Professional Documents
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Critical Review: Four Visions of Society (Read Only)
What Holds Societies Together?
How is something as complex as society possible? Lenski claims that members of a society
are united by a shared culture, although cultural patterns become more diverse as a society
gains more complex technology. He also points out that as technology becomes more
complex, inequality divides a society more and more, although industrialization reduces
inequality somewhat. Marx saw in society not unity but social division based on class Position.
From his point of view, elites may force an uneasy peace, but true social unity can occur only
if production becomes a cooperative process, To Weber, the members of a society share a
worldview. Just as tradition joined people together in the past, so modern societies have
created rational, largescale organizations that connect people's lives. Finally, Durkheim made
solidarity the focus of his work. He contrasted the mechanical solidarity of preindustrial
societies, which is based on shared morality, with modern society's organic solidarity, which
is based on specialization.
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Further, he found that soldiers commit suicide more often than civilians and that curiously,
rates of suicide are higher during peacetime than they are during wars.
The more socially integrated a person is—that is, the more he or she is connected to society,
possessing a feeling of general belonging and a sense that life makes sense within the social
context—the less likely he or she is to commit suicide. As social integration decreases, people
are more likely to commit suicide.
Anomic suicide:
Anomic suicide is an extreme response by a person who experiences anomie, a sense of
disconnection from society and a feeling of not belonging resulting from weakened social
cohesion. Anomie occurs during periods of serious social, economic, or political upheaval,
which result in quick and extreme changes to society and everyday life. In such circumstances,
a person might feel so confused and disconnected that they choose to commit suicide.
For example, the change in the economy in Greece has affected the once low suicide rate.
Altruistic suicide:
Altruistic suicide is often a result of excessive regulation of individuals by social forces such
that a person may be moved to kill themselves for the benefit of a cause or for society at large.
An example is someone who commits suicide for the sake of a religious or political cause,
such as the infamous Japanese Kamikaze pilots of World War II, or the hijackers that crashed
the airplanes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania in 2001.
In such social circumstances, people are so strongly integrated into social expectations and
society itself that they will kill themselves in an effort to achieve collective goals.
Egoistic Suicide:
Egoistic suicide is a profound response executed by people who feel totally detached from
society. Ordinarily, people are integrated into society by work roles, ties to family and
community, and other social bonds. When these bonds are weakened through retirement or
loss of family and friends, the likelihood of egoistic suicide increases. Elderly people, who
suffer these losses most profoundly, are highly susceptible to egoistic suicide.
According to Durkheim egoistic suicide was the higher among adults who were unmarried
compared with married people of the same age. Also, the larger the family, the lower was the
chance of suicide occurring. Finally, egoistic suicide varied inversely with the degree of
political integration, the rate fell in wars and political crises.
Fatalistic Suicide:
Fatalistic suicide occurs under conditions of extreme social regulation resulting in oppressive
conditions and a denial of the self and of agency. In such a situation, a person may elect to
die rather than continue enduring the oppressive conditions, such as the case of suicide
among prisoners.
Examples were the situation of childless married women (presumably where divorce was
difficult), young husbands, and slaves.
Prevention of Suicides:
To sum up, Durkheim concluded that suicide is often seen as an individual problem; therefore,
attempts to prevent suicides have failed. Durkheim believed that the measures that are
undertaken to prevent suicide by directly convincing individuals to not commit suicides seem
futile because the real causes are in the society not in individual.
As a matter of fact, in order to prevent suicides, we will have to balance the underlying social
forces and social facts i.e. integration and regulation which are found in society not in
individuals.
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Anomie: (Memorize)
Anomie is a social condition in which there is a disintegration or disappearance of
the norms and values that were previously common to the society.
Anomic suicide:
Anomic suicide is an extreme response by a person who experiences anomie, a sense of
disconnection from society and a feeling of not belonging resulting from weakened social
cohesion. Anomie occurs during periods of serious social, economic, or political upheaval,
which result in quick and extreme changes to society and everyday life. In such circumstances,
a person might feel so confused and disconnected that they choose to commit suicide.
For example, the change in the economy in Greece has affected the once low suicide rate.
A Feeling of Disconnection:
People who lived during periods of anomie typically feel disconnected from their society
because they no longer see the norms and values that they hold dear reflected in society itself.
This leads to the feeling that one does not belong and is not meaningfully connected to others.
For some, this may mean that the role they play (or played) and their identity is no longer
valued by society. Because of this, anomie can foster the feeling that one lacks purpose,
engender hopelessness, and encourage deviance and crime.
Anomie According to Émile Durkheim:
Though the concept of anomie is most closely associated with Durkheim's study of suicide, in
fact, he first wrote about it in his 1893 book The Division of Labor in Society. In this book,
Durkheim wrote about an anomic division of labor, a phrase he used to describe a
disordered division of labor in which some groups no longer fit in, though they did in the past.
Durkheim saw that this occurred as European societies industrialized and the nature of work
changed along with the development of a more complex division of labor.
Anomic Suicide:
A few years later, Durkheim further elaborated his concept of anomie in his 1897
book, Suicide: A Study in Sociology. He identified anomic suicide as a form of taking one's
life that is motivated by the experience of anomie. Durkheim found, through a study of suicide
rates of Protestants and Catholics in nineteenth-century Europe, that the suicide rate was
higher among Protestants. Understanding the different values of the two forms of Christianity,
Durkheim theorized that this occurred because Protestant culture placed a higher value on
individualism. This made Protestants less likely to develop close communal ties that might
sustain them during times of emotional distress, which in turn made them more susceptible to
suicide. Conversely, he reasoned that belonging to the Catholic faith provided greater social
control and cohesion to a community, which would decrease the risk of anomie and anomic
suicide. The sociological implication is that strong social ties help people and groups survive
periods of change and tumult in society.
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The growing fanaticism and terrorism in Pakistan as well as the strong moral and familial
integrated systems and bindings have resulted in altruistic suicides. Pakistani society and
culture have also witnessed social and cultural interventions and disruptions with the rise of
industrialization, urbanization, materialism, technology and modernization which have resulted
in higher rates of anomic suicides.
Finally, the idea of the strong excessive regulations and strict disciplines had led many
students across the country to commit fatalistic suicides. There are other social, psychological,
gender and cultural, economic and political factors which come into play while pushing the
individuals into committing suicides.
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It also creates a feeling of solidarity among people who share those jobs. But, Durkheim says,
the division of labor goes beyond economic interests: In the process, it also establishes social
and moral order within a society.
To Durkheim, the division of labor is in direct proportion with the dynamic or moral density of
a society. This is defined as a combination of the concentration of people and the amount of
socialization of a group or society.
Dynamic Density:
Density can occur in three ways:
When one or more of these things happen, says Durkheim, labor begins to become divided
and jobs become more specialized. At the same time, because tasks grow more complex, the
struggle for meaningful existence becomes more difficult. Durkheim also stressed on social
solidarity.
Social Solidarity:
Durkheim referred to how we bind together around a shared culture as "solidarity." Social
solidarity is closely related to social cohesion and is the idea of a well-integrated functioning
society where all members have been socialised into its shared norms and values.
Social Solidarity:
Durkheim argues that two kinds of social solidarity exist: mechanical solidarity and organic
solidarity.
Mechanical Solidarity:
Mechanical solidarity connects the individual to society without any intermediary. That is,
society is organized collectively and all members of the group share the same set of tasks and
core beliefs. What binds the individual to society is what Durkheim calls the "collective
consciousness," sometimes translated as "conscience collective," meaning a shared belief
system.
Organic Solidarity:
With regard to organic solidarity, on the other hand, society is more complex—a system of
different functions united by definite relationships. Each individual must have a distinct job or
task and a personality that is their own.
Durkheim argued that individuality grows as parts of society grow more complex. Thus, society
becomes more efficient at moving in sync, yet at the same time, each of its parts has more
movements that are distinctly individual.
According to Durkheim, the more primitive a society is, the more it is characterized by
mechanical solidarity and sameness. The members of an agrarian society, for example, are
more likely to resemble each other and share the same beliefs and morals than the members
of a highly sophisticated technology- and information-driven society.
As societies become more advanced and civilized, the individual members of those societies
become more distinguishable from one another. People are managers or laborers,
philosophers or farmers. Solidarity becomes more organic as societies develop their divisions
of labor.
Two types of law are present in human societies and each corresponds with a type of social
solidarity: repressive law (moral) and restitutive law (organic).
Repressive Law:
Repressive law is related to the center of common consciousness" and everyone participates
in judging and punishing the perpetrator. The severity of a crime is not measured necessarily
by the damage incurred to an individual victim, but rather gauged as the damage caused to
the society or social order as a whole. Punishments for crimes against the collective are
typically harsh. Repressive law, says Durkheim, is practiced in mechanical forms of society.
Restitutive Law:
The second type of law is restitutive law, which does focus on the victim when there is a crime
since there are no commonly shared beliefs about what damages society. Restitutive law
corresponds to the organic state of society and is made possible by more specialized bodies
of society such as courts and lawyers.
Crimes against the community take priority in mechanical societies, according to Durkheim,
because the evolution of the collective consciousness is widespread and strong while the
division of labor has not yet happened. When division of labor is present and collective
consciousness is all but absent, the opposite is true. The more a society becomes civilized
and the division of labor is introduced, the more restitutory law takes place.
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In functionalist theory, the different parts of society are primarily composed of social
institutions, each designed to fill different needs. Family, government, economy, media,
education, and religion are important to understanding this theory and the core institutions that
define sociology. According to functionalism, an institution only exists because it serves a vital
role in the functioning of society. If it no longer serves a role, an institution will die away. When
new needs evolve or emerge, new institutions will be created to meet them.
In many societies, the government provides education for the children of the family, which in
turn pays taxes the state depends on to keep running. The family relies on the school to help
children grow up to have good jobs so they can raise and support their own families. In the
process, the children become law-abiding, taxpaying citizens who support the state. From the
functionalist perspective, if all goes well, the parts of society produce order, stability, and
productivity. If all does not go well, the parts of society must adapt to produce new forms of
order, stability, and productivity.
Functionalism emphasizes the consensus and order that exist in society. From this
perspective, disorganization in the system, such as deviant behavior, leads to change
because societal components must adjust to achieve stability. When one part of the system is
dysfunctional, it affects all other parts and creates social problems, prompting social change.
Functionalism does not encourage people to take an active role in changing their social
environment, even when doing so may benefit them. Instead, functionalism sees agitating for
social change as undesirable because the various parts of society will compensate in a
seemingly organic way for any problems that may arise.
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Functionalists argue that religion is a conservative force and that this is a positive function for
society and for individuals. Religion helps to create social order and maintains the value
consensus.
Religion:
According to Durkheim’s last major book “The elementary forms of Religious life” (1912)
“A religion is 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 single community
called a Church, all those who adhere to them."
According to Durkheim, religion is the product of human activity, not divine intervention. He
thus treats religion as a social fact and analyzes it sociologically.
Collective Effervescence:
According to Durkheim, a religion comes into being and is legitimated through moments of
what he calls “collective effervescence.” Collective effervescence refers to moments in
societal life when the group of individuals that makes up a society comes together in order to
perform a religious ritual.
From his detailed study of “primitive religion” he identified four key functions of religion in
society:
Discipline:
Religious rituals impose self-discipline, which encourages individuals to behave sociably and
not simply pursue their own selfish course of action, which would be anti-social and
destabilizing.
Cohesion:
The key function is social cohesion: worship brought the community together. Through worship
people reaffirm and reinforce the bonds that keep them together.
Vitalising:
Durkheim also argued that religious belief maintained traditions, ensuring that the values that
are passed down from generation to generation are kept vital and at the heart of the society.
Euphoric:
Finally, if members of society were ever to become frustrated or lose their faith, the religion
serves to remind them of their place in something much bigger. Again, it prevents individuals
from becoming anti-social.
Durkheim concluded that when a society came together to worship collectively, what they were
really worshipping was society itself. Durkheim recognised that society was becoming less
religious and more secular, but he argued that there was still this secular function for religious
belief. This was developed in the 1960s by Bellah with his work on Civil Religion.
Also, Durkheim predicted that religion's influence would decrease as society modernizes. He
believed that scientific thinking would likely replace religious thinking, with people giving only
minimal attention to rituals and ceremonies. He also considered the concept of “God” to be on
the verge of extinction. Instead, he envisioned society as promoting civil religion, in which,
for example, civic celebrations, parades, and patriotism take the place of church services. If
traditional religion were to continue, however, he believed it would do so only as a means to
preserve social cohesion and order.
Critical Analysis:
The primary criticism of the structural-functional approach to religion is that it overlooks
religion’s dysfunctions. For instance, religion can be used to justify terrorism and violence.
Religion has often been the justification of, and motivation for, war. In one sense, this still fits
the structural-functional approach as it provides social cohesion among the members of one
party in a conflict. For instance, the social cohesion among the members of a terrorist group
is high, but in a broader sense, religion is obviously resulting in conflict without questioning its
actions against other members of society.
Durkheim predicted that the religion will slowly dilute itself. (Robert Bellah's Civil Religion) and
newer ethos will come into picture. He failed to predict- "religious revivalism".
Durkheim claimed that his theory applied to religion in general, yet he based his conclusions
on a limited set of examples.
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How Emile Durkheim Made His Mark on Sociology: (Important) (Read
Only) (As already done in previous topics)
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Liberation of Individuals:
An heir of the Enlightenment, Durkheim championed the liberation of individuals from religious
dogmas, but he also feared that with their release from tradition individuals would fall into a
state of anomie — a condition that is best thought of as “normlessness” — which he believed
to be a core pathology of modern life.
For this reason, he spent his entire career trying to identify the bases of social solidarity in
modernity; he was obsessed with reconciling the need for individual freedom and the need for
community in liberal democracies.
In his mature years, Durkheim found what he believed to be a solution to this intractable
problem: religion. But not “religion” as understood in the conventional sense. True to his
sociological convictions, Durkheim came to understand religion as another social fact, that is,
as a byproduct of social life. In his classic The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, he
defined “religion” in the following way:
“A religion is 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 into one single moral
community called a Church, all those who adhere to them.”
There is a sense in which this way of thinking has become entirely commonplace. When
people describe, say, European soccer fans as religious in their devotion to their home team,
they are drawing on a Durkheimian conception of religion. They are signaling the fact that fans
of this nature are intensely devoted to their teams — so devoted, we might say, that the team
itself, along with its associated symbols, are considered sacred.
We can think of plenty of other contemporary examples: one’s relationship with one’s child or
life partner may be sacred, some artists view art itself — or at least the creation of it — as
sacred. The sacred is a necessary feature of social life because it is what enables individuals
to bond with one another. Through devotion to a particular sacred form, we become tied to
one another in a deep and meaningful way.
This is not to say that the sacred is always a good thing. We find the sacred among hate
groups, terrorist factions and revanchist political movements. Nationalism in its many guises
always entails a particular conception of the sacred, be it ethnic or civic.
But, at the same time, the sacred lies at the heart of all progressive movements. Just think of
the civil rights, feminist and gay liberation movements, all of which scalarized the liberal ideals
of human rights and moral equality. Social progress is impossible without a shared conception
of the sacred.
Durkheim’s profound insight was that despite the negative risks associated with the sacred,
humans cannot live without it. He asserted that a lack of social solidarity within society would
not only lead individuals to experience anomie and alienation, but might also encourage them
to engage in extremist politics. Why? Because extremist politics would satiate their desperate
desire to belong
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