Sociology and “the Social”

Looking over these momentous changes, Durkheim felt that there was only one way to approach them—scientifically. Only a fully scientific sociology could help people comprehend the tremors of an entire world that was moving beneath their feet. Accordingly, he laid down for his scholarly investigations two fixed and fundamental principles: (1) that the nature of society is the most suitable and promising subject for systematic investigation, especially at the present moment in history, and (2) that all such “social facts” should be investigated by the most purely objective scientific methods attainable.

In The Division of Labor, Durkheim’s first major book, he shows how easily one can go wrong by ignoring the first of these principles. Social life, he explains, has shaped the most fundamental features of human culture, but that is not how previous thinkers tended to see it. If they considered it at all, they did so as a kind of afterthought. When they looked at the past, they proposed ideas like the famous “social contract,” which held that society began when some individuals agreed to hand power to another, stronger individual—the king—in return for his protection. When this primeval agreement was sealed, society was born. Such stories offer an interesting exercise in imaginative fiction, says Durkheim, but the real history of humanity was never so. Even in prehistoric times, individuals were always born first into groups—into families, clans, tribes, nations—and raised in that context. Their languages, habits, beliefs, and emotional responses—even the very concept they had of their individual selves—always came from a social framework which was there to shape them from the first moment they appeared in the world. Ancient contracts, for example, always had to be sworn with a sacred religious oath, which showed

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that such agreements were not just a matter of convenience between the parties involved but were to be enforced by the gods, for all of the community had an interest in the outcome. So too with the concept of private property. It too is thought to have developed individually. Conventional thinking holds that the idea of a person’s right to own an object or piece of ground arose because these things could be seen as extensions of the individual self. But again, Durkheim claims the facts of history show otherwise. The first possessions were not individual but communal in character, starting with the sacred ground that early peoples regarded as belonging not to the priest or any other single person but to the whole tribe. These common holdings provided the earliest ideas of property and ownership. Only out of the notion of public rights to things owned or possessed by all—things sacred to the whole clan—did cultures ever develop the idea of something that could be privately possessed by one person alone or by some apart.

This last fact is especially significant because Durkheim believes firmly that morality, the obligation of each to others and all to the standards of the group, is inseparable from religion. Further, as we shall shortly see, both religion and morals are inseparable from a social framework. We cannot have either without a social context, and as that changes, so must they. When, as has happened especially in Western civilization, a society gives up the collective

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conscience it had in more primitive times and through division of labor replaces it with a morally individualistic system like that of the present, we should not be surprised to see that religion and morals have changed right along with the rest of the social order.

The second of Durkheim’s two principles of inquiry is developed in The Rules of Sociological Method (1895), where he explains how sociology must be pursued as an objective, independent science. In France, many people knew the perceptive analyses of society carried out by Montesquieu, Alexis de Tocqueville, and August Comte; these were admirable and insightful narratives in the style of traditional historical study. When Durkheim, in contrast, insisted that his “science” of society was really quite another thing, reasonable people naturally wondered: What kind of other thing? How can there be a science of an abstraction like the social order, of something we really cannot see or touch in the way a chemist or botanist can observe the visible, solid objects of nature? Durkheim’s answer was to think of society in a manner similar to that of Tylor and the British anthropologists when they spoke of “culture” but then to go even further. He insisted that social facts, no less than stones or seashells, are real things, as solid in their way as physical objects are in theirs. A society is not just a passing thought in someone’s head; it is an accumulated body of facts—of language, laws, customs, ideas, values, traditions, techniques, and products—all of which are connected to one another and exist in a manner quite “external” to individual human minds. They are in the world before we individuals arrive; the moment we are born, they impose themselves on us; as we grow through childhood, they mold us; in adulthood, they animate and guide us; and, just as surely, in death they survive us. Moreover, it stands to reason that if there indeed are such real and independent social facts surrounding us, then there ought to be a distinct scientific discipline devoted to the study of them. We do not imagine that we can explain a living organism only through physics or chemistry; we also need biology. In the same way, we cannot explain society if we look only to biology and psychology or even economics. Society requires sociology; other disciplines are not sufficient.

None of this means for Durkheim that the actual methods of sociological study will be dramatically different from those of other sciences. The key to any science, physical or social, is the gathering of evidence, followed by comparison, classification into groups, and finally the framing of general principles, or “laws,” which can in some way be tested for their validity. In this connection, sociology not only does what other sciences do but in some ways hopes even to do it better. For example, Durkheim takes care to separate

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Though we cannot here follow his account of sociology’s methods in detail, we can briefly take note of at least some of the categories Durkheim puts into play in his approach to religion. Among other things, he believes that we can determine, for any society, what is normal behavior and, consequently, what is also pathological, or abnormal, behavior. This is certainly not a matter of absolute values, of what is good or evil at all times and places. The normal is always determined from within a group, never from outside of it. Suicide, for example, is more “normal” for some societies, like Japan, than for others. Polygamy is more normal for primitive societies than for modern ones. We must always judge the normal from within the social. In addition, whether normal or not, the category of function in a society is for Durkheim also extremely important in explaining behavior. And it must be kept separate from the idea of cause. The cause of an innercity religious revival might be the spellbinding sermons of a storefront preacher, but the revival’s social func tion may be something that goes entirely unnoticed by those who join it. From the sociologist’s standpoint, the preacher’s success can be traced not to the number of sinners brought to conversion but to something wholly unnoticed by those who are kneeling in prayer: the event as a whole has restored a sense of community, of shared identity and purpose, to a neighborhood of otherwise poor, isolated, even disillusioned individuals.

A good illustration of these categories can be found in Durkheim’s famous study Suicide (1895), which was published not long after the Rules. After examining and closely comparing the suicide rates in the major countries of Europe, he noticed that the figures were highest in Protestant countries, lowest in Catholic ones, and fell in between for countries of mixed religious population. In light of these ratios, it is possible to say that a certain kind of suicide, which Durkheim labels “egoistic,” is more normal—that is, more typical—for Protestant countries than Catholic ones. We cannot account for this circumstance, he says, directly from the differing religious belief systems because both groups think suicide is wrong. Sociologically, however, there

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Durkheim felt that his sociological perspective offered special insight into the nature of political systems, education, morals, and especially religion. In the sphere of political philosophy he gave lectures on socialism and communism, describing both as responses to the unsettlement of modern life but rejecting their ideas of class struggle and their theories of a powerful state.⁵ In other lectures, especially Professional Ethics and Civic Morals (published after his death) he recognized that the state does need certain extensive powers, which can even be good for the lives of individuals. At the same time he stressed the importance also of what he called “secondary,” intermediate groups, such as local brotherhoods and professional associations, to help protect the rights and well-being of individuals lest national governments become too strong. A key task of the state is the promotion of moral values, which is why it must also play a central role in a society’s system of education. Durkheim addressed this subject often, writing, among other works, a two-volume history of education in France. As he describes it, the purpose of schools is not just to give technical training in certain skills but also to pass along the values of self-discipline and community welfare and to promote them over the selfish personal interests of individuals. Such instruction in moral values is not a luxury or an option; it is vital to the health and harmonious operation of any society. These opinions, which have had considerable influence on modern French educational theory, are at least partly responsible for the

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wry observation that, on any given day, the minister of education in Paris knows precisely what page in their textbooks all the children of France are reading. Against this backdrop, it is not surprising to find that alongside his treatments of both politics and education, Durkheim also makes the analysis of moral theory and legal traditions a key part of his program.⁶

Perhaps the two most important things to notice about this lengthy, pioneering book are its title and the way it begins. The Elementary Forms (1912) is concerned to find certain fundamentals—the “basic elements,” as a nuclear physicist might say—out of which all of religion has been formed. And it starts off in a fashion a nuclear physicist might well approve—by apparently setting aside all the usual and customary ways of thinking about its subject. We may recall that Tylor and Frazer, and Freud as well, were largely content with the conventional idea that religion is belief in supernatural beings, such as a God or gods. Durkheim is not. From the start he claims that primitive peoples normally do not really think of two different worlds, one supernatural and the other natural, in the way that religious people living in developed cultures do. Moderns are heavily influenced by the assumptions and natural laws of science; primitive people are not. They see all events—miraculous and ordinary—as basically of the same kind. In addition, the concept of the gods itself is a problem, since not all religious people believe in divine beings even if they do believe in the supernatural. Certain Buddhists, for example, deny that there are gods, while other people routinely observe rituals that have nothing to do with spirits or deities. It is obvious to Durkheim, then, that the subject needs a new definition, and clearing away the old view is a necessary first step. But where do we go after that?

Durkheim next observes that the thing which seems truly characteristic of religious beliefs and rituals is not the element of the supernatural but the concept of the sacred, which is actually quite different. Wherever we look, people who are religious do divide the things of their world into two separate

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Though it is tempting to do so, Durkheim warns us not to make the mistake of thinking that this division between sacred and profane is a moral one—that the sacred is good and the profane evil. That line of separation actually runs through the division between the sacred and the profane. The sacred can be either good or evil, but the one thing it can never be is profane; the profane can be either good or evil, but the one thing it can never be is sacred. The sacred arises especially in connection with whatever may concern the community; the profane is more naturally the realm of private and personal concerns.

This stress on the sacred as something communal leads Durkheim to another disagreement with his predecessors, which centers on the puzzling question of magic. In Frazer’s opinion, as we saw, magic and religion are cut from the same cloth; they try to do the same thing but in different ways. Both try to explain the way the world works, so that it can be controlled for human benefit. The human race first followed the rules of magic, and when that failed, it turned to religion as a better form of thought. With this, too, Durkheim disagrees. For him, religion does not come along to replace magic when it fails, because the two are not concerned with the same thing. Magic is an exclusively private matter, which has little or nothing to do with the sacred and its concerns. The magician, like a doctor, heals my sickness or puts a spell on your enemy; but this is a purely personal issue. I may not even know that my magician is also helping you, because each of us is going to him to satisfy separate and largely private needs. None of this is the case, however, with the much greater matter of religion. Religious rituals and beliefs come into play whenever group concerns are foremost in the mind; the sacred functions as the focal point of the claims that affect the entire community. Accordingly, magic and religion can exist quite comfortably side by side; the one is the place for the personal,

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These two points of disagreement—on the definition of religion and the nature of magic—lead on to the third and most important of Durkheim’s quarrels with other theorists. In his view, they have all misunderstood just what it is about religion that really needs to be explained.

Durkheim contends that a close look at the leading theories of the day will show a common theme throughout: all claim that religion is simply a natural instinct of the human race; it is assumed that in all cultures people have devised their systems of belief as quite logical responses to the world as they encounter it. The most prominent of these theories are the naturism of Friedrich Max Müller, whom we met in our introduction, and the animism of E. B. Tylor. Müller holds that people came to believe in gods by trying to describe the great objects and events of nature—things like the sun, sky, and storms. Tylor, as we have seen, holds that belief in gods developed out of the idea of the soul. Now in framing these views, Durkheim observes, both of these thinkers have been exceedingly ambitious. They have assumed that human society has gone through a long process of evolution, and they have then tried to travel backward in time to imagine what the ideas and emotions of the very first human beings would have been. But this is really an impossible enterprise. If we truly want to be scientific about religion, we cannot rely on guesses about how people thought at the dawn of history. We must try to look instead for “the everpresent causes” on which religion rests, the things that at all times and places push people to believe and behave in religious ways. Instead of making a grand guess about the distant past, Durkheim proposes that we look firsthand at a real example of religion in action. And for this purpose, what better method could there be than to locate the simplest society we know of and rely on someone who has actually observed it? A religion linked to the simplest social system that exists might well be regarded as “the most elementary religion we can possibly know.”¹⁰ And if we can explain this religion, we have a start on explaining all religion. We will have in hand religion’s “elementary forms.”

It was Durkheim’s further conviction that on just this point—finding a specimen of a truly simple civilization—recent researches provided a remarkable

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breakthrough. We have already noted how in the years just before and after the turn of the century, Frazer took an interest in the work of Baldwin Spencer and F. J. Gillen, two field anthropologists who had been able to observe closely certain primitive aborigine tribes in the remote hinterlands of Australia. Their work—along with that of the German fieldworker Carl von Strehlow and others who had made similar observations—furnished a detailed portrait of social life in these extremely simple communities. And quite remarkably, it had also shown that the religion of these peoples was none other than totemism, the very same thing that so captivated Robertson Smith, Frazer, Freud, and other early anthropological inquirers.

In each of these primitive societies, Durkheim observes, animals other than the totem, which are profane, can ordinarily be killed and eaten by the clan; the totem animal cannot. Because it is sacred, it is absolutely forbidden to the clan—except on those select occasions when, as a part of specially designated ceremonies, it is ritually sacrificed and eaten. In addition, the clan itself is regarded as sacred because it is considered to be one with its totem. And perhaps most important, the emblem, or logo, of the totem animal is always extremely important; it is not just sacred but the very model, the perfect example, of a sacred thing. When the clan gathers together for its ceremonies, it is always the totem symbol, carved into a piece of wood or rock, that holds center stage. The totem is supremely sacred and communicates its sacred character to all around it.

Totem beliefs, moreover, are so fundamental to the life of these simple societies that everything of importance is ultimately shaped by them. One can hardly find anything more basic than the very categories of human thought and experience; among the aborigines, these are provided by totemism. For example, totemic concepts govern their most basic perceptions of nature, so that not only groups of people but the entire world of natural objects is divided into categories based on totem clans, or clusters of clans, called phratries. One tribe, for example, places the sun in the clan of the white cockatoo, while the moon and stars are assigned to the clan of its black counterpart. In addition,

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In casting about for explanations of totemism, earlier theorists have followed their own quite predictable paths. Tylor, as we might have guessed, insists that the custom arises out of animism; others have thought that it derives from nature worship; and still others, like Frazer, have claimed that it is magical, or that it may have no connection at all to either religion or magic. Where all of these theories go wrong is, for Durkheim, not hard to see. Each attempts to trace totemism to something else that is supposedly earlier and more fundamental. But this is a crucial mistake. Finding a form of religion older than totemism is quite impossible, for the simple reason that there is none. Totemism, which appears in the very simplest societies, is itself the simplest, most basic, and original form of religion; all other forms can only grow out of it. Totemism is not a product, not a derivative of some more basic form of religion; it is itself the source from which all other kinds of religious worship—whether it be of spirits, gods, animals, planets, or stars—ultimately arise.

It is true that at first glance totemism seems to be merely another of the usual religious types: a kind of animal or plant worship and nothing more. But Durkheim insists that when we look at it in detail, it turns out to be something considerably different. Followers of totem cults do not actually adore the crow, the frog, or the white cockatoo; they commit to the worship “of an anonymous and impersonal force, found in each of these beings but not to be confounded with any of them. No one possesses it entirely and all participate in it.” If we want, we can of course speak loosely of a “god” adored in the totem cult, but “it is an impersonal god, without name or history, immanent in the world and diffused in an innumerable multitude of things.”¹¹ Durkheim prefers that we speak more accurately of something called “the totemic principle,” which stands at the center of all of the clan’s beliefs and rituals. Behind the totem is an impersonal force that possesses enormous power, both physical and moral, over the life of the clan. People respect it; they feel a moral obligation to observe its ceremonies; and through it they feel tightly bound to each other in deep and abiding loyalty.

Here we can see why Durkheim thinks it misleading, at least at the outset, for theorists to define religion as belief in gods or supernatural beings. In his

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view, before we ever get to belief in gods, there is always this first and more basic thing, the sense of a hidden, impersonal, and powerful force—the totemic principle—that is the original focus of the clan’s worship. It is significant, moreover, that the evidence we find for this totemic principle is by no means limited to Australia. Under different names, Durkheim claims to find it as well in other tribal societies. Among the Melanesians, there is the similar concept of mana; and among various American Indian tribes, we find the same principle described in such words as wakan, manitou, and orenda, all of which convey the same idea of an all-pervading, impersonal force, a dominating power, which is the real center of clan or tribe worship. It follows, then, that if we want to account for religion, we must explain more than surface beliefs in the gods or spirits that people routinely worship; we need to explain this more fundamental reality. We must show what this worship of “the totemic principle” really is.