emile_durkheim
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Emile Durkheim is one of the most significant social theorists of the twentieth century, credited with founding modern sociology and anthropology. Durkheim argued for a new conceptualization of society in which, as he famously said, one should " | Emile Durkheim is one of the most significant social theorists of the twentieth century, credited with founding modern sociology and anthropology. Durkheim argued for a new conceptualization of society in which, as he famously said, one should " | ||
- | The social facts of society are, in another way, like the thoughts of a collective mind. Individuals do not merely join or participate in a social system, but take part in a collective consciousness. Durkheim' | + | The social facts of society are, in another way, like the thoughts of a collective mind. Individuals do not merely join or participate in a social system, but take part in a collective consciousness. Durkheim' |
- | Thus, society is a total system which is greater than its parts, and as Durkheim often emphasizes, a thing *sui generis* which persists in spite of the slings and arrows of fortune. To explain | + | For Durkheim, society is a total, integrated |
- | For instance, Durkheim argued that laws governing crime and laws governing disputes between people each functioned | + | For instance, |
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+ | It seems natural to say that this is because murder is immoral. The purpose of the prohibition seems to be to try to discourage bad things from happening. Why not punish people whose poor work causes harm and suffering too, though? Why do we make this distinction between criminal matters and civil matters? Racism, adultery, libel, lying and negligence are probably not as awful as murder, but in some ways, they are also moral issues. And yet we treat them as if they were different than ' | ||
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+ | You might say, well, maybe in the past this existed for a reason, and now it's just become a tradition, like a town that has a law that says ducks can't wear pants. | ||
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+ | Criminal acts are punished by repressive sanctions. The punishment of certain acts as crimes affirmed the basic similarities of the members of a society and their adherence to common moral ideas. Durkheim uses the term **mechanical solidarity** to refer to this feeling of oneness. | ||
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+ | By contrast, other kinds of acts are treated as disputes between individuals and do not involve the society as a whole. As such, the way these wrongs are resolved | ||
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+ | The content of the act, he said, does not determine what kind of sanction applied. Rather the type of social relationship that exists between the two parties is what determines how the law applies, because the law is functionally connected to that relationship. A murderer and a victim are seen in many societies as being members of the same social group. The law functions to create a feeling that everyone in society has a stake in the outcome. Different societies treat the same act with different kinds of sanctions. So for instance in many societies, including the Nuer, murder is treated as a bad thing, but it is not a ' | ||
## Durkheim live ## | ## Durkheim live ## |
emile_durkheim.txt · Last modified: 2021/07/08 22:40 by Ryan Schram (admin)