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| The
general approach of Durkheim
could be answered in various ways. |
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| He
wanted sociology to be a science, distinct from other sciences and from
other academic disciplines. |
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| He
wanted to avoid "reductionism," meaning to reduce answers explaining social
phenomena by referring to psychological or individual causes. |
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| He
gave us a first understanding of the sociological perspective, that although
culture and society are carried inside us as individuals, it behaves as
a level of reality that transcends, or cuts across, individuals. |
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| His
studies of suicide
are important to us in their revealing that sociological perspective. |
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| Suicide
is not an act that is easily studied by asking individuals ––
those who are successful at it tend to be dead, while those who attempt
it unsuccessfully do so perhaps as a cry for help, and may not lead us
to understanding those who are successful. |
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| He
looked at rates of suicide, and saw they varied by country, religion, gender,
marital status, and religious affiliation, but that the rates stayed consistent
for each category. |
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| He
coined the term "social fact," referring to those rates, and said we should
explain social facts by social facts, not by psychological or biological
facts. |
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| He
said that our degree of being connected to the small groups around us,
leads to being more connected to the larger society. |
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| Those
with low levels of connectivity, which he called "anomie," were more likely
to have fewer forces making us conform to social values and expectations,
and thus more likely to commit suicide or engage in other disapproved acts. |
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| The
concept of social fact lies behind the thinking of Kroeber who coined the
word "superorganic." |
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| He
looked at the "glue" that held society together, which he called "solidarity"
and suggested that in simpler societies that solidarity was based upon
sameness and conformity, which he called "mechanical solidarity." |
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| In
more complex societies where there was not only greater division of labour
in the productive or economic areas but a greater diversity of roles and
responsibility in general, we are or were held together by our interdependence
upon each other. |
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| He
led us to our first sociological understanding of the relationships between
individuals
and society, in that he contradicted common sense notions or perspectives. |
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| From
common sense, we feel that society is made up of and controlled by individuals,
whereas Durkheim showed us that individuals are products of society, and
that society has various characteristics that go beyond the individual,
and can not be explained by individual behaviour. |
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| The
classical perceptive, functionalism, derives
from the writing of Durkheim. |
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| Another
important point (not Durkheim's, but mine) is that we should not anthropomorphise
society or culture. |
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| I
write about that word in my "key
words" section on the community empowerment site. Society
cannot think, it can not feel, it can not judge, it can not see, or do
many things that individual human beings can and do. |
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| This
is part of the sociological perspective. |
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. |
