Durkheim

Durkheim: Anomic Division of Labor

The first pathological form that results from the division of labor, according to Durkheim, is the anomic division of labor. This fairly common, negative aspect of the division of labor occurs when the individuals become isolated by their repetitive, specialized tasks, and forget that they are parts of the whole, i.e. society. Examples of this occur in industries and factories which detach workers from their employers. In order to fix this anomic division of labor, the conditions present in a state of organic solidarity must be determined. This state of interdependency would exist once the specialized workers became directly dependent on one another. This would form a complex division of labor strongly resembling an organism. The groups of people would act as organs engaging in repetitive, definite actions which contribute essential functions to the entire organism. When this state of organic solidarity is formed, problems such as anomie are rectified.

David Emile Durkheim was a French sociologist most famous for his book The Division of Labour In Society. Durkheim was considered a prodigy while he was in school. The main objective of the book was to explain the relationship between an individual and social solidarity. The chapter looked into his other works and the theories he developed. The “Division of Labour” was an important theme that Durkheim went into extreme detail with. He believed that by changing the “division of labour”, you could change the way that society had order and how unified everyone was. He also believed that the way that people cooperated with one another determined how smoothly things ran with the “division of labour”

Mechanical and Organic solidarity are two concepts of social solidarity that was coined by Durkheim. Mechanical solidarity deals with smaller societies with little division of labour and it is based on likeness. Organic solidarity deals with the opposite of Mechanical solidarity. It deals with the division of labour directly and it deals with larger societies. Mechanical societies have become rare in the world that we live in due to the development of the nations of the world.

The chapter also talks about the abnormal forms of the Division of Labour. The first example is know as an anomie, which refers to the the industrial and commercial crises and bankruptcies that represent a lack of adjustment in the division of labour. (Bratton, Denham, Deutschmann 149). An example of an anomie is the crisis that happened with the Big Three when they needed to be bailed out in order to be at a sustainable level. Anomies exists in the corporate world and in the industrial factory system.

The second abnormal division of labour is the forced division of labour. Forced division of labour focuses on structural inequalities. Because of the different social classes, people who are in a lower class will not receive the same type of opportunities. Because of inheritance, people who are undeserving of wealth will receive all of the advantages that people who are deserving wont. Durkheim suggests that inheritance should be eliminated in order to give everyone an equal opportunities. He suggests that the the wealth should be sent to corporations so everything would be fair.

Sacred and Profane

For Durkheim, religion is about the separation of the sacred from the profane. The sacred refers to those collective representations that are set apart from society, or that which transcends the humdrum of everyday life. The profane, on the other hand, is everything else, all those mundane things like our jobs, our bills, and our rush hour commute. Religion is the practice of marking off and maintaining distance between these two realms. Rituals, for example, reaffirm the meaning of the sacred by acknowledging its separateness, such as when religious devotees pray to a particular statue or symbol.

In "The Genesis of the Notion of the Totemic Principle or Mana" (in The ElementaryForms of Religious Life) sociologist Emile Durkheim uses the example of the Australian aborigines to explain the manner in which sacred or profane things are awarded their status. According to Durkheim, the aborigines divided their time between their daily activates in small groups that were predominantly concerned with meeting their survival needs, and times in which the whole clan was assembled. The excitement of these gathering led to extraordinary behavior such as dance, masks and ecstasy.

Durkheim stresses the gap between routine daily life and the exciting social events. In these ritualistic gatherings, Durkheim holds, the distinction between sacredness and profanity was formed in people's minds. Sanctity was present in other times and places, as did the religion's impositions, but its most forceful appearance was in social gatherings which led society to the idea that there are outer forces which control their lives.

For the Australian aborigines, Durkheim holds, these outer forces took the shape of the totem that served as the clan's name, symbol and "flag". For Durkheim, the symbolic meanings of the totem consolidate the sentiments invested with it in the social gathering, thus allowing them to exist even after the ritualistic gathering has concluded. This process of symbolizing is for Durkheim the genesis of religious life and the fundamental form of culture. For Durkheim, religion is the source for all other human cultural formation such as law and arts as well as material practices such as science and industry. In the fourth part of "The Genesis of the Notion of the Totemic Principle or Mana" Durkheim describes the believer's relation to the totem as a relation to "an older brother", and he rules out the notion of prunus in orbe dues fecit temor – that fear created the gods. According to Durkheim: "the primitive did not see his gods as strangers, enemies, or essentially and necessarily malevolent beings whose favour he had to curry at all costs. On the contrary, to him the gods were friends, relations and natural protectors… "jealous and trrible gods appear only later in religious development"