Lecture Notes on Emile Durkheim and his Elementary Forms Of Religious Life
Historical
context of Durkheim's sociology
•
Political instability of the French
republic in the late 19th century: rising working-class militancy;
threat of right-wing coup to reassert the power of the military, church, and aristocracy.
Struggle for control over education between church and secular forces. Search for
political stability preoccupies middle-class intellectuals like Durkheim.
• Durkheim was instrumental
in establishing sociology as a discipline; became the first chair of sociology and established the first sociology journal.
Much of his writing was preoccupied with emphasizing the value of the new
discipline of sociology as compared with more established disciplines like economics,
psychology, or philosophy.
General
features of Durkheim's sociology
•
Positivism: treats the natural sciences as the model for the social sciences; goal of
sociology is objective study of "social
facts." Positivism distinguishes sociology from philosophy.
• Organicism: uses the
biological organism as a metaphor for society; emphasizes the functional
interdependence of different parts of society (like the organs of a body); emphasizes the primacy of the whole (society)
over the part (individual). Organicism distinguishes sociology from psychology.
• Moralism: argues that
social integration is a moral phenomenon; collective ideals and sentiments
(especially those of a moral or ethical kind) are the key to understanding
social behavior and diagnosing social ills. This emphasis on the moral basis of
social order distinguishes sociology from economics.
The Division of Labor in
Society (1893)
•
Context: concern with individualism as a modern phenomenon; attempt to
present an ethical defense of individualism; how to reconcile individualism
with ethical concern for other members of society? Durkheim rejects both the
utilitarian defense of individualism found in classical
liberalism and the collectivist rejection of individualism advanced by
the church, the military, and the
authoritarian right wing.
• Goal: Durkheim seeks to
demonstrate the possibility of a "science of morality" in which morality
is understood as a social phenomenon and not just abstract principles.
• Durkheim argues that
individualism is a modern social
phenomenon; it is not as pronounced in
earlier societies; it is the result of social differentiation associated
with the development of the social division of labor.
• What causes the division of
labor? Durkheim argues that it is is not explained by the utilitarian pursuit
of happiness; individual egoism is a product of social differentiation, not its
cause. Suicide statistics suggest that the division of labor does not
automatically lead to an increase in human happiness. Durkheim argues that with
population growth and increasing physical and moral density, humans specialize
and become more differentiated in order to avoid direct struggle for survival. This
is the cause of the increasing division of labor.
• Does individualism lead to
social disintegration? Durkheim rejects the classical liberal argument that the
market is sufficient to guarantee that the free reign of individual egoism will
lead to the greater good for society as a whole. He also rejects the
conservative claim that the repression of individual choice is needed to
prevent social disintegration. What is needed, Durkheim argues, is a new and
higher form of social solidarity that will
reconcile individualism with a sense of respect for and obligation
toward others. Durkheim refers to this as "organic solidarity," which
he distinguishes from the more traditional
form of "mechanical solidarity."
• Mechanical solidarity:
characteristic of earlier, simpler societies in which there is little division
of labor and everyone's life experience is similar to everyone else's. Individuals
feel moral obligation to others because others are like themselves. In such
societies thought and morality are dominated
by the "collective conscience," i.e., by beliefs and sentiments that everyone
shares.
• Organic solidarity: characteristic
of modern societies with a high division of labor. Individuals feel moral
obligation to others who are not like themselves, based on a sense of reciprocity,
interdependence, and respect for the unique contributions of diverse
individuals. In such societies the collective conscience becomes less dominant,
allowing for the development of a multitude
of individual expressions of belief and ethical sentiments.
• Legal sanctions provide Durkheim with an empirical index of
changing forms of solidarity.
Repressive sanctions correspond to mechanical solidarity. Durkheim
argues that the purpose of repressive (criminal) sanctions is not deterrence
but the reaffirmation of the collective conscience.
A crime is whatever offends the collective conscience. Restitutive sanctions
(in which individuals who have been treated wrongly by others can receive
compensation) corresponds to organic solidarity. Durkheim argues that the shift
from repressive to restitutive law is
evidence of the changing nature of social solidarity.
• Anomie: This is Durkheim's term for
a lack of sufficient moral regulation in which individuals are left to their own
egotistical pursuits without a sufficient
sense of moral obligation to others. Anomie is viewed as a source of
both individual unhappiness and social disorganization. He argues that anomie is
widespread because the development of organic solidarity lags behind the growth
of the division of labor. Old forms of moral regulation have lost their
authority, but new forms are not yet fully developed. The solution is to create
new institutions to promote organic solidarity.
Elementary
Forms of Religious Life (1912)
• Context of the book:
o Problem of moral deregulation: religion provided moral regulation in earlier societies, but authority of religion is
declining with the rise of science and increasing individualism.
o Political struggle between those who want to reaffirm traditional religion and those who reject it
in favor of science.
o Durkheim seeks a middle position of demonstrating the "truth" of religion through scientific
analysis (although not the truth proclaimed by religion itself).
• What is the essence of
religion?
o Not belief in the supernatural.
This is not always emphasized. Much of what religion explains is ordinary and
natural, not mysterious and unknowable. In any case, this explanation
presupposes a distinction between natural and supernatural, which is itself a
later development in human history.
o Not belief in spiritual beings or personalized gods. Not all major
world religions emphasize spiritual beings or human-like gods (e.g., Buddhism,
Jainism, Brahminism).
o Division of the world into "sacred" and "profane."
Durkheim argues that religion in its most
elementary sense is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative
to "sacred" things as distinguished from "profane" things
of the mundane world.
• What is the source of the
experience of the sacred?
o Not animism, which argues that the dream self leads to ideas of a
soul and spirits which become the objects of
cults and worship. Durkheim rejects this explanation because is suggests that religion is based
on illusion.
o Not naturism, which argues that human action provides the metaphors
for understanding the process of nature, leading
primitive man to create myths that explain nature in an anthropormorphic
way. Durkheim rejects this explanation because it doesn’t explain the sacred
significance of routine aspects of nature, and also because this explanation
suggests that religion is based on false reasoning.
o Society is the source of our sense of the sacred. This is the argument
that Durkheim develops in Elementary Forms
of Religious Life.
Evidence from Australian Aboriginal totemism:
o Durkheim argues that totemism is
the earliest, simplest, and purist example of human religion. It allows
us to see the essence of religion before other layers of belief have been added.
o In totemism there are no
personalized spirits or gods. Religious rituals center on the sacred
"totem," which is represented simultaneously by a symbolic emblem, an
animal or other natural object, and individual members of the clan.
o Totem objects are demarcated from the mundane by ritual prohibitions
(taboos) and ritual ceremonies that periodically
bring members of the clan together and reaffirm their solidarity with
transcendent experiences.
o What is the origin of the sacred energy that infuses and binds
together the various representations of the
totem object? Not the overpowering sensations of the totem animal, which
is often small and insignificant. Moreover, the emblem is more important than the animal itself, hence the power
is clearly symbolic rather than natural. Totemism is thus based on the
recognition or experience of a diffuse impersonal force of some kind.
o According to Durkheim, the totem
emblem symbolizes the sacred and members of the society. Hence, Durkheim
argues, the sacred and society are one. The power of the totem represents the superiority of society
over the individual and the demands and obligations that society imposes on the
individual. Society is thus at the root of religion.
• Implications for the
relationship between science and religion.
o Rather than debunking religion, science reveals that religion has
always been simply a transfigured respect in
the moral authority of the social order. Thus science holds out the possibility of developing substitutes for
religions sources of moral solidarity.
o Durkheim thus rejects both the atheists’ claim that religion is based
on pure falsehood and superstition, as well as the religious fundamentalists’
claim that religion is literally true.
o Moreover, Durkheim also argues that scientific reason, no less that
religion, is rooted in social experience. Religious myth provided the earliest
system of natural classification. The most fundamental notions of modern
science have primitive religious origins.
• Social origins of the
categories of human understanding.
o Apart from the specific question of religion, the Elementary Forms also addresses the question of the nature
and origins of categories of human understanding (time, space, class, number, cause, substance, etc.)
o Classical philosophy understands human knowledge as a joint result of
specific sense perception and universal categories of understanding that
correspond to the most general properties of all things. But where do these general categories of understanding
come from? Durkheim rejects the two dominant views: empiricism (they are
distilled from experience) and a priorism (they are inherent in human reason).
o Instead, Durkheim argues that categories of human understanding are a
product of society. Categories of understanding are collective representations, while specific perceptions are
individual representations.
o These categories of understanding are modeled on (and thus similar to)
the structures of society. The scientific classification of things is based on
the social classification of people and groups. Logical hierarchy is based on
social hierarchy. Physical space is
conceptualized in the categories that define social space. Scientific
causality is based on the experience of the power of society over the
individual.
The world is divided into two parts having nothing in
common, the sacred and the profane. This division is absolute, not relative, as
are distinctions between good and bad, for example, the classification in the
latter case being after all but a matter of degree. Religion is concerned with
what pertains to the sacred, and is expressed in the form of rites and rituals.
The sacred as indeed any important phase of the sacred is the center of an organization
about which are grouped the beliefs and rites of some particular cult. Nor can
that be called religion, however unified it be, that does not recognize a
plurality in the sacred. Even the most idealistic and monotheistic religions
exhibit this trait–in Romanism the saints, regalia, churches, etc. Religion, then,
may be defined as “a solid system of beliefs and
practices having to do with the sacred, that is to say, the separated, the
prohibited, the beliefs and practices which are bound up in a moral community
called the Church, and all that appertains thereto.”[1]
Durkheim recognizes that magic has, like religion, its rites, traditions
and dogmas, the distinction between magic and religion being in practice often
difficult to make. Magic may, however, be distinguished in this way : it
is opposed to religion often making the sacred profane, frequently reversing
the religious forms in its own rites. Similarly, religion is opposed to magic.
The essential difference between them lies in the fact that magic may be but is
not necessarily social in expression, that is does not call for the
co-operation of individuals, such co-operation being essential to religion ;
that it has no church and is not national. Magic differs from religion in being
essentially a phenomenon of isolation performed by an individual as such
without church or co-operating assistants.
His accounts of "primitive" religion in The Elementary Forms of Religious Life continually give graphic illustration of how the
sacred is made real through the things people eat, the material objects
(including living things) that they venerate, the way people mark out special
spaces and the things they do with their bodies. The real physical "stuff"
of the sacred matters for how it works as a focus for collective moral emotion.
In The Elementary Forms, Durkheim understands these sacred actions as
rituals, differentiating between "positive" rites celebrating or
venerating a sacred object, and "negative" rites protecting a sacred
object from impurity. The numerous examples he gives of these follow a common
structure. A select group of people (usually excluding women and children) goes to a special (sometimes secret) place, to perform a defined set of actions in
relation to a sacred object. The collective experience generated by such
rituals is so powerful that it gives the participants a profound sense of
connectedness to each other and a deep moral vitality that transforms the way
in which they feel about themselves and their world.
It's helpful here to take a step back and to remember our working
definition of the sacred as that which people take to be unquestionable moral
realities. A broader understanding of "sacred ritual" could then be
anything that people do that reminds them of, and renews their identification
with, these deep moral realities. In that sense, Durkheim's theory of the
sacred is perhaps best understood as a theory of a particular kind of public
communication. It points our attention towards social acts that convey powerful
moral meanings in ways that are meant to draw a sympathetic public audience around them.
Gordon Lynch https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/24/emile-durkheim-religion-ritual-ancient-modern
(1) The
division of labor is conceived as horizontal differentiation, not vertical
(class) inequality.
(2) Social change is conceived as evolutionary
process, not revolutionary leaps.
(3) Contradictions of modern
society are moral (anomie) rather than
material (alienation).
(4) State, law, and dominant
belief system are viewed from the standpoint of their functionality for society
as a whole, not as the instruments of the
ruling class.
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