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  2A The Rules of Sociological Method (Emile Durkheim)

  What is a Social Fact?

  II

  2B Suicide: A Study in Sociology (Emile Durkheim)

Emile Durkheim, who was born in France in 1858 and died in 1917, provides sociologists with a clear blueprint of how to conduct systematic sociological analysis. If inequality and alienation are the concepts at the core of Karl Marx’s theory of modern capitalism/industrial society, their approximate opposites – interdependence and integration – are the core concepts in Durkheim’s analysis of modern society. A preoccupying question for Durkheim is: What holds society together – especially modern society which, unlike traditional society that is characterized largely by homogeneity or sameness (sameness of social backgrounds, experiences, values), is instead characterized by multiple points of fracture based on the differences among and between individuals, groups and institutions? Like Mark, Durkheim focused on the transformation wrought by modern industrialization and, in particular, on the specialized occupational division of labor that emerged with factory production, and the transition from a mostly rural, agricultural‐based social structure to the density and impersonality of urban life (in Division of Labour, not included). Unlike Marx, however, Durkheim saw the structuring of the division of labor (whether of occupations; between rural and urban communities; or among various institutions such as the family, school, church, work) as functional to the organization of social relationships and the crafting and maintenance of social cohesion. The interdependence that such specialization of function requires means that individuals (and diverse groups and institutions) have to engage in social interaction with others (not like them) and are necessarily reliant on and tied to these (specialized) others for their effective functioning and well‐being. A plumber needs to work with a carpenter and a roofer if a house is to be built properly and not leak, that is, to be functional. Similarly, parliament makes laws but another specialized branch of government, the judiciary, oversees them to ensure that they are aligned with the constitution, and enforced. Each occupational specialization and each branch of government has its own function and it is only through working together (regardless of how they feel about this) – acting on their functional interdependence – can the value of the whole be realized. For Durkheim, these structures are functional to the everyday workings of society and, additionally, are functional to social integration or cohesion. This is especially significant in modern urban society, characterized as it is by an enormous amount of occupational, political, cultural, and ethnic diversity. What knits people together – integrates them into society – is not some shared family or social background (as would be typical in more traditional, largely rural communities) but the structure of interdependent relations and the organic ties they necessarily require and produce.

This cohesion is the social solidarity that, for Durkheim, is the outcome variable to be explained by sociological analysis; solidarity is dependent on several interrelated structural factors that variously impact the level of social integration in any given community at any given time. The first excerpt included here, The Rules of Sociological Method, encapsulates Durkheim’s understanding of the constraining and thus the cohesion‐imposing force of society on the individual. His opening sentences, about family roles, for example, or the kind of currency used for transactions cogently capture how society imposes itself as an objective and external reality to which we must adhere. The ways of acting, thinking, and feeling in a given community/society are social phenomena, or social facts, structured into society and external to and constraining of any and all individuals. These ways of being may seem natural and spontaneous to a given individual but they are inscribed into the collective conscience, and their socially constraining or controlling force is keenly felt especially when we step out of line. The job of the sociologist is to describe these ways of being – these externally imposing social facts or social phenomena – and, impartially, without assumptions, analyze and explain their consequences on other social facts/social phenomena. And if we follow Durkheim’s rules as outlined in this excerpt, we will be doing precisely what all quantitative sociologists do today in their research studies, especially those who gather and use survey data – they define or operationalize a concept (e.g., social belonging), empirically assess or measure its prevalence in a given society/community/university campus, and examine its relation to other sociological variables (e.g., whether one is a member of an organized social group on campus, whether one is a first generation student, whether one seeks psychological or behavioral health counseling). This is what it means, as Durkheim advises, to treat social facts as things.

Durkheim himself modeled what is entailed in sociological analysis in his own quantitative study of Suicide (the second excerpt included here). Typical of the sociological paradigm, Durkheim defined suicide as a social or collective societal fact – not merely an outcome associated with an individual – and he examined how other social variables impact suicide rates. The variables informing his analysis – fully in line with his theoretical understanding of society as being external to the individual – focus on social structures and forms of social organization that mediate between the individual and the larger society and, as such, constrain or attach the individual to something beyond the self; in other words, the circumstances and factors that tie the individual to others and oblige consideration of their needs. As a sociological variable, suicide varies by social and organizational context. Settings and circumstances that foster a healthy amount of integration decrease the tendency toward suicide, while circumstances with little or indeed too much group integration increase its likelihood. As Durkheim documents, married people and those with children – because of the obligations, expectations and constraints imposed in such relationships – tend to have lower rates of suicide. And Catholics have a lower incidence of suicide than Protestants. This is not because of differences in religious beliefs about the afterlife, but due to the structural organization of Catholicism which is more hierarchical and communal and thus more constraining of individuals than is Protestantism. Any time a community is disrupted, and its norms and ways of acting, thinking and feeling are undermined as, for example, when there is economic upheaval, a tragedy, or a natural disaster, the resulting anomie unmoors individuals, and tendencies toward social disintegration loom more intensely, thus increasing suicide rates (or other indicators of stress/social disintegration). Yet, as the same time, social upheaval – a major tragedy, for example, or war, may have the effect of bringing people, including strangers, closer. This is because, as Durkheim argues, individuals are inherently social beings and in modern society, which not only is highly individualistic but which in fact requires and rewards individualism and a certain egoism, individuals still need to be connected with others, integrated with others into a community of solidarity.

Accordingly, any community or society needs to (and does) come together, to publicly assemble in ritualistic ways on a regular basis (see The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, not included). Collectively shared rituals function to reinforce and to regenerate the bonds that necessarily tie individuals into something larger than themselves. This is the thoroughly social function of funerals: the individuals present – the community ‐ mourn the loss of a beloved family member or friend but also unify around and find comfort in their shared ties (however weakly they might overlap) to the deceased person and to the community at large; and this is what similarly happens at public memorials whether they emerge spontaneously in response to unexpected tragedies or they are elaborately planned for deceased presidents and other celebrities. Indeed, for Durkheim, ritual is at the core of social life; it’s the basis of society, of collective life. And the core function of all rituals, including holiday celebrations such as Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Rosh Hashanah, and of sports events, is to bring people together, and in the collective assembling to reaffirm the interdependent ties that bind individuals, including strangers, to each other. Robert Bellah (1967), a Durkheimian sociologist, coined the term civil religion to capture the functional necessity of routine civic rituals and social assemblies as a way to unify individuals in a culturally pluralistic and diverse society. As he succinctly notes, in the “process of ritual interaction the members of the group, through their shared experience, feel a sense of membership, however fleeting, with a sense of boundary between those sharing the experience and all those outside it; they feel some sense of moral obligation to each other…”, itself further charged by the moral force of the collective emotion propelling and derived from the interaction (Bellah 2003:32).