Modern European Intellectual History

1. Modern EuropeanIntellectual History Lecture 23 Emile Durkheim between Modern Individualism and Social Cohesion

2. outline • intro: Emile Durkheim--background and importance • The Division of Labor in Society (1893): The Synergy of Individuality and Society • Suicide (1897): The Fate of Individuality without Society • The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912): The Persisting Ground of the Social • The Possibility of a Religion of Individualism

3. The Division of Labor in Society (1893) • basic theme: the synergy of individuality and society • mechanical solidarity • organic solidarity • collective consciousness

4. Cont’d • “The individuality of the whole grows at the same time as that of the parts. Society becomes more effective in moving in concert, at the same time as each of its elements has more movements that are peculiarly its own. This solidarity resembles that observed in the higher animals. In fact each organ has its own special characteristics and autonomy, yet the greater the unity of the organism, the more marked the individualization of the parts.” • “The economic services that [the division of labor] can render are insignificant compared with the moral effect that it produces, and its true function is to create between two or more people a feeling of solidarity.” • “Altruism is not destined to become, as Spencer would wish, a kind of pleasant ornament of our social life, but one that will always be its fundamental basis. How could we ever do without it? Men cannot live together without agreeing, and consequently without making mutual sacrifices, joining themselves to one another in a strong and enduring fashion. Every society is a moral society. In certain respects this feature is even more pronounced in organized societies. Because no individual is sufficient unto himself, it is from society that he receives all that is needful, just as it is for society that he labors. Thus there is formed a very strong feeling of the state of dependence in which he finds himself…”

5. Cont’d • “it is necessary and sufficient for [organic solidarity] to be itself, for nothing to come from outside to deform its nature.” • “The task of realizing and maintaining [unity] will have to constitute a special function of the social organism, represented by an independent organ. That organ is the state or government.” • “The individual, bent low over his task, will isolate himself in his own special activity.” • “The division of labor cannot therefore be pushed too far without being a source of disintegration.”

6. Suicide (1897): The Fate of Individuality without Society • between egoism and altruism: regulation of ends • between anomie and fatalism: regulation of means • egoistic suicide: “society is not sufficiently integrated at all points to keep all its members dependent upon it.” • anomic suicide: “the lack of collective forces at certain points in society; that is, of groups established for the regulation of social life.” • “excessive individuation … as the individual became alienated from religion, family and community [he became] a mystery to himself, unable to escape the exasperating and agonizing question: to what purpose?”

7. Suicide anomie altruism egoism fatalism

8. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912): The Persisting Ground of the Social • “…a system of ideas by means of which individuals represent to themselves the society of which they are members, and the obscure but intimate relations which they have with it.” • “apparent function is to strengthen the bonds attaching the believer to his god, [but it] at the same time really strengthens the bonds attaching the individual to the society of which he is a member, since the god is only a figurative expression of the society.” • collective ecstasy; emotional effervescence

9. can individualism be a religion? • “Individualism and the Intellectuals” (1898) • “a religion of which man is, at the same time, both believer and God” (22). • “the only system of beliefs that can ensure the moral unity of the country” (25) • “the religion of the individual is a social institution like all known religions” (28) • “individualism thus understood is the glorification not of the self, but of the individual in general” (24)

10. Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)