SOCY 226 - DURKHEIM

Key concepts from readings, tutorial, lecture

Social Facts

Patterned ways of acting, thinking, feeling that are external to individuals and constrain them

How to Test Social Facts

General - are they widespread, outlive individuals?

External - discovered, not invented; exist before and after us

Constraining - pushback if resisted

Types of Social Facts

Nonmaterial and Material

Nonmaterial Social Fact

Moral rules, customs, beliefs, norms

Material Social Fact

Infrastructures that channel action, organize possibilities

Examples - population density, street/building layout, technologies, calendars + schedules

Mechanical Solidarity

Cohesion through resemblance, people bound because they are alike

Key Features of Mechanical Solidarity

Shared work, beliefs, rituals, daily rhythms

Thick collective consciousness - moral life covers many domains

Sanctions; moral and communal, strong because rules widely agreed

Deviance can feel shocking because zone of sameness is wide + all-encompassing

Tools are interchangeable, shared work producing shared meaning

Organic Solidarity

Cohesion through difference and interdependence, people bound because they rely on one another’s specialized role

Key Features of Organic Solidarity

High degree of coordination, each person’s moral is connected to everyone else’s

Diverse skills, mutual necessity

Collective conscience, narrower, focused on basics

Morality emphasizes cooperation, competence, trust

Deviance and Mechanical Solidarity

Affront to identity, moral condemnation, exclusion

Deviance and Organic Solidarity

Breach of role/contract, fines, suspension, remediation

Collective Conscience

A society-wide, moral atmosphere, enduring beliefs and sentiments with a life of their own

Rituals

Patterned gatherings that renew the collective conscience, generate collective effervescence

How do rituals work?

Mark sacred time and space (special clothing, language, gestures)

Synchronize bodies (clapping, singing, chanting, silence)

Symbols at work (banners, diplomas, gavels condense values)

Durkheim’s Worry in Social Life

Complex societies = innovation, freedom, coordination

Also chronic risks of low integration and low regulation

Egoism

Low integration - where do I belong?

Ties to groups weaken

Self left too alone - isolation, thin obligations, loss of “we”

Anomie

Low regulation - what can I expect, and what is expected of me?

Norms unstable, contradictory, or absent

Rules lose grip = restlessness, endless comparison, “never enough”

Social Solidarity

Interdependence and cohesion among societal members

Collective Effervescence

Feeling of unity in participating in a shared action or event