Emile Durkheim

1
Emile Durkheim

• 1858-1917

2
Definition of Religion

• A religion is an interdependent system of
  beliefs and practices regarding things which are
  sacred, that is to say, apart, forbidden, beliefs
  and practices which unite all those who follow
  them in a single moral community called a church.

3
View of religion

• Religion is not based on hallucination and myth
• It has a reality namely, worship of society
  (I.e., the collective sentiments/consciousness
  and values that are common to all members of the
  group)
• The sacred collective conscience
• The profane individual values (not
  necessarily shared by the group)

4
Society/Religion

• It is unquestionable that a society has all that
  is necessary to around the sensation of the
  divine in minds, merely by the power that it has
  over them for to its members it is what a god is
  to his worshippers. In fact, a god is, first of
  all, a being whom men think of as superior to
  themselves, and upon whom they feel they depend.

5
Ritual

• It is the act of moral remaking for a group
• Collective effervescence (which potentially
  occurs in ritual)
• In the midst of an assembly animated by a common
  passion, we become susceptible of acts and
  sentiments of which we are incapable when reduced
  to our own forces and when the assembly is
  dissolved and when, finding ourselves alone
  again, we fall back to our ordinary level, we are
  then able to measure the height to which we have
  been raised about ourselves.

6
Religion and Society are complementary

• Society provides religion with an object to
  worship and religion serves to unite and
  integrate society
• Ritual is the primary means by which the
  collective consciousness is renewed
• There can be no society which does not feel the
  need of upholding and reaffirming at regular
  intervals the collective sentiments and the
  collective ideas which make its unity and its
  personality.

7
Ritual and moral remaking

• Now this moral remaking cannot be achieved
  except by the means of reunions, assemblies and
  meetings where the individuals, being closely
  united to one another, reaffirm in common their
  common sentiments hence come ceremonies which do
  not differ from regular religious ceremonies,
  either in their object, the results which they
  produce, or the processes employed to attain
  these results.

8
Two types of societies and solidarity

• Primitive society
• Bound together by mechanical solidarity
• Members of the group hold in common the same
  beliefs and practices
• Punishment is required to heal the wound in the
  collective consciousness if anyone violates the
  collectively held norms and values
• Modern society
• Bound together by organic solidarity
• Interdependence (because of the division of
  labor)
• Substantial element of individuality allowed