Emile Durkheim

Sociology - Study of Society

  • society is greater than the sum of individuals who comprise society

  • society has its own reality - social relations, organizations, collective social forces

Society - Moral Order

  • how is social (moral) order achieved and maintained amidst social & economic change?

    • views society as a complex system of component parts (interdependent/interrelated)

    • all parts of the whole are necessary for the functioning of society (structural functionalism)

Scientific Sociology

  • durkheim believed society could be studied

    • sociology: “science of civlization”

  • introduced concept of “social facts” which are social phenomenon that are

    • external to the individual

    • collective, independent of the individual

Social Facts Include:

  • beliefs, tendencies, practices of the group taken collectively

  • not just statistical facts; social facts more encompassing to include ways of acting, thinking, and feeling


  • shape, structure, and constrains individual and social behavior

How to study society/social facts?

  • social facts are objective things that exist in society

    • can be studied objectively (observed)

    • use indicators - when the phenomenon itself can’t be directly observed

Examples of Studying Social Facts

  • can’t directly see social integration, but it can be measured using indicators assessing:

    • individuals’ social ties to others

    • frequency of interaction with others

    • participation in various social/community groups

Social Facts as Social Problems

  • social facts include marriage, divorce, religion, crime, homelessness, education

  • social “problems” (e.g. homelessness, unemployment) are sociologically “normal”

  • pathology occurs when these problems become abnormally high and begin to threaten social order

Human Nature and Society’s Nature

  • life in society means that individual appetites must be curbed

  • social life requires that we attach ourselves to “something other than ourselves”

  • attachment to others - social ties, social bonds - produced solidarity (social morality)

    • solidarity maintains society (order & cohesiveness)

Societal Constraints

  • society is a collection of rules that constrain behavior

  • socialization teaches individuals collective rules, norms, customs, obligations

  • social rules or expectations are socially inherited; exist external to, and independent of, individuals

  • social change can only emerge from society

Social Transformation

  • different types of societies (traditional vs. modern) produce:

    • different societal conditions

    • different social facts

    • different forms of social organization

    • how is social order (solidarity) maintained in different types of societies

Traditional Society (mechanical)

  • pre-industrial or rural society/community

    • sameness in social structure and relationships

    • shared backgrounds (family, occupational, cultural historical)

    • overlapping social ties and relationships

Traditional Society

  • strong collective conscience

    • deeply felt shared attachments and beliefs

    • regulates expectations and behavior

    • low level of individualism

  • social control exerted through repressive sanctions

Modern Society (organic)

  • industrialization/urbanization/population density

  • geographical and social mobility

  • cultural diversity

  • specialized division of labor

  • emphasis on individualism

  • requires interdependence

Social Interdependence (modern)

  • social interdependence requires contractual as well as moral expectations

    • contracts are expressions of social morality; how society defines expectations and obligations

    • contracts have legitimacy because they reflect and affirm societal expectations and customs

    • contracts originate in society to protect social relations

Suicide as a study of sociology

  • egoistic - too much individualism

  • anomic - conditions too chaotic

  • fatalistic - conditions too controlled

  • altruistic - too much group attachment

Social Conditions and Suicide

  • suicide

    • a social fact

    • varies inversely with the degree of social integration

    • durkheim’s sociological study of suicide highlights:

      • the significance of social interdependence

      • how social structures attach individuals to society

      • how different social conditions produce different social consequences

Suicide in tightly bound societies

  • altruistic suicide:

    • produced under societal conditions in which individuals’ are excessively tied to the society; over-attachment to social groups

    • the strong press of the collective conscience/community norms

    • becomes obligatory due to loss of honor in the community

Modern, egoistical conditions

  • egoistic suicide

    • societal conditions with a high emphasis on individualism; self-oriented achievement

    • focus on the self leaves little room for the development/maintenance of social attachments

    • social relationships and social groups

      • function as constraints against individualist (egoistic) appetites

      • protect the individual from detaching from society

Constraining Individualist Tendencies

  • some social structures/forms of social organizaiton more likely than others to exert a constraining-integrating force on the individual

    • marriage

    • parenthood

    • church

      • not religious doctrine per se, but variation in church structure

        • the catholic church has a more layered communal;/hierarchical structure than the protestant church

        • absorbs rather than isolates the individual

        • Catholics more tightly integrated than protestants

        • lower incidence of suicide among Catholics than protestants

Anomic Social Conditions

  • anomic suicide

    • produced by societal conditions of upheaval, rootless-ness

    • the norms and anchors in place are disrupted and overturned by some unanticiapted occurrence/event/crisis

    • terrorist attacks

    • natural disasters (earthquakes, hurricane, fires, tsunamis)

    • rapid economic change (economic recession or growth)

Anomie and Social Cohesion

  • societal anomie, social disturbance, is not solely linked to suicide

  • societal anomie can also produce new bonds of cohesion

    • people want to be with other people

    • unite around a shared grief/common cause

      • independent of social anomie, social abnormalities or social problems (excessive inequality, excessive individualism) can threaten social cohesion

Is suicide an acceptable outcome of modernity?

  • in 2022, 6407 veterans dued by suicide (latest available data)

    • rougly 17.6 deaths per day

  • the suicide rate among veterans is more than double that of civilians at around 34.7 per 100,000

  • some estimates as high as 40 to 44 veterans taking their lives each day

Religion

  • a social fact

  • interest in the relation between religion and social integration

  • broad definition of religion, of the sacred:

    • all societies divide things into two categories

      • the sacred: all things set apart as special; have high symbolic value; society demands reverence/awe toward them

      • the profane: ordinary or mundane things with no special symbolic significance

The Sacred

  • the sacred and profane are defined by society

  • what makes a thing holy/sacred is the collective feeling attached to it

  • each society/community designates the sacred through symbols; collective representations

  • symbols are collective representations of a society’s/community’s shared beliefs/attachments

  • societies/communities unify around shared sacred symbols

Beliefs and Rituals

  • the sacred can be identified by

    • collectively shared beliefs

    • collectively shared rituals

      • church: the collective coming together of people with shared beliefs and rituals

    • a moral community; shared solidarity

    • we see and experience the sacred at collective assemblies (e.g. funerals, sports events, national civic events)

      • the affirmation and regeneration of social ties

Science and Religion

  • religion compels us to act in unison together; compels us to be social

  • attaches us to something other than ourselves; strengthens our individual and collective life

  • science: creates knowledge

  • religion: creates action, the moral-social remaking of society; creates solidarities

  • science and religion: separate, interdependent functions; not incompatible

Spiritual Beliefs/Religious Affiliation

  • overall belief in god: as of 2023, 74% of Americans belief in god

  • spiritual beliefs: more than half of US adults beleif in god as described in the bible whereas a third (34%) belief in some other higher power or spiritual force in the universe

    • protestant - 33%

    • catholic 22%

    • mormon 1%

    • christian unspecified11%

    • jewish 2 %

    • another religion 6%

    • no religion 22%

    • no answer 3%