Durkheim Midterm Flashcards
What is egoistic suicide?
Stems from the absence of social integration/ person is too concerned with him/herself
Emile Durkheim
bit of an academic outsider
Anomie
A state of normlessness in society
Homoduplex
Individual body, desires, appetites, biological and psychological drives
Suicide is what kind of phenomenon?
A social rather than psychological phenomenon
Why did Durkheim develop sociology?
to study society because he believed that other departments would not analyze it properly
Altruistic Suicide
Too much integration/ marked by cultural approval and benefit the social order
Religion is a social phenomenon
that helps maintain social order
How do we study religion sociologically?
Historical and comparative method
Church definition
a moral community guided by similar actions and beliefs
Historical method to study religion
easier to analyze religion in its earliest forms
Comparative method to study religion
religion is not magic/ there is no “church of magic”
All religions make a distinction between
the sacred and the profane
The Sacred
something “set off/apart” from everyday life/ something to be used with ritual care
The profane
Everyday, commonplace, mundane stuff
Rules protect and isolate the sacred from the profane
Breaking these rules provokes moral outage and a forceful group response
Totemism
An animal or group that symbolizes the group
Symbolism
is what makes the totem special
Moral Education
teaches the individuals their limitations, must show and allow people to apply rules logically and almost treat certain kinds of rules as sacred
Rites
Ways of acting around certain things
Social control
different ways we are controlled, external responses
Social cohesion
cohesive whole, work together
Harmony
This means people are working together, has equilibrium, balance
solidarity
is what holds people together, it is a shared sense or purpose, feeling of togetherness
social laws
show the need for regulation, looking and examining different ways of solidarity
Causal laws
looking at the causal relationships in the world
Durkheim argues that society
is an organized system
God is society
Religion integrates you but also has rules on you
Religion/church
is a moral community, form of integration
The system of gods
The entire community is organized around religion
