sociology Flashcards
Durkheim’s def
a unified set of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things (set apart and forbidden) which unite one single moral community
when?
1912
main questions
what makes a group connect to each other? identify as who we are?
D’s answer: religion
context
evolutionary paradigm
- using language of ‘primitive’ societies
- whilst criticisin FRASER and TYLOR
universal aspect of religion
social
animism
TYLOR cannot be right as it assumes that primitive and modern minds think differently - D's model relies on the opposite primitive to modern continuity of subject's mind is crucial
attempt to find an elementary form is
not a difference in kind but a difference in scale
- trying to find the lowest common denominator possible not most basic/primtive
totemism
case study: social group come together around totem
religion is the surplus
totemic principle
“if it is at once the symbol of God and society, is it not because they are one?”
N.ALLEN
religious truths can be discovered
religion is real
for durkheim
saundra HAUSNER
religion as “primary, and perhaps universal, because it is the mechanism that enables the collective to bind together”
D and sacred
D is not saying that religion is sacred but that it is a shared system of understanding the distinction between sacred and profane
criticism
totem
linear evolution
dichotomy
other factors
X totem
reducing rel to epi
- X one must go beyond the symbol to the reality which it represents and which gives it true meaning (totemic principle) MORRIS
GOLDENWEISER
where do non-totemic people come from?
X linear evolution
D “to explain smt human.. it is necessary to commence by going back to its most primitive and simple form… to show how it dev and became complicated little by little”
