Todays Class

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Todays Class

• Durkheims life and times
• Approach to sociology
• The Division of Labor in Society
• Suicide
• In-Class Writing
• Discussion of Hornsby

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Emile Durkheim, 1858-1917
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Durkheims Life Times

• Born 1858, Epinal close-knit family
• 1879 Ecole Normale Superieure
• Social and political context
• 1885 Trip to Germany
• Writings on methodology The Rules of the
  Sociological Method (1895)

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Durkheims Life Times

• 1887 Position at University of Bordeaux The
  Division of Labor in Society (1893)
• Suicide (1897)
• 1902 Position at the Sorbonne
• The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912)

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Durkheims Life Times

• World War I loss of son
• Stroke in 1916, death in 1917

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Durkheims Approach to Sociology

• Rejection of methodological individualism
  need to study groups, societies
• Social Realism
• Society as constraint
• Social Facts
• Need for separate discipline for study of society

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The Division of Labor in Society

• What holds societies together?
• Durkheims argument shared moral framework
• Spencer, Principles of Sociology social
  cooperation based on rational self-interest
• Durkheim rational action presupposes moral
  framework
• Rational action rests on nonrational foundation

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The Division of Labor in Society

• Increasing division of labor
• Cause increasing volume and density of
  population
• Functionalist argument
• Social solidarity?
• Shift from mechanical to organic solidarity

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Mechanical Solidarity

• Same activities, same beliefs
• Individual consciousness has two components
• Collective Conscience
• Mechanical solidarity CC takes up almost all of
  individual consciousness
• Why mechanical?

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Organic Solidarity

• High division of labor, solidarity through mutual
  dependence
• People not as similar
• Why organic?
• Receding place of collective conscience in
  individual consciousness

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Laws as Indicators

• Low division of labor/mechanical solidarity ?
  repressive laws
• High division of labor/organic solidarity ?
  restitutive laws

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Todays Readings

• Preface
• Growing importance of economic life
• Lack of morality in economic sphere
• Anomie (normlessness)
• Threat of conflict
• Solution occupational groups

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Todays Readings

• Mechanical and Organic Solidarity
• Weakening of collective conscience
• Individual and society are not opposed
• Functionalism civilization
• Civilization as effect of division of labor
• Idea of social facts
• Society determines individuals, not the other way
  around

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Todays Readings

• Growing influence of social forces
• Increasing diversity among people
• Ideas and feelings are socially determined

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Suicide (1897)

• Thinking about suicide
• Durkheim social causes
• Study approach social structure and suicide rates

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Suicide (1897)

• Rejection of popular explanations (mental
  illness, climate)
• Durkheims alternative social structure
• Integration
• Regulation

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Types of Suicide

• Low integration ? Egoistic suicide
• High integration ? Altruistic suicide
• Low regulation ? Anomic suicide
• High regulation ? Fatalistic suicide

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Method and Findings

• Method country-level data
• Findings
• Religion
• Marriage
• Children
• Family size
• Wars and crises
• Economic booms and busts

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Problems of Study

• Logical flaws
• Design flaw ecological fallacy
• Sexist assumptions and conclusions
• Significance Large-scale empirical effort to
  show effects of social structure

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In-Class Writing

• Hornsby finds evidence of both social
  integration and social regulation in electronic
  gatherings. Describe at least one example of
  integration and one example of regulation that
  she discusses.

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Small-Group Exercise

• 1. Have you participated in electronic
  gatherings on a somewhat regular basis (or even
  just lurked)? If so, how would you describe
  the gatherings in terms of social integration?
  Social regulation?

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Small-Group Exercise

• 2. Do you think electronic gatherings are more or
  less integrated than face-to-face situations?
  More or less regulated? How do you think they
  affect overall social solidarity?

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Small-Group Exercise

• 3. What does Hornsby mean by cyborg society?
  How is cyborg solidarity different from organic
  solidarity? Do you agree that we are making a
  transition to a new kind of solidarity as a
  result of new technologies?