EMILE DURKHEIM

(1858-1917)

SYLLABUS:

- Social fact,
- Division of labour,
- Suicide,
- Religion and society

DUrkheim was born in Epinal, France. He came from a long line of devoUt French Jews; his father,
grandfather, and great-grandfather had all been rabbis. He began his edUcation in a rabbinical school,
bUT at an early age, decided not to follow in his family's footsteps and switched schools, realising that
he preferred to stUdy religion from an agnostic standpoint as opposed to being indoctrinated. DURkheim
entered the École Normale SUPérieURe (ENS) in 1879.

DURkheim became interested in a scientific approach to society very early on in his career, which
meant the first of many conflicts with the French academic system, which had no social science
CURricULUm at the time. DURkheim FOUNd hUMAnistic stUDies UNinteresting, tUrning his attention
from psychology and philosophy to ethics and eventUally, sociology. He gradUated with a degree in
philosophy in 1882. DURkheim's views coULD not get him a major academic appointment in Paris, so
from 1882 to 1887 he tAUght philosophy at several provincial schools. In 1885 he left for Germany,
where he stUDied sociology for two years. DURkheim's period in Germany resULTed in the pUBlication
of nUmerOUS articles on German social science and philosophy, which gained recognition in France,
earning him a teaching appointment at the University of BordEAUx in 1887. This was an important sign
of the change of times, and the growing importance and recognition of the social sciences. From this
position, DURkheim helped reform the French school system and introdUced the stUDy of social
science in its CURrICULUm. Also in 1887, DUrkheim married LoUise DreyfUs, with whom he later had
two children.

In 1893, DUrkheim pUblished his first major work, The Division of Labor in Society, in which he
introdUced the concept of "anomie", or the breakdown of the inFLUEnce of social norms on individUAls
within a society. In 1895, he pUBlished The RUles of Sociological Method, his second major work, which
was a manifesto stating what sociology is and how it OUght to be done. In 1897, he pUblished his third
major work, SUICide: A StUDy in Sociology, a case stUdy exploring the differing sUicide rates among
Protestants and Catholics and arGUing that stronger social control among Catholics resULTs in lower
sUIcide rates.
By 1902, DUrkheim had finally achieved his goal of attaining a prominent position in Paris when he
became the chair of edUcation at the Sorbonne. DUrkheim also served as an advisor to the Ministry of
EdUCAtion. In 1912, he pUBlished his last major work, The Elementary Forms of The ReligioUs Life, a
book that analyZes religion as a social phenomenon.

Some influences on Durkheim-

• The father of sociology Auguste Comte, wanted to develop sociology as positive sciences so that
social faith could be directly observe and proper solution could be given to related problems.
Durkheim was highly influenced by his view point the corroboration of which we find in his statement
“consider ‘social facts as things”.
• UTILITARIAN POSITIVISTS: They are basically economist and for them the social system or society
is made up of human beings and everyone has a special quality in oneself and those qualities are
useful for the system that is with the help of their utility, social system as properly governed. In this
way the focal point of study for utilitarian positivist is an individual.
• Durkheim while rejecting this aspect accepted the positive aspect and in this way propounded his self
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 structured positivism. In which he turned down their thinking that individual is important for society.
According to Durkheim individual is nothing in himself and society is everything. Thus society is not
made up of individuals but rather the existence of individual is very much attached into the existence
of society. This is why Durkheim focal point of study is society or social fact with which the collective
conscious is attached.

NATURE AND SCOPE OF SOCIOLOGY ACCORDING TO DURKHEIM

Durkheim was explicitly concerned with outlining the nature and scope of Sociology. Durkheim
considered social sciences to be distinct from natural sciences because social sciences deal with
human relationship. However the method used in the natural sciences could be used in the social
sciences as well.

He was concerned with examining the nature of Sociology as a social science distinct from Philosophy.
Philosophy is concerned with ideas and conceptions whereas science is concerned with objective
realities. Philosophy is the source from where all science has emerged. Durkheim advocated for
positivist method to study social phenomena.

Durkheim laid down the general conditions for the establishment of a social science which also applies
to sociology:
• SCIENCE DEALS WITH A SPECIFIED AREA OR A SUBJECT MATTER OF ITS OWN, NOT WITH
TOTAL KNOWLEDGE .He pointed out Science is not concerned with total human knowledge or
thought. Not every type of question the mind can formulate can be tested by science. It is possible for
something to be the object of the philosopher or artist and not necessarily stuff of science atall.

• SCIENCE MUST HAVE A DEFINITE FIELD TO EXPLORE. Science is concerned with things,
objective realities. For social science to exist it must have a definite subject matter. Philosophers,
Durkheim points out, have been aware of ‘things’ called laws, traditions, religion and so on, but the
reality of these was in a large measure dissolved by their instance on dealing with these as
manifestations of human will. Inquiry was thus concentrated on the internal will rather than
upon external bodies of data. So it is important to look to things as they appear in this world.

• SCIENCE DOES NOT DESCRIBE INDIVIDUALS BUT ‘TYPES OR CLASSES OF SUBJECT

MATTER’. If human societies classified then they help us in arriving at general rules and discover
regularities of behaviour. Social science which classifies the various human societies, describes the
‘normal form of social life in each type of society’, for the simple reason that it describes the
type itself; whatever pertains to the type is normal and whatever is normal is healthy.

• THE SUBJECT MATTER OF A SCIENCE YIELDS ‘GENERAL PRINCIPLES’ OR ‘LAWS’. If societies

were not subject to regularities, no social science would be possible. Durkheim further points out that
since the principle that all the phenomena of the universe are closely interrelated has been found to
be true in the other domains of nature, it is also valid for human societies which are a part of nature.
In putting forth the idea that there is a ‘continuity of the natural and social worlds’, Durkheim has
been strongly influenced by Comte.

Durkheim and positivism

Positivism can be understood as the theory dealing with only that which can be scientifically verified
through logical or mathematical proofs. Using it, Comte emphasized that the social world can be explained
by developing abstract laws that can be tested by collecting various data. The abstract laws would indicate
the basic generic properties of the social world, specifying their natural relations.

Durkheim and Anti individualism

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• It is a fundamental misconception to suppose that society is (only) an aggregate of individuals, i.e. he
opposed the view that the properties of society are merely the properties of individuals writlarge. •
Individuals cannot pre-exist society, i.e. individualism as a doctrine is only conceivable in a certain kind of
society; individuals, as represented by this idea of individualism, are only possible in this kind of society.
Durkheim’s major target, then, is the idea, the doctrine, of ‘individualism’, which he seeks to expose as an
ideology, to use a Marxist term.

Durkheim and Social unity

a society is to be said to exist, then it must satisfy certain conditions for unity (otherwise, as a matter of
simple tautology, it would not exist, and we could not say that it did).
Durkheim’s functionalism originates in the notion that for a society to exist it must be ordered in
such a way as to meet these conditions. If a society exists, and is bounded, in what way is it bounded? It
must have an inside and an outside, but what does the line between the two differentiate? A tempting
idea might be geography, for, of course, societies are often identified with territories. In Durkheim’s view
this cannot be an answer, not least because of the methodological rule, which he has laid down, that a
social fact cannot be explained by any other kind of fact, physical, biological, geographical,
climatological or psychological, but only by other social facts. The boundary that demarcates a society
must be social: it must relate to membership, which includes or excludes people. For example, French
persons visiting England do not, thereby, become part of English society, although they are present on
English territory, since they do not have the relevant membership. Further, the boundary is moral in
nature. The line of demarcation runs between acceptable and unacceptable conduct; those who
transgress basic rules—criminals, the mentally ill—are outside the society. That the very existence of
society presupposes such a demarcation, Durkheim illustrates with an ingenious account of the nature
of crime.

SOCIAL FACTS
To Durkheim society is a ‘reality sui generis’. Hence society represents a specific reality which
has its own characteristics. This unique reality of society is separate from other realities individuals and
is over and above them. Thus ‘this reality of society must be the subject matter of sociology’. A scientific
understanding of any social phenomenon must emerge from the ‘collective or associational’
characteristics manifest in the social structure of a society. While working towards this end, Durkheim
developed and made use of a variety of sociological concepts. “Collective representation” is one of the
leading concepts to be found in the social thought of Durkheim. Before learning about ‘collective
representations’ it is necessary to understand what Durkheim meant by ‘social facts’.

Social fact is that way of acting, thinking or feeling etc., which is more or less general in a given
society. Durkheim treated social facts as things. They are real and exist independent of this individual’s
will or desire. They are external to individuals and are capable of exerting constraint upon them. In other
words they are coercive in nature. Further social facts exist in their own right. They are independent of
individual
manifestations. The true nature of social facts lies in the collective or associational characteristics
inherent in society. Legal codes and customs, moral rules, religious beliefs and practices, language etc.
are all social facts.

Main characteristics of social facts:

- Externality,
- Constraint,
- Independence, and

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 - Generality.

• Social facts, according to Durkheim, exist outside individual consciences. Their existence is
external to the individuals. For example ‘domestic or civic or contractual obligations’ are defined,
externally to be individual, ‘in laws and customs’. ‘Religious beliefs and practices exist outside and
prior’ to the individual. An individual takes birth in a society and leaves it; however “social facts” are
already given in society. For example language continues to function independently of any single
individual.
• The other characteristic of social fact is that it exercises a constraint on individuals. “Social fact” is
recognized because it ‘forces itself’ on the individual. For example, the institutions of law, education
beliefs etc. are already given to everyone from without. They are ‘commanding and obligatory’ for all.
Such a phenomenon is typically social because its basis, its subject is the group as a whole and not
one individual in particular.
• A social fact is that which has more or less a general occurrence in a society. Also it is ‘independent
of the personal features of individuals’ or ‘universal attributes of human nature’.
Examples are the beliefs, feelings and practices of the group taken collectively. The social fact is
specific. It is born of the association of individuals. It represents a ‘collective content of social group or
society’. It differs in kind from what occurs in individual consciousness. Social facts can be subjected to
categorization and classification. Above all social facts from the subjects matter of the science of
sociology.

TWO TYPES OF SOCIOLOGICAL FACTS

● NORMAL
● PATHOLOGICAL

• Durkheim makes a distinction between ‘normal’ and ‘pathological’ social facts. But Durkheim
explains that a social fact is considered to be normal when it is understood in the context of the
society in which it exists. Social fact which is ‘general’ to a given type of society is ‘normal’ when it
has utility for that societal type.
As an illustration he cites the case of crime. We consider crime as pathological. But Durkheim
argues that though we may refer to crime as immoral because it flouts values we believe in, from a
scientific view point it would be incorrect to call it abnormal. Firstly because crime is present not only
in the majority of societies of one particular type but in all societies of all types. Secondly, if there
were not occasional deviances or flouting of norms, there would be no change in human behaviour
and equally important, no opportunities through which a society can either reaffirm the existing
norms or else reassess such behaviour and modify the norm itself. To show that crime is useful to
the society, Durkheim cites the case of Socrates, who according to Athenian law was a criminal, in
his country because it served to prepare a new morality and faith which the Athenians needed. It
also rendered a service to humanity in the sense that freedom of thought enjoyed by people in many
countries today was made possible by people like him.

CRITICISM :
• GABRIEL TARDE: While criticizing Durkheim’s social fact Tarde says that it is very difficult to
understand how a society can exists without an individual. Tarde has criticized Durkheim for neglecting
individuals and giving much emphasis on society. In this reference Tarde says that if students and
professors are evacuated from a college, what will remain their except thename.

• HARRY ELMER BAYONS \has criticized Durkheim for putting more thrust on the constant part of
social fact. For him individuals do many actions without any societal compulsions. For example
helping weaker people, philanthropist activities etc.

Evaluation:
• In the construction of social methodology Durkheim says that the society is not because of
individuals, but rather individuals behaviour are shaped by society. He wants to say that a
biological individual is made a social individual only by society. In absence of society, there will
be a complete lack of socialization of individual and they will behave like animals there.
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 Durkheim has focused his concentration towards the personality of individuals, which is built by
society through formal and informal ways. In this way, it can be said that human personality is a
replica of society. Clearly, had there not been, the existence of society, there would not have
been the existence of individuals.
• Durkheim has made it clear that man does certain activities in his own wills and it comes under a
purview of social facts. It would definitely have some kind of compulsion might be it in a
philanthropist activity which directly may not force an individual but truly speaking individuals can’t
do any such activity without any indirect compulsion. The kind of feeling attached with this activities
are attainment of salvation, freedom from cycle of birth and death, attainment of social prestige and
piety, etc.

RELEVANCE:

• Durkheim has himself used this method in successfully describing his theories like Division of labour,
suicide and religion.
• IT IS A NOVEL AND COMPREHENSIVE WAY IN UNDERSTANDING SOCIAL PROBLEMS. If
problems have reached to abnormal situation they have become pathological and so could be diagnosed.
• Moreover it paves the way to provide solution to the related social problems. For Example in India in two
different groups, the suicide rate was found at increase recently and they are school children and farmers
(cash cropper). For school children, hiplines and support systems have been established.
• To protect farmers from suicide there debits have been written off and it is suggested to bring them
under the security through insurance. The other problems which have been identified with social facts are
crime, smuggling, black marketing, drug addiction, alcoholism prostitution, etc. and the respective solution
is provided from time to time.
• Most importantly, it provides the acceptance of social change which is the basis of developmenand
progress

DIVISION OF LABOUR

Economists explain the division of labor as a rational device contrived by men to increase the output of
the collectivity. Durkheim rejects this explanation as reversal of the true order. To say that men
divided the work among themselves, and assigned everyone a different job, is to assume that
individuals were different from one another and aware of their difference before social differentiation.

Durkheim also opposes “contractualists” like Spencer who stressed the increasing role of contracts
freely concluded among individuals in modern societies. To Durkheim modern society is defined first
and foremost by the phenomenon of social differentiation, of which contractualism is the result and
expression. He also considered and rejected the search for happiness as an explanation, for nothing
proves that men in modern societies are happier than men in archaic societies. Moreover, since division
of labor is a social phenomena, the principle of the homogeneity of causes and effect, demands an
essentially social explanation.

DURKHEIM INSISTS THAT DIVISION OF LABOUR, A SOCIAL PHENOMENON, CAN ONLY BE

EXPLAINED IN TERMS OF THREE SOCIAL FACTORS–

THE VOLUME,
THE MATERIAL DENSITY,
AND MORAL DENSITY.

- Volume refers to the size of the population and material density refers to the number of individuals
on a given ground surface. Moral density means the intensity of communication between
individuals. With the formation of cities and the development of communication and transportation,
condensation of society, multiplies intra-social relations. Thus the growth and condensation of
societies and the resultant intensity of social intercourse necessitate a greater division of labor.

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 “The division of labor varies in direct ratio with the volume and density of societies and, if it
progresses in a continuous manner in the course of social development, it is because
societies become regularly denser and generally more voluminous.”

- As societies become more voluminous and denser, more people come into contact with one another;
they compete for scarce resources and there is rivalry everywhere. As the struggle for survival
becomes acute, social differentiation develops as a peaceful solution to the problem.

• MECHANICAL SOLIDARITY:

- Mechanical solidarity is solidarity of resemblance. People are homogeneous, mentally and morally;
they feel the same emotions, cherish the same values, and hold the same things sacred.
Communities are, therefore, uniform and non-atomized. Durkheim suggested that mechanical
solidarity prevailed to the extent that “ideas and tendencies common to all members of the society
are greater in number and intensity than those which pertain to each member.” He explained that
this solidarity grows only in inverse ratio to personality.

- Solidarity, he suggested, which comes from likeness “is at its maximum when the collective
conscience completely envelops our whole conscience and coincides in all points with it”. “Thus, a
society having a mechanical solidarity is characterized by strong collective conscience. Since crime
is regarded as an offence against ‘common conscience’, such a society is also characterized by
‘repressive law’ which multiplies punishment to show the force of common sentiments”.

- The laws in mechanical solidarity are repressive and penal in character;.

• Organic solidarity:

With the increase of the volume of population, material density and moral density also increase.
According to Durkheim, division of labour is a peaceful solution to the needs created by the increase
of population, in size and density. This increase in division of labour gives rise to organic solidarity.
Organic solidarity is characterized by decline of conscience collective. The role of conscience
collective become progressively smaller as division of labour becomes specialized. Individuals
become increasingly freer, while becoming more aware of their inter-dependence. It is this
heightened sense of inter-dependence that contributes to solidarity. The freedom of individual
becomes a venerated principle of a society based on organic solidarity. Relations between
individuals and groups become contractual.
- Whereas mechanical solidarity arose from similarities of individuals in primitive society, organic
solidarity on the other hand develops out of differences rather than likenesses between individuals in
modern societies. Individuals are no longer similar, but different; their mental and moral similarities
have disappeared.
- A society having organic solidarity is characterized by specialization, complex division of labor and
individualism. It is held together by the inter-dependence of parts, rather than by the homogeneity of
elements.
- It is also characterized by the weakening of collective conscience and restitutive law. Organic
solidarity, as Durkheim envisioned it develops out of differences rather than likenesses and it is a
product of the division of labor. With the increasing differentiation of function in a society come
differences between its members.
- With the emergence of division of labor in society, owing to a complex of facts such as increased
population, urbanization, industrialization, and with its concomitant rise in dissimilarities of individuals
in society, there was an inevitable increase in interdependence among society’s members. And, as
noted earlier, when there is an increase in mental and moral aptitude and capabilities, there is a
decrease corollary in the collective conscience.
- The two forms of solidarity correspond to two extreme forms of social organization. Archaic societies
(primitive societies as they were once called) are characterized by the predominance of mechanical
solidarity whereas modern industrial societies, characterized by complex division of labor, are
dominated by organic solidarity. It must, however, be noted that Durkheim’s conception of the
division of labor is different from that envisaged by economists. To Durkheim social differentiation
begins with the disintegration of mechanical solidarity and of segmental structure. Occupational
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 specialization and multiplication of industrial activities are only an expression of a more general form
of a social differentiation which corresponds to the structure of society as a whole.
- The law that exists in organic solidarity is no longer a law of punishment rather it is a law of restitution.
Unlike the repressive law which seeks to inflict suffering on the criminal, restitutive law simply tries to
restore the status-quo. Further, while repressive law remains diffuse through out the community,
restitutive law has special organs and institutions tribunals, councils, functionaries, and so
on.

ABNORMAL FORMS OF DIVISION OF LABOUR

• ANOMIC FORM OF DIVISION OF LABOUR

- The essence of the idea of anomie as applied to economic behavior is that relations between men or
groups of men engaged in commercial and industrial enterprises are devoid of regulation by shared
moral beliefs or by accepts the existence of classes and the regularity of the class conflicts.
- Class conflict for Durkheim, was manifested in a series of disputes and clashes which resulting from
the absence of agreed limits or insatiable appetites of manufacturers or entrepreneurs as much as in
the unlimited desires of workers. Here, he regards trade-unions as replacing individual selfishness
by collective selfishness, since competing representative groups could not overcome the anarchy of
the economy.
• FORCED DIVISION OF LABOUR:
- Under the heading of the ‘Forced Division of Labour’ Durkheim DISCUSSES THOSE SOCIALLY
STRUCTURED INEQUALITIES WHICH UNDERMINE SOLIDARITY. Durkheim explicitly recognizes
that class inequalities restrict the opportunities of the lower classes and prevent the realization of
their abilities. Resentment accumulates and men are led to revolutionary thoughts. The problem
here is not a lack of rules but rather the excess of them in that rules themselves are the cause of
evil. The rules have in fact arisen in order to enforce the division of labour coercively. Individual
specialism and occupations are not freely chosen but forced upon each person by custom, law and
even sheer chance. Individuals find themselves estranged, resentful and aspiring to social positions
which have been arbitrarily closed off tothem.

SUICIDE

Durkheim rejected the various extra-social factors such as heredity, climate, mental alienation, racial
characteristics and imitation as the cause of suicide. he arrived at the conclusion that suicide which
appears to be a phenomenon relating to the individual is actually explicit to individual and can be
analysed logically with reference to the social structure and its ramifying function which may induce,
perpetuate, or aggravate the suicide potential. durkheim’s central thesis is that suicide rate is a factual
order, unified and definite, for, each society has a collective inclination towards suicide, a rate of self-
homicide which is fairly constant for each society so long as the basic conditions of its existence
remainthe same.
Suicide for durkheim, was a result of imbalance in the independence/ autonomy relationship. in
brief summary, suicides occur among those subject to too much or too little social solidarity.
suicide is notable in taking what appears to be the most individual of acts, which seems therefore least
likely to exhibit any regularities of a social kind, and then going on to demonstrate that suicide varies
according to social ties, to their presence or absence, their strength or weakness. it is important to
remember that it is differential rates between social groups that durkheim sought to explain, e.g.
protestants commit suicide proportionately more frequently than catholics and jews, single men more
frequently than married ones, and urban dwellers more than rural. durkheim argues that these
differentials reflect differences between the social groups, i.e. the different ways individuals are
connected to society, and the kind of social support that results.

durkheim proposed four basic types of suicide:

the egoistic and anomic reflect social ties that are too weak;
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 the altruistic and fatalistic types arise from connections that are too strong so that in this case the
group suppresses individuality.

Egoistic suicide results from the social isolation of the individual. it occurs among those who have
fewer social ties, such as those who live alone in rooming houses rather than with a family, or those
burdened with an intense spiritual loneliness. for example, protestants have a higher suicide rate than
catholics since protestant teachings emphasise that one is face to face alone with god, that one’s
relationship is entirely direct, and that one must, therefore, carry the entire burden of effort essential to
one’s salvation. roman catholic teachings, however, make the church and its practices the basis for
one’s relationship with god and provide mechanisms, e.g. the confessional, to share the burden and so
to give social support in life.
by contrast,
Anomic suicide was occasioned by insufficient social regulation of the individual. in effect, the moral
code of society fails to maintain its hold over the individual. the seemingly paradoxical feature of suicide
is that although suicide rates rose during times of economic recession, as we might expect, they also
rose during times of economic boom and prosperity, when we might expect them to decline. the
superficial element of the explanation is that both situations—boom and bust—occasion dislocation
between the individual’s social position and the socially prescribed morals which relate to them. within a
socially stratified society there are different norms (moral standards) for the different social classes, and
they specify different tastes and aspirations for the members of the respective groups. for example,
middle-class people may expect to go to university, while lower-class people may not expect or even
aspire to do so. such norms develop on a collective scale and over time; since they arise from the real
situations of the group, they have a realistic character. even if lower-class people aspire to university
attendance, they are less likely to succeed. however, economic bust and boom both result in abrupt
movement of people up and also down the social scale. middle-class people find themselves in greatly
reduced circumstance in crashes, while lower-class people can be rendered enormously prosperous by
economic booms. in other words, the standards to which they have become accustomed become
inapplicable, precipitating suicide.
Altruistic suicide , altruism and fatalism are at the other extreme. altruistism involves individuals seeing
the pre eminence of the group over themselves to the extent that the group’s needs seem greater than
theirs.

Fatalistic form in fatalism, the group dominates individuals so intensely and oppressively that they are
rendered entirely powerless over their fate.
s instanced by cases such as the suicide of military officers for the honour of the regiment, or the self-
sacrifice of a leader’s family and retinue on the leader’s death, or the self- sacrifice of suicide bombers.
in such cases the bonds within the social group are so strong and intense that they create among the
members a powerful sense of group identity. individuals are so dependent upon the group for their
sense of identity, in fact, that they think themselves less important than the group and are willing to give
up their lives in order to respect and preserve it and its values.

, which receives barely a mention from durkheim (one brief footnote), occurs when individuals in a group
are placed in a position of such restriction that they feel nothing can be done to control their own life
save to exit from it, e.g. suicides among slaves. this argument for a balance between social regulation
and individual autonomy concludes that the problem in modern, i.e. organic, society is that the balance
has swung too much towards freedom from social regulation.

Durkheim’s concern was with understanding the mechanisms which structured relations between the
individual and society, with a view to working out how to readjust them in the desirable direction. As for
making out a case for a science of sociology, in the analysis presented in Suicide Durkheim felt he had
succeeded in demonstrating the existence of supra individual patterns in terms of which individual fates
were decided. In any given society the rates of suicide did not vary much over time, and Durkheim wrote
of society as ‘demanding a certain rate’ of individual deaths. This kind of remark might seem to justify
the impression, which alienated many from Durkheim, that he was giving far too great a reality to
society. He seemed to treat it as something not only arising from association among human beings, but
also as having a life of its own.

CRITICAL EVALUATION

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 • M. Halbwachs (1930) concluded that durkheim’s analysis could be simplified to an inverse
relationship between social complexity and suicide rates, demonstrated by the fact that suicide rates
were lower in rural areas where life styles were simpler than in towns. modern theories usually
assume that rapid changes of socio-economic status are the cause of suicide. though unlike
durkheim they include various psychological factors to explain why only certain individuals commit
suicide in these circumstances.
• R.Cavan’s (1928): outside the durkheimian tradition, r. cavan’s also focus on social disorganization,
which is conceptualized in terms of population variables such as high rates of social mobility and
social complexity that weaken that influence of social values on individuals.
• The devastating criticisms of Durkheimian theory made by J.B. Douglas (1967) indicate that existing
accounts lack foundation and are misguided. He shows that official statistics are highly inaccurate
and systematically biased in ways that support disintegration theories. Suicide are more accurately
reported in towns than rural areas, highly integrated groups are more likely, than poorly integrated
ones, to conceal suicides by ensuring that other causes of death are recorded, the medical
competence of those who categorize deaths for official purposes varies and may be assumed to be
greater as societies modernize (and morecomplex).
• Thus Durkheimian and ecological theories simply and uncritically reproduce the distortions inherent in
official statistics. Existing theories are also misguided, because they impute social meanings to
suicide such as ‘egoistic’ and ‘anomic’, that are based merely on untested commonsense judgments
and ignore the actual meanings for those involved. In Douglas’s view, particular social acts like
suicide cannot be explained by abstract social meanings such as ‘suicide’ lies in its demonstration of
the function of sociological theory in empirical science.

RELIGION AND SOCIETY

Durkheim’s last major book, ‘The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912)’, is often regarded as the
most profound and the most original of his works. The book contains a description and a detailed
analysis of the ‘clan system’ and of “totemism in the Arunta tribe” of Australian aborigines,
elaborates a general theory of religion derived from a study of the simplest and most “primitive”
of religious institutions, and outlines a sociological interpretation of the forms of human thought
which is at the heart of contemporary sociology of knowledge.

Durkheim began with a refutation of the reigning theories of the origin of religion. tyler, the distinguished
english ethnologist, who supported the notion of “animism’, i.e., spirit worship as the most basic form of
religious expression. max muller, the noted german linguist, put forth the concepts of “naturism”, i.e., the
worship of nature’s forces.

DURKHEIM REJECTED BOTH CONCEPTS BECAUSE HE FELT THAT THEY FAILED TO EXPLAIN
THE UNIVERSAL KEY DISTINCTION BETWEEN “THE SACRED AND THE PROFANE” AND
BECAUSE THEY TENDED TO EXPLAIN RELIGION AWAY BY INTERPRETING IT ASS AN ILLUSION,
THAT IS, THE REDUCTIONIST FALLACY.

- Moreover, to love spirits whose unreality one affirms or to love natural forces transfigured merely
by man’s fear would make religious experience a kind of collective hallucination. Nor is religion
defined by the notion of mystery or of the supernatural.
- Nor is the belief in a transcendental God the essence of religion, for there are several religions
such as Buddhism and Confucianism, without gods. Moreover, reliance on spirits and
supernatural forces will make religion an illusion.

• To Durkheim it is inadmissible that system of ideas like religion which have had such considerable
place in history, to which people have turned in all ages for the energy they needed to live, and for
which they were willing to sacrifice their lives, should be viewed as so profound and so permanent
as a correspond to a true reality. And, this true reality is not a transcendent God but society.
• Thus the central thesis of Durkheim’s theory of religion is that throughout history men have never
worshipped any other reality, whether in the form of the totem or of God, than the collective social
reality transfigured by faith. (Collective Conscience, Social Fact)
• THE ESSENCE OF RELIGION: According to Durkheim, the essence of religion is a division of the
world into two kinds of phenomena, the sacred and the profane.
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 • the sacred refers to things human beings have set apart, including religious beliefs, rites, deities, or
anything socially defined as requiring special religious treatment. participation in the sacred order,
such as in rituals of ceremonies, gives a special prestige, illustrating one of the social functions of
religion. “the sacred thing, is par excellences that which the profane should not touch and cannot
touch with impunity.” the profane is the reverse of the sacred. “the circle of sacred objects, cannot be
determined once for all. its existence varies infinitely, according to the different religions.”
accordingly, durkheim defines religion as a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to
sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden-beliefs and practices which unite in one
simple moral community called a church, all those who adhere to it.”

• THE ORIGINS OF RELIGION:

Instead of animism or naturism, Durkheim took “TOTEMISM” among the Australian tribes as the key
concept to explain the origins of religion. Ordinary objects, whether pieces of wood, polished stones,
plants or animals, are transfigured into sacred objects once they bear the emblem of the totem.
Durkheim writes: Totem, refers to an implicit belief in a mysterious or sacred force or principle that
provides sanctions for violations of taboos, inculcates moral responsibilities in the group, and
animates the totem itself.
• The emphasis here, in keeping with his overall emphasis upon social analysis of social phenomena,
was upon the collective activities as the birthplace of religious sentiments ideas.
• According to Durkheim, the essence to Totemism is the worship of an impersonal, anonymous force,
at once immanent and transcendent. This anonymous, diffuse force which is superior to men and
very close to them is in reality society itself.
• Moreover, durkheim claims that just as societies in the past have created gods and religion, societies
of the future are inclined to create new gods and new religions when they are in a state of exaltation.
When societies are seized by the sacred frenzy, and when men, participating in ritualistic
ceremonies, religious services, feasts and festivals, go into a trance, people are united by dancing
and shouting and experience a kind of phantasmagoria. Men are compelled to participate by force of
the group which carries them outside of themselves and gives them a sensation of something that
has no relation to everyday experience. During such moments of sacred frenzy and collective trance,
new gods and new religions will be born.
• DURKHEIM BELIEVED HE HAD SOLVED THE RELIGIOUS-MORAL DILEMMA OF MODERN
SOCIETY. RELIGION IS NOTHING BUT THE INDIRECT WORSHIP OF SOCIETY. MODERN
PEOPLE NEED ONLY EXPRESS THEIR RELIGIOUS FEELING DIRECTLY TOWARD THE
SACRED SYMBOLIZATION OF SOCIETY. The source and object of religion, Durkheim pointed out,
is collective life – the individual who feels dependent on some external moral power is not a victim of
hallucination but a responsive member of society.

THE SUBSTANTIAL FUNCTION OF RELIGION, said durkheim, is the creation, reinforcement, and
maintenance of social solidarity. religion act as an agency of social control and provides solidarity. he
argued that religious phenomena emerges in any society when a separation is made between the
sphere of the profane-the realm of everyday utilitarian activities-and the sphere of sacred-the area that
pertains to the transcendental, the extraordinary.
• religion, as durkheim saw and explained it, is not only a social creation, but is in fact society divinized.
durkheim stated that the deities which men worship together are only projections of the power of
society. if religion is essentially a transcendental representation of the powers of society, then the
disappearance of traditional religion need not herald the dissolution of society, furthermore,
durkheim reasoned that all that is required for modern men now was to realise directly that
dependence on society, which before, they had recognized only through the medium of religious
representation.

On the most general plane, religion as a social institution serves to give meaning to man’s existential
predicaments by typing the individual to the supra individual sphere of transcendental value which is
ultimately rooted in his own society.

AN ASSESSMENT OF DURKHEIM

• One of the main problems in sociology was defining “theory (subject matter) and method”, durkheim
gave clear answers, both for theory and method. durkheim faced up to complex methodological
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 problems and demonstrated by implementing in his works, the necessity of empirical research for a
science of society. durkheim defined sociology as the science of social facts and of social
institutions. social facts, in turn, are analysed in their capacity as constraining forces in the
determination of human conduct or in more modern terms, as part of the apparatus of social control.
• In this connection, his discussions of the collective conscience, in spite of some variations, call
attention to the ways in which social interaction and relationships significantly influence individual
attitude, ideas and sentiments. for durkheim, the reality of society preceded the individual life.
durkheim frequently, especially in discussions on the collective conscience, reached a degree of
sociological realism that seemed to deny altogether the social significance of individual volition or
decision. Society is real, to be true, but so is the individual. And the two, it should be remembered,
are always in interaction. Giving priority to one or the other is misleading in the long run.
• DURKHEIM SHOWED CONVINCINGLY THAT SOCIAL FACTS ARE FACTS SUI GENERIS. He
brought out vividly the social and cultural importance of division of labour. He analysed the nature
and many of consequences of social solidarity. He indicated the role of social pressure in areas of
human activity where it had previously escaped detection. Along with Max Weber he brought the
attention of sociologists to the significance of values and ideals in social life.
• DURKHEIM BELIEVED IN FORMULATION OF CAUSAL EXPLANATIONS (POSITIVISM). It is
argued by him that it is the business of the sociologists to establish causal connections and causal
laws. Although many are skeptical about this approach, a great number of causal connections and
functional correlations have been established by sociology with a reasonable degree of probability.
Moreover, those who are skeptical about finding causal relations concede the existence of such
trends in sociology. While pleading for causal explanations, Durkheim argued that since laboratory
experimentation is impossible in sociology, we should go in for indirect experimentation, by using the
comparative method. This particular method continues to be used by sociologists.
• DURKHEIM IS THE PIONEER OF FUNCTIONAL APPROACH IN SOCIOLOGY. After Durkheim the
functionalist approach was pursued by Talcott Parson and R.K. Merton. It is in the context of
functionalism that Durkheim distinguished between normal and pathological functions. This opening
in sociological research has been further elaborated by later thinkers. Closely following Durkheim,
Merton distinguished between ‘Manifest’ and Latent’ functions. Also, the idea of ‘dysfunction’ goes
back to Durkheim’s idea of ‘pathological’ functions. Although Durkheim claimed that religion
contributes to social solidarity, Merton pointed out that it can be dysfunctional in some societies
since it can be very frequently, a source of discord and social conflict.
• Durkheim established a relationship between suicide rates and the degree of integration of
individuals in a social group in his theory of suicide. this part of the work of durkheim has been
found to be useful, and it has been confirmed by later studies like those of douglas and giddens.
• One of the important contributions of durkheim is in distinguishing the phenomena studied by
psychology and sociology. According to him, sociology must study social facts, those which are
external to individual minds and which exercise coercive action on them. Taking a cue from this view
of Durkheim, many sociologists have developed their thoughts. Ginsberg concedes this point. There
might be psychological generalization firmly established by relating them to general psychological
laws. In the same manner, Nadal argues that some problems of social enquiry might be eliminated
by a move to a lower level of analysis into the fields of psychology sociology and biology.
• Durkheim made population size an important factor in the study of sociology. Societies can be
classified according to their volume (individual) and density (number of social relations). He thought
that increase in volume generally brought about increase in density and the two together produced
variations in the social structure. In recent sociology this particular problem has been taken up in a
different way in the book ‘The Lonely Crowd’ by Riesman. Modern sociologists attach considerable
importance to the problem of population. The influence of population movements upon economic
growth is examined by Lexis in his book ‘The Theory of Economic Growth’.
• Durkheim did contribute to the typology of societies. He distinguished between mechanical
solidarity and organic solidarity. Besides, Durkheim was aware that societies might be classified in
other ways also. He classified them as a simple societies (the hordes), simple poly segementary
societies (the three tribes which founded Rome) and doubly compounded poly segmental societies
(The Germanic tribes). This attempt of Durkheim was further elaborated in terms of scale and
internal differentiation by Marret and Davy.
• Durkheim argued that division of labour was the primary sources of social solidarity. In
mechanical solidarity law would be repressive, while in organic solidarity, law would be restitutive.
Durkheim also discussed abnormal forms of division of labour that is those which go against the
promotion of social cohesion. In the abnormal forms he found two, the anomic and the forced. By the
first he meant examining specialization. As a remedy Durkheim proposed contact through
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 professional association and negotiation between capital and labour. What Durkheim anticipated is
very true of modern times. This approach is greatly followed by a number of thinkers who discount
Marx’s ideal of social or class conflict.
Finally, after Durkheim very little work has been done on the importance of religion.
However, there are a number of empirical studies of particular sects in terms of their relation with
and response to the social milieu in which they exist just as those of Wilson and Peter Berger, etc.

CRITICS ASSESSMENT:
• Durkheim’s approach has been criticized for its extreme form of social realism. he has been
condemned for over emphasizing society and the group at the expense of the individual. Durkheim
has adopted a determinist point of view according to which individual has been subordinated almost
totally to the collectively. Religion, law, moral etc., are the aspects of conscience collectively which
according to Durkheim, shaped individual behavior and his values. Thus individual’s choices,
meanings and motives have no independent place in Durkheim’s scheme of things (Weber). In fact,
they themselves are viewed as shaped by the social forces. Thus, exaggerating the importance off
collectivity over individuals Durkheim has inadvertently ended up legitimizing fascism.
• THIS EXTREME FORM OF SOCIAL REALISM IS MANIFESTED IN HIS WORK OF SUICIDE, where
he speaks of suicidogenic currents as collective tendencies which dominate individuals and force
some of them to commit suicide. Here, as pointed out by Douglas, Durkheim totally ignores the
meanings and motives which the individual impute to their circumstances before they take the
extreme step of committing suicide.
• DURKHEIM HAS ALSO BEEN CRITICIZED FOR HIS EXTREME POSITIVISM AS CAN BE SEEN IN
HIS ATTEMPT TO MAKE SOCIOLOGY A NATURAL SCIENCE. It has been argued that the study
of the phenomena of suicide can never rely exclusively upon statistical data, because such data can
never be authentic. The official records reveal what the police, the doctor or the coroner regard as
the case for suicide. Sometimes, the deaths caused due to accidents or murders may get registered
as suicide in the official records and vice-versa.

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