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Emile Durkheim: Societies
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Durkheim insists that the sense for the whole does not have its origins in the individual, since he experiences only a tiny fraction of the totality. "Above all, there is no individual experience, no matter how broad or prolonged, that could make us even suspect the existence of a whole genus embracing the universality of beings..."98 Never-the-less, the concept of the whole is considered obvious by most people. The reason, he suggests, is that the group does have experience of the whole, just as it has an awareness for very long stretches of time. "The theorists of knowledge usually postulate totality as if it is self-evident, but in fact it goes infinitely beyond the content of each individual consciousness, taken separately"99. The implication is that because the individual can enter into the intimacy of the clan's collective mind, he can become aware of both the enormity of everything and infinite time. So the human being can experience the totality only through society.
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Durkheim extended this analysis to the evolution of societies. In mechanical (relatively primitive) societies, cohesion is achieved because of the minimization of individual differences. In organic (modern) societies differences resulting from a division of labor lead to integrated activities... cohesion of societies. The distinction between mechanical solidarity and organic solidarity are so clear that one society cannot have both aspects at the same time. This means that only after mechanical solidarity declines, organic solidarity develops as a new system. Historically, this change occurs systematically.
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According to Durkheim, deviance serves four important functions. The first of these four functions is the enhancement of conformity (157). This function is premised upon the paradoxical notion that otherwise abstract concepts of criminal law can only be illustrated by their violation. Durkheim contends that, by committing crimes, the deviant tangibly enacts principles that are antithetical to the law. In so doing, the deviant supposedly makes the law “real.” Once incarcerated and properly punished, the deviant is sacrificed on the altar of conformity for the education of the public. Because the letter of the law must be consistently reiterated for the common citizen, society requires an inexhaustible supply of deviants to act as examples.
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The Division of Labor, Durkheim's doctoral thesis, appeared in 1893. The theme of the book was how individuals achieve the prerequisite of all social existence: consensus. Durkheim began by distinguishing two types of "solidarities," mechanical and organic. In the first, individuals differ little from each other; they harbor the same emotions, hold the same values, and believe the same religion. Society draws its coherence from this similarity. In the second, coherence is achieved by differentiation.
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Durkheim was a moralist. Not only was he a professor of pedagogy, he was a sociologist who stressed that the social reality was a moral order (Durkheim 1951: 310). He claimed that he was starting a scientific and empirical study of morality (Durkheim 1992: 1 ; Durkheim 1993: 134). In simple terms, Durkheim was a moral collectivist who said that morality began with the life of the group and that society created all moral codes (Durkheim 1974a: 37 ; Durkheim 1965: 103 ; Durkheim 1968: 298). For Durkheim, social solidarity was virtually synonymous with morality. Durkheim specified his premises.
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Durkheim argued that religious phenomena emerge in any society when a separation is made between the sphere of the profane--the realm of everyday utilitarian activities--and the sphere of the sacred--the area that pertains to the numenous, the transcendental, the extraordinary. An object is intrinsically neither sacred nor profane. It becomes the one or the other depending on whether men choose to consider the utilitarian value of the object or certain intrinsic attributes that have nothing to do with its instrumental value. The wine at mass has sacred ritual significance to the extent that it is considered by the believer to symbolize the blood of Christ; in this context it is plainly not a beverage. Sacred activities are valued by the community of believers not as means to ends, but because the religious community has bestowed their meaning on them as part of its worship. Distinctions between the spheres of the sacred and the profane are always made by groups who band together in a cult and who are united by their common symbols and objects of worship.
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