Essay Emile Durkheim and the Collective Conscience

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.

Durkheim’s theories and work on suicide classified the phenomenon into four types; Egoistic, Altruistic, Anomic and Fatalistic (Ritzer Pg 200-202). Durkheim’s concept of social integration ties into egoistic suicide as it

The first sociologist to theorize on suicide and its sociological interpretations was Emile Durkheim. Durkheim worked during the late 1800’s identifying social structures as the key determinant in self-destructive behaviour. In his work Suicide: A study in Sociology, Durkheim stated that “suicide rates increase when a society’s value system breaks down.”2 Durkheim believed that the shared values of a society and the mechanisms in place that ensure that its members adhere to these values, is interpreted as a person’s “social structure.” Durkheim suggested two basic factors in social structure that heavily influence the incidence of suicide. These are regulation and integration. He believed that an individual needs to become part of, and find direction in his own society. Without these factors in place, suicide becomes a common substitute. Teens are often anxious about fitting in to their society (especially among peer groups) so it is clear that integration is essential to adolescence. Durkheim also suggested that it is these two factors

In Durkheim's opinion a whole is not identical to the sum of its parts, thus society is not just a mere sum of individuals.

For instance he coined the term “social facts” (Andersen and Taylor 14) which are the social patterns such as customs and social values of an individual. Another example is his study of suicide, where Durkheim would view the patterns of suicide and generalize. For example, Protestants had the highest suicide rate (Jones 82-114). He saw that suicide was a social phenomenon. Another contribution Durkheim made was his concept of the division of labor, in which he argued traditional societies were made up of similar people in terms of values, religious beliefs, and background, while modern societies were made up of a complex division of labor, beliefs, and backgrounds (Hurst).

Durkheim was one of the most influential sociologists in relation to the functionalist theories which stated society consisted of a structural consensus with a collective conscience of shared norms and values. He argued in order to establish the meaning of society one must understand the structures and social facts. He highlights changes in society from traditional societies which were linked with mechanical solidarity consisting of small scale ties with little division of labour. This in turn created a strong collective conscience of unity in comparison to modern society where differences amongst groups are promoted in turn weakening social solidarity. This is due to rapid changes within society in which Durkheim emphasises is due to a complex division of labour. Durkheim then argues that due to the combination of enlightenment notions and a capitalist society a collective conscience of individualism and greed is created. (Jones, Bradbury and Boutillier, 2011, pp.62-64)

When people look at the world, they see it is structured in a specific way. Each perspective varies depending on the person. For instance, when looking at classical theory in sociology, there exists three viewpoints on society. Karl Marx believed the world based on conflict while Weber made sense of it by viewing the meanings. As for Durkheim, he made sense of it through social cohesion. Unlike Marx, whose primary focus was conflict, Durkheim’s writing centered around how people were capable of coexisting harmoniously.

“Treat social facts as things” is an expression that epitomises the works of Emile Durkheim. This essay focuses on four main sociological concepts proposed by the functionalist Emile Durkheim; the division of labour; mechanical and organic solidarity; anomie and suicide, and examines their relevance in contemporary society.

Émile Durkheim once said, “It is society which, fashioning us in its image, fills us with religious, political and moral beliefs that control our actions” (Durkheim). This would be the basis for his theory of suicide. Émile Durkheim was a French Sociologist in the 19th century, known for his work that established the branch of Education now known as Sociology, along with Karl Marx and Max Weber, he is commonly cited as the principal architect of modern social science. Émile Durkheim dedicated his work around how Societies function and evolve. Émile Durkheim researched Suicide within the countries of France, England, and Denmark (Lester). This research led him to the theory that Suicide, while being a solitary act, the causes had significant links to society and social factors. In 1897, Émile Durkheim wrote the book, Le Suicide. In this book he discussed and divided suicide into four different categories such as: Egoistic suicide, Altruistic suicide, Anomic suicide and Fatalistic suicide (Lester). This division of suicide was based on the role that society places in an individual's life which is still significant to modern sociology.

Durkheim believed that the suicide rate was a social fact; he found that social forces such as social integration, which refers to “an attachment to social groups” and social regulation, which refers to the “control of individual desires by group norms” (Fulcher and Scott, 2007, p.37) are factors external to the individual and determine levels of suicide in society. Durkheim found that suicide resulted from an imbalance of these two forces and developed a classification system. It was observed (Giddens, 2006, p.15) that egotistic suicides are common in social groups that lack sufficient integration, resulting in weaker social ties. For example lower suicide rates in times of social crisis such as war are attributed to higher social integration

Durkheim does not see egoism, altruism, anomie and fatalism as types of suicide, but types of social structure that highlight the presence or lack of integration and regulation. It must be stressed that this excess/lack of integration and regulation are not seen as direct causes of suicide, rather Durkheim sees a number of voluntary deaths in society as inevitable; integration and regulation are merely prophylactic to suicidal impulses, which when taken to excess or dramatically reduced, fail to act as a preventative, and so suicides occur. This clarification is an important strength of Durkheim’s theory: it allows the biography of the individuals who kill themselves to vary, while still explaining underlying pressures/lack of to explain their deaths, and the varying suicide rates between groups.

Durkheim is a highly influential name to remember when thinking of sociology. Durkheim’s mission was to develop sociology so it could be defined and to develop a method on how sociology should be used. Durkheim’s main concern in his career was primarily associated with how societies might preserve their integrity and rationality within modernised society, when things such as shared religious views and ethnic backgrounds are seen as things of the past. In relation to Durkheim’s social realism his concern was with the growing individualism in society. Durkheim argues that we are in an era which is imperfectly moving towards a morality based on individualism as “Durkheim regarded individualism as a collective representation, a force that

The emergence of sociology as a discipline is a result of the social, economic, political and technological developments in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In this essay, the adequacy of this viewpoint will be analysed by pointing out these developments and highlighting their impact on the works of Emile Durkheim, Karl Marx and Max Weber. The three are considered because they are regarded as the pioneers of sociology. Furthermore, the relevance of the early work of the above to modern sociology will be highlighted.

In his theory of how society and the individual coincide with each other Emile Durkheim believes that the role of the person in society is heavily based on many factors. To Durkheim society can function either under mechanical solidarity or organic solidarity under the forced division of labor and depending on which it functions as aids in giving us a deeper understanding of the person and their role as an individual in society. In his writings “Elementary Forms of Religious Life” he claims that “each individual carries the whole in himself” but to understand his beliefs an understanding of the individual and society within his writings “Elementary Forms Of Religious Life” and “Devision of Labor” will be beneficial (Durkheim, pg. 226). By looking at the individual, through the lens of his writings “Elementary Forms Of Religious Life” and “Devision of Labor” as building blocks for his theories of social structure it will aid in explaining why the making of the individual is possible and whether it conflicts with Durkheim’s personal views.

The existence of too much and too little integration and regulation results in different suicides such as egotistic and anomie. Egoistic suicide happens when individuals are integrated too little (such as elderlies), there is excessive individualism, which is low social integration. Individuals who do decide to commit egoistic suicide are just not strongly supported by their peers in a unified social group. On the other hand, anomie suicide is committed once the person’s sense of perseverance is lost and individuals not being connected to the society. The circumstance of uncertainty results from the breakdown of morals and values and from the lack of ambition and