Durkheim's Social Cohesion: Solidarity, Anomie, and Society Types

The Sociological Perspective and Core Concepts

The sociological perspective involves thinking about social life through key concepts:

• Society: A group of people living in a territory who share common cultural features such as language, values, and basic norms of behavior.
• Institutions: Major societal structures like government, educational systems, and the family.
• Social Structures: Enduring patterns formed by relationships among people, groups, and institutions.

Sociology studies two reciprocal processes:

• What society makes of us: Seeing that events affecting the individual often reflect larger social issues.
• What we make of society and ourselves: Recognizing that our individual acts also shape society.

We are all influenced by social context (which is structured and not a completely random collection of events), but our behavior is never determined entirely by that context.

Levels of Sociological Analysis

• Macrosociology: Studies large-scale social structures and long-term processes of change.
• Microsociology: Studies everyday behavior in situations of face-to-face interaction.

Émile Durkheim: Social Cohesion and Solidarity

Durkheim viewed society as a structure with a ‘life of its own,’ within which the lives of individuals develop.

Key Concepts in Durkheim's Theory

• Social Facts: All those institutions and rules of action which constrain or channel human action.
• Solidarity: The force that unites society. Solidarity is maintained when individuals are integrated into social groups and regulated by a set of shared values and customs (providing a common consciousness).

Forms of Solidarity and Division of Labor

• Mechanical Solidarity: Characterizes older cultures with a low division of labor (i.e., little work specialization). This solidarity exists among people in similar occupations with common beliefs and experiences.
• Organic Solidarity: Created by the increasing division of labor brought about by industrialization and the growth of cities. This new type of solidarity is based on interdependence.

Anomie

Durkheim foresaw problems derived from rapid change, when old values become obsolete and new values have not been established. This state of disorientation is called anomie.

Types of Societies Based on Social Cohesion

1. Agrarian Traditional Societies

Small, highly homogeneous, stable communities cohesive by tradition that generate very similar individuals.

• Social bonds are based on a shared morality and worldview (Mechanical Solidarity).
• Strong Collective Consciousness: An automatic sense of belonging to a social whole that strongly punishes norm transgression and deviance.

2. Industrial Modern Societies

Large, very heterogeneous cities where social life is dominated by impersonal exchange in order to satisfy individual interests, which generates a high individualization of personalities.

• Social bonds are based on functional interdependence because no individual or group is self-sufficient (Organic Solidarity).
• Weak Collective Consciousness: Fragile, making the individual (his/her freedom and rights) the center, allowing more freedom of action for the individual.