Читать книгу Sociology - Anthony Giddens - Страница 126

Durkheim is a pivotal figure in the development of academic sociology. Like Marx, he moved decisively away from philosophy, which he saw as too far removed from the real issues of the day, and towards social science, which was able to clarify the moral questions facing French society. After working at the University of Bordeaux as the first professor of social science, Durkheim transferred to the Sorbonne in Paris and became the first ever professor of ‘the science of education and sociology’ (Coser 1977). Sociology was gaining a foothold in the academic establishment.

Durkheim also influenced the nature of the discipline itself. He saw that the study of specifically social phenomena was needed whenever research into people’s behaviour went beyond individual interactions. Social institutions and social forms – such as social movements, organizations or the family – outlive the particular individuals who inhabit them, therefore they must have a reality of their own. This reality cannot adequately be understood by individualistic psychology or abstract philosophy. In Durkheim’s terms, what we call ‘the social’ or social life is a level of reality in its own right that cannot be reduced to individual actions or thought of as a simple aggregate of individual minds.

Durkheim focused on group phenomena and social facts such as suicide rates, social solidarity and religion. People experienced social facts as ‘things’ external to the individual, rather like tables, bridges or buildings. The latter are all human creations, but their existence has to be taken into account and cannot be wished away. Similarly, social facts have a ‘thing-like’ existence which individuals must accept and take into account in their actions.

This thing-like reality of social facts means that the psychology of individuals was not the proper subject for sociology, which concerns itself with collective phenomena. For example, in The Division of Labour in Society (1893), Durkheim outlined his distinction between the mechanical forms of solidarity found in less complex societies and the organic form that characterizes large-scale, modern, industrial ones. Mechanical solidarity exists when individualism is minimized and the individual is subsumed within the collectivity. By contrast, organic solidarity is generated by the extensive division of labour in industrial societies, which produces many differences in work tasks, roles and statuses, but a strong form of cohesion is achieved because large groups of individuals in very different industries become dependent on each other.

Durkheim therefore rejected the idea – common at the time and since – that industrialism inevitably destroys social solidarity and threatens the fabric of society. In fact, stronger bonds of mutual interdependence are created under organic forms of solidarity, which have the potential to create a better balance between individual differences and collective purpose. Here we can see how Durkheim’s scientific sociological analysis is closely tied to a moral and social problem of the day – how can industrial societies hold together in an age of increasing individualism?