SOC388 - 2. Durkheim Flashcards
Functionalism
Social morality leads to social integration – holds society together
society made up of parts all with necessary function
Functionalism
Organic Metaphor: organs that make up a body each with a job
Brain is the most important part – collective consciousness
Social Facts
Individual Consciousness/Collective Consciousness
Individual: own psychology that need not be shared
Collective: ideas, beliefs, norms, values, moral attitudes shared in a group
Individual Consciousness/Collective Consciousness
Proportion varies between the 2 depending on the society
In some CC was huge, in others IC was bigger
Don’t have much division of labour – CC is bigger
Specialization – differentiation
more diff from one another
Before we all had same skills
As we get diff jobs, we study diff things, differentiation increases
Without it we would have mechanical solidarity
Mechanical Solidarity
direct dependency – sameness holds us together
Move in tandem because CC is huge part of our mind
Organic Solidarity
proportion of IC is greater due to greater differentiation
Interdependency: integrated because we depend on each other
Every organ has a diff function and are necessary to survived
Crime
“offends strong well defined state of the collective consciousness”
Important that we uphold those beliefs and punish because it maintains social integration
Norms
important just as law
We need collective consciousness to internalize beliefs and maintain social order
Norms
Maintained in groups
Some actions are positive in some contexts but unacceptable in others
Mind
What are the basic principles of thinking
Basic categories of organizing
Study of primitive religions
Fundamental categories of thinking that organized a society
Social Supernatural Natural Ordered the three worlds similarly Categories we use are the same for each world
Fundamental categories of thinking that organized a society
Religion + social were similar in that it was present in every individual for a society to maintain some degree of social order
How we organize time and space can be traced back to religion: Sabath day is still respected
Totenism
Durkheim says society worshiped totems because it represents God which he argues that totem is society
worship materials that we believe has powers
Most clear difference between sacred and profane
Sacred vs. Profane
categories of seeing the world, contrast
Not genera: tall and short still refer to height
Always and everywhere separate genera – don’t refer to the same phenomena (worlds)
Sacred vs. Profane
Sacred: need to protected from the profane
Birthdays – expectation of doing something special
Profane: material world
Sacred vs. Profane
How we organize time: Week as profane + weekend as sacred – consider it more special
How we organize space: private property
Sacred in our capitalist society
Sacred vs. Profane
Things that we consider private we have strong feelings for
Bedroom more sacred, more private
Marx
Position in social structure determined by ownership of means of production or labour
Capacity to produce
Determines thoughts and actions
Weber
Not simply our position in social structure
Calvinism – working hard being ascetic is a sign is that you’re one of the elect
Weber
Same resources but why didn’t it develop in italy? Because it wasn’t a protestant society
Because they were catholic they didn’t have internalized beliefs
Ppl had wealth in florence but lived lavishly
Didn’t led to accumulation of wealth necessary for capitalism
Weber
For Weber, position didn’t adequately explain capitalism, but ideas did
Verstehen: understanding – method
We need to understand the meaning they give to their actions to understand what they do
Simmel
Dyad: only 2
Larger the group the less determined each person is
Structure of groups of ppl determines what happens in that unit
Simmel
Pure or formal sociology: structure of social relations to understand what happens in these relations, not about content
