Organic Solidarity By Emile Durkheim

Emile Durkheim was a French sociologist in the late 1800s and early 1900s who came up with the concepts of social regulation and integration. These concepts have to do with the state of societies and how they work. More specifically, social regulation is the norms created by either formal laws or social pressure. The way people are expected to live and perform their daily tasks or jobs are somewhat decided by social regulation. In its most basic form, it’s what is and isn’t deemed acceptable by societies standards. Social integration on the other hand is the extent to which the group or society matters. This brings up the importance of the individual as opposed to the importance of the society. Strength of social ties within the community are big influences on how socially integrated a society is. These two concepts helped Durkheim better form an understanding for things such as suicide rates.

Pope and Johnson (1983) state that Durkheim proposed that society revitalizes individuals and gives them strength to persevere in the face of the vicissitudes of everyday life. Stones (2008), further states that Durkheim felt that we acquired all the best in ourselves and all the things that distinguish us from other animals from our social existence. Thought, language, world-views, rationality, morality and aspirations are derived from society. Thus, the unsocialised individual, the individual divorced form society, the beast within us, is a poor approximation of the highly socialised beings that constitute societies.

With modernization and industrialization, labour became increasingly specialized. Before this in the pre- modern societies, all workers did almost the same work in order to sustain themselves. These workers shared social cohesion base on similarity and commonality among themselves. This ‘mechanical solidarity’ was soon replaced by ‘organic solidarity’. With organic solidarity social cohesion was based on each individual’s dependence on every other in the society for survival. (The Emile Durkheim Archive, Solidarity)

Emile Durkheim is considered to be the Father of Sociology. In contrast to Karl Marx’s theory of Sociology, Durkheim believed that society is made up of a bunch of social facts and can be studied empirically. Durkheim did put a lot of emphasis on the idea of social facts. This made him stand apart from all other theorists and their ideas. (Ritzer 2004) This is what Durkheim said of social facts.

In comparing Emile Durkheim’s The Division of Labor in Society and exerts from the The Rules of Sociological Method to Peter Berger and Luckmann’s The Social Construction of Reality, these authors portray a variety of perspectives in analyzing the framework and foundations of society. While these authors analyze how individuals are impacted by different factors of the environment and social interaction, they also take into account the critical aspect of humans as social beings that creates the foundation and builds on the concept of a society. While society is always subjected to change, the ideas that compose a society remain consistent in their ability to adjust accordingly to social, environmental and political changes that occur.

Emile Durkheim, was a French sociologist. His theories and writings helped establish the foundations of modern sociology. Durkheim disagreed with most social theorists of the late 1800 's because they thought that individual psychology was the basis of sociology. Durkheim regarded sociology as the study of the society that surrounds and influences the individual. Durkheim explained his theories in his book The Rules of Sociological Method (1895). He says there is relationship between moral values and religious beliefs, which establishes unity in society.Emile Durkheim has long been viewed as one of the founders of the so called variables oriented approach to sociological investigation. Durkheim developed the theory that societies are bound together by two sources of unity. He called these sources mechanical solidarity and organic solidarity. Mechanical solidarity refers to similarities that many people in the society share, such as values and religious beliefs. Organic solidarity results from the division of labor into specialized jobs. Durkheim believed that the division of labor makes people depend on one another and thus helps create unity in a society. Durkheim studied thousands of cases of suicide to demonstrate his theory that a person commits suicide because of the

Emile Durkheim wrote extensively on sociology and the implications of sociology in our society in The Rules of the Sociological Method. More specifically, he coined the term “social facts,” which consist of “manners of acting, thinking and feeling external to the individual, which are invested with a coercive power by virtue of which they exercise control over him” (Durkheim 51). This phenomenon cannot be confused with organic phenomena (physical responses to outside stimuli, such as recoiling from pain) because those are internal to the individual, nor with psychological phenomena (such as emotions) for the same reason. Social facts are interactional obligations that coerce mannerisms from individuals due to moral standards that are

2. Durkheim: What term does Durkheim associate with social solidarity? How do societies achieve it organically and mechanically? What did he think threatened social solidarity?

Emile Durkheim believed in sociology, the social facts, and aspects in social life that make people. Durkheim would

Along with Marx and Weber, Durkheim is considered one of the founding members of modern sociology. He is also credited with making sociology a science through his application of scientific and empirical research. Durkheim believed that sociology should be seen as a science separate from other sciences such as psychology, by studying “social facts” objectively as things. (Kiviston, 2011)

In DHN, Durkheim argues that sociology must examine what an individual consists of because it is a result of the whole society. It is this society

Emile Durkheim and Karl Marx are considered the founding fathers of sociology. Both men had an influence on the development of sociology. Marx and Durkheim differed in their idea of what alienation consisted of. For Marx, the issue was class conflict. While, for Durkheim, it was a disordered society trying to adapt. Although they both had different concepts of alienation, both men believed that alienation lead to a man’s disconnectedness with society and their natural state of mind. Durkheim and Marx also had contrasting views of the role of religion and education. Karl Marx was not a religious type of person, he believed it served as sanctuary. However, Durkheim believed religion serves for society no matter how it is practiced. As for

Social facts have existence as a separate entity and it does not get affected by the individual behavior. In other words, social facts are the outcome of the state of the collective mind. The stress on the above feature makes sociology different from the rules of sociological method. Further, in favor of his argument Durkheim says that as an individual of the society the person inculcates automatically the behavioral deeds and actions with or without prior knowledge. No one is coercive on the imposition of laws and rules. If anyone goes against he is fined or a penalty is imposed for not obeying the laws of the society. To put forth his ideas in an effective manner he argues that society as a whole is an amalgamation of political platforms, partial groups such as literary schools, religious organizations etc which are bonded through certain sentiments. In his opinion, if the individual does not act in favor of a group and its principles that work for good cause and the betterment of the individuals and the society, he is made to face everything alone leading to atrocities and horrifying incidents.

The second type of society is modern society. We evolved from the primitive society structure and functionality. A highly differentiated social structure is said how modernity is to be characterized. (Seidman, 1998) There are specialized social institutions that differentiate individuals in the social structure (e.g., the economy, family, education, welfare, military, polity) and regulate the behaviour of the individual. Individualism is the public religion in this culture. The beliefs and morals held in common among individuals are to be highly general and abstract unlike how it is the primitive society. There are two social forces that are powerful in promoting individualism. The first is how advance the division of labor that the individual is required to have more freedom to control their institutional behaviour. The second is the given in a differentiated society the state or the church has any right to impose their social rules to dictate institutions, it is only up to the individual in their social roles in those institutions. This is a clear indication of how society has developed and how Durkheim has explained this transformation in relation to the growth of modernity.

Furthermore, Durkheim theorized a different type of solidarity forms through Organic Solidarity. Durkheim utilized biology analogies comparing human society to organisms in science (Sociology Index). Comparing Mechanical Solidarity to Organic Solidarity, diversity is the difference, within Organic Solidarity the division of labor is an evident difference. Within Organic Solidarity individuals experience a weaker bond within society, they experience a stronger sense of self but lack a connection with others (Palumbo et al, 2005). The Organic Society is less punitive, seeking restitution from individuals who violate laws or norms (Ritzer, p 196). Durkheim presented the concept of Anomie within society, which more than likely experienced within Organic Solidarity. Organic Solidarity based upon diversity when depressions, economic crisis and personal upheaval are experienced, the individual living in Organic Solidarity may feel there is no one to talk to, and they may feel isolated and in a sense on their own.