Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)
I. At the heart of Durkheim’s work is
the study of what he called SOCIAL FACTS
A. those aspects
of social existence that are EXTERNAL TO
& COERCIVE OVER the individual
1.
e.g., the division of labor & industrial economy
2. or,
a societal condition of anomie
II. Distinguished between MATERIAL
& NON-MATERIAL social facts (As in Examples A1 and A2 above)
A. the directly observable (family, church
ritual, legal institutions, industrial economy)
B. and the indirectly
observable
C. Anomie, e.g., is indirectly observable
1. but its existence can
be determined in and through other observable phenomena
a. suicide rates, e.g.
III. Non-material social facts refer to such things as
A. Morality or
Collective Conscience
B. Knowledge
Systems
C. Religious
beliefs
Ideas, Beliefs, Ideals, Values
IV. Key themes throughout Durkheim’s
work
A. Moral
Regulation
1. A
society’s survival depends upon its ability to control and channel human nature
2.
Impose a shared collective identity & shared beliefs and values
B. Social
Integration
1.
Regular patterns of and opportunities for social interaction
C. Moral
Regulation + Social Integration à “Solidarity”
1.
Shared sense of purpose; common beliefs
2. united as members of a common social whole
D. (a la Weber, Simmel) Durkheim’s focus was on
the impact of modernity on society
1.
Urban, Industrial, Bureaucratic
2. Will
modern society survive & what will it be like?
3. In
various ways, all of his works address these questions
V. The Division of Labor in Society (1893)
A. Industrial
economies: highly specialized, complex division of labor (is this a viable form of social organization?)
B. How do
societies achieve and sustain solidarity?
1.
Pre-modern societies: simple division of labor
a. age and gender (e.g. hunter-gatherers)
b. all contribute to the survival of the society
c. solidarity arises automatically, mechanically, out of
this simple division of labor
d.
Thus, mechanical solidarity
e. violations of group morality severely punished:
repressive law
2.
Industrial/modern societies: extraordinarily complex division of labor
a. high degree of specialization (the transformation
of single-multiple purpose roles to multiple,
single-purpose roles)
b. solidarity will (may) arise out of the structure or the social organism
c. because we specialize, interdependence upon one another
increases (a la Adam Smith before
him)
d. organic solidarity
e. restitutive law
3.
Failing solidarity, industrial society will experience the Anomic Division of
Labor
a. normlessness, loss of
collective identity and purpose
b.
Everyone for themselves
Or 