Ryan Schram

ryan.schram@sydney.edu.au

Mills 169 (A69)

March 12, 2015

You should bring an example of a religious practice to tutorial today. We will be meeting in Fisher Library to learn about how to research them. Maybe some of you already have some ideas… Walk around and introduce yourself to people. Share what you have brought.

Now is a good time to mention my guide to research, The Quest: Discovering new ideas through research. Check it out. This week are a starting to seek a topic of research.

• Do you have something in common with other students?
• Was there something surprising?
• Do you notice any themes or patterns?
• Are we closer to defining religion now?

You should now have all read the unit outline, the assignment instructions, and hopefully, The Quest.

What kinds of research have you done in the past, say for other classes?

What is an “ethnography”? Why would it be good to find one to read?

Do you have any questions for me?

Emile Durkheim invented the scientific study of society.

For Durkheim, religion was integral to society.

Hence, religion was universal across all cultures, places and times. Human beings are religious.

Also, this means that he thought there was a single definition of religion.

• Society is a whole which is greater than the sum of its parts. A society is a collective consciousness.
• The ideas (or 'constructs') of a collective mind are different than the ideas of an individual mind. They seem so much more powerful. It is as if they are facts. Hence, we must “[c]onsider social facts as things” (Durkheim 1964 [1895]: 14).
• The essence of society is its solidarity. Society perdures in time because the members often feel and know in their bones that they are part of the whole. Durkheim says that this is expressed in terms of “the sacred.” He argues that all societies define some things as sacred and some things as profane.

• Religion as we know it, and many other kinds of social institution, perform this “function” to maintain the distinction between sacred and profane for their societies. Religion is, in essence, an orientation to the sacred as society defines it. Religion is thus also socially functional. It connects people to the social whole. It fosters mechanical solidarity.
• Durkheim also spoke of “organic solidarity”–or connections to one's society based on specialized roles with the division of labor. All societies have both organic and mechanical solidarity. Religion functions to foster mechanical solidarity and economy functions to foster organic solidarity. We want to focus on mechanical solidarity.