individuals only knowing how to make their own specialized bit is that they can't survive alone.
So again organic solidarity is based on specialization which creates
Interdependence, which is the basis of social cohesion in one societies one other difference is related to law so in a mechanical society everyone
Tends to have the same values
So when someone breaks the rules people respond emotionally and intensely so you get these harsh biblical and medieval punishments
In organic societies on the other hand everyone believes different things there isn't this great unified morality
So you usually don't get this huge collective mob outrage thing so much
But since everyone depends on everyone else to follow the rules the focus of law is on righting wrongs
Making sure that the system keeps working so instead of getting creative with our punishments
We focus on correcting and reforming people who break the rules at least in theory in Durkheim's words
the judge speaks of law and says nothing of punishment
This is called restitutive law distinct from retributive
Law interestingly Durkheim saw crime as a natural and healthy feature of society it sort of reaffirms and makes clear
Society's laws to have transgressions occur and be dealt with which you know is an old argument
Is there no way to reaffirm?
Society's laws without breaking them and disrupting society it's hard to see Chronic violent crime as a
Healthy part of society but anyway durkheim also discussed what causes the transition from Pre-Modern mechanical solidarity?
to Modern Organic solidarity
He said, it's caused by Dynamic density his term for the number of people in a society and the degree of interactivity between them
We see this in contemporary
Globalization People goods money and information are all moving across the globe faster and further and easier than ever before
Dynamic density is increasing and has been for some time so durkheim argues that as dynamic density increases competition increases
Creating a natural dry for society to find more efficient ways of doing things so system like the division of labor
Arise and gradually become a foundation of organic solidarity
according to durkheim organic solidarity
Interdependence comes from greater density and interactivity so now a really quick Criticism Karl
Marx founded a line of thought called conflict theory he wrote in his communist manifesto that the history of all Hitherto existing society
Is the history [of] class Struggles freeman and slave Patrician and Plebeian blah blah Blah oppressor and Oppressed?
Marxist thought sees capitalism and therefore Modern Society as [being] founded on domination exploitation
And alienation now durkheim does say that there can be problems with the division of labor?
One is what he calls the enforced division of labor
he says sometimes if changes too fast or society otherwise messes up you might get a situation where
Economic power or status is determining who performs what economic role rather than actual qualifications?
Another kind of problem [he] calls the anomic division of labor basically
There's too much
Individualism and people are cut adrift in their highly specialized activities left without a clear idea of what is and is not
Moral behavior in this state of anomie people are isolated reduced to the repetition of Meaningless tasks?
Durkheim recognizes both of these things as bad, but save them is unusual and temporary phenomena that society quickly corrects with new Rules and systems
Basically durkheim doesn't think economic Baptism class conflict [are] a big deal to the extent that he recognizes class conflict as a thing he argues
That it's not the cause but merely a symptom of social problems, so easy, right?
It does seem [pretty] clear [that] there are severe and unjust imbalances of power in the world that arise from the division of labor
Look at World Wealth
Inequality at how much tax big companies pay at what goes on in the special economic zones [where] all our phones are made look at
Revolutions slavery social equality movements class conflict and the enforced and anomic division of labour are not only more than brief and rare
aberrations, but pretty foundational parts of how the world works
Durkheim just didn't sufficiently recognize Conflicts generally
It's been pointed out that durkheim one of the most significant social theorists I could offer little
Sociological explanation or consolation on the first world war probably the biggest world event of his time
Durkheim's whole Social thought is so focused on
Solidarity that it fails to see conflict and conflict clearly is a profound influence on Society throughout history
so durkheim's contrast between mechanical and organic solidarity is a pretty interesting way of looking in Society and contemporary phenomena like
Consumerism and globalization illustrate that it's a pretty accurate conception of the Modern world
But it fails to capture the flaws in the division of labor described by Marx and Conflicts generally which are major
Forces shaping the Modern World
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