emile_durkheim
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emile_durkheim [2015/03/05 17:13] – [Emile Durkheim] Ryan Schram (admin) | emile_durkheim [2015/03/05 17:26] – [Emile Durkheim] Ryan Schram (admin) | ||
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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' | ||
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+ | ## Social functions ## | ||
For Durkheim, society is a total, integrated system which is greater than the sum of its parts. As Durkheim often emphasizes, a thing *sui generis* which persists in spite of the slings and arrows of fortune. To explain why an institution or pattern of behavior exists, then, we cannot look to where it comes from, or what its origins are. Because it is a " | For Durkheim, society is a total, integrated system which is greater than the sum of its parts. As Durkheim often emphasizes, a thing *sui generis* which persists in spite of the slings and arrows of fortune. To explain why an institution or pattern of behavior exists, then, we cannot look to where it comes from, or what its origins are. Because it is a " | ||
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+ | ### Sanctions and social solidarity ### | ||
For instance, consider the laws that prohibit murder, stealing, and negligence. Imagine a murder case. Now imagine that you hire someone to do some work for you, and they do a bad job. In one case the murderer is punished. In the other case, the two parties can go to court and each can argue against the other. Even if the work performed was so poorly and irresponsibly performed that it hurt or killed someone, the person who did a bad job is not necessarily treated as a criminal. | For instance, consider the laws that prohibit murder, stealing, and negligence. Imagine a murder case. Now imagine that you hire someone to do some work for you, and they do a bad job. In one case the murderer is punished. In the other case, the two parties can go to court and each can argue against the other. Even if the work performed was so poorly and irresponsibly performed that it hurt or killed someone, the person who did a bad job is not necessarily treated as a criminal. | ||
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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 ' | 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 ' | ||
- | 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. Durkheim argued that we cannot explain this by looking to history or for that matter looking to what people may have once intended when they made these laws. Instead he argues laws governing crime and laws governing disputes between people each functioned | + | 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. Durkheim argued that we cannot explain this by looking to history or for that matter looking to what people may have once intended when they made these laws. Instead he argues laws governing crime and laws governing disputes between people each function |
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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 the sanction, because the sanction 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 sanction 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 ' | ||
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+ | Even though they have different kinds of social solidarity and different institutions which function to generate social solidarity, all societies have both mechanical and organic solidarity. Laws, whether written or unwritten, serve the social function of maintaining these kinds of solidarities, | ||
## Durkheim live ## | ## Durkheim live ## |
emile_durkheim.txt · Last modified: 2021/07/08 22:40 by Ryan Schram (admin)