Notes
Chapter 6. Progressive Preponderance of Organic Solidarity, continued
Part 1. Segmental Type
So we can say it is a historical law that mechanical solidarity, which at first stood alone, progressively loses ground and that, over time, little by little, organic solidarity predominates.
If we were to try to imagine an ideal type of society held together exclusively by likeness, we would have to conceive it as one wholly homogeneous, one in which none of its human members are distinguishable from one another; there would be no real organization to speak of. It would be a social protoplasm, a blob, a horde, if you will.
It is true we have yet to find any society that operates completely in this way. [We do find some glimmers of it, among some Native American tribes, for example. We can designate hordes which form elements in more extensive groups as clans.]
We can call these societies segmented as they are formed by the repetition of like aggregations in them, like the rings of an earthworm. The term clan expresses the mixed nature of these segmented groups. The clan is a family because its members are kin to one another. These familial affinities are for the most part what keeps the group united. But these are not families the way we understand families, because kinship need not be by blood. The clan in fact contains a great many strangers. It can comprise several thousand persons. And it is the basic political unity as well, with the clan-heads the only social authorities.
The main point, however, is that the clan, just as the horde, of which it is but an extension, has no other solidarity than that derived from likeness. For segmented organization to be possible, the segments must resemble one another; otherwise, they would not be united.
In these societies, religion pervades all of social life. This is so because social life itself is almost exclusively composed of common beliefs and practices. Where the collective personality is the only one in existence, property also must be collective, so we find an early form of communism operating in these societies.
There is, then, a social structure of a specific kind which corresponds with mechanical solidarity. What characterizes it is a system of segments homogeneous and similar to each other.
Part 2. Organized Type
Quite another thing is the structure of societies where organic solidarity is preponderant.
They are constituted by a system of different organs, each of which has a special role, and which are themselves formed of differentiated parts. Social elements are not heaped together linearly as the rings of an earthworm, nor are they entwined with one another, but rather they are coordinated and subordinated to one another around a central organ which regulates the rest of the organism. Others may depend on this central organ, but the central organ depends on the others as well. [It is thus unlike a head of a clan, who embodies the collective conscience and to whom all others owe absolute obedience]. There is nothing superhuman or timeless about this central organ. There are only differences in degree between this organ and the others.
This social type rests on such different principles as that of the segmented type that it can develop only so much as it erases the segmented type. In organized societies, individuals are not grouped based on lineage or bloodline, but according to the particular nature of the social activity they engage in. Their natural context is not that of birth [blood, race, etc.] but of occupation. It is no longer real or fictitious kinship which marks the place of each, but the function which he or she fulfills.
No doubt, when this new organization began to appear, it tried to use the existing organization and to assimilate it. So, functions were often allocated based on original divisions of birth. In a way, classes (and castes in particular) probably have their origin thusly. But this mixed arrangement cannot last for long, because there is a fundamental contradiction between the two. It is only a very basic division of labor which can adapt to preexisting social divisions in this way. The division of labor can only grow by freeing itself from this confining framework. As soon as it passes a certain stage of development, there is no longer any relation between the hereditarily fixed properties of segments and the new skills and aptitudes called forth by the growth of functions needed in society. The social material must combine in new ways to organize itself upon these different foundations. The old structure, so far as it persists, is opposed to these new combinations. Which is why it must disappear.
Thus the history shows that as one type progresses, the other type fades away.
Just as we could not say there was any known wholly segmented society, we also observe that there is as yet no wholly organized society. We do see, however, that organic solidarity is progressing, and becoming more preponderant.
Our future investigations will show that our current occupational organization is not everything it should be, as abnormal causes have prevented it from attaining the degree of development which our social order now demands. [More on that in Book 3]
Questions
- If thinking for ourselves and thinking for the community are mutually opposed, as Durkheim suggests, where do YOU lie on this continuum? If you had been born in, say, 1300CE, do you think your answer would have been different? What about 1300BCE? Why?
- Durkheim has been claimed as an early anthropologist, and much of his theory developed in The Division of Laboris based on observational and historical data about “primitive” peoples, including Native Americans, Aboriginal Australians, and early Jewish peoples. Much of this is inaccurate and/or biased by Eurocentric thinking. In Chapter 6, Durkheim draws copiously from early anthropological thinking to describe how “segmented” societies (the horde, the clan) operate. Given the problems with the data used, is his theory still valid? Explain your answer. For those of you who are familiar with the world of Star Trek, it might be helpful for you to think of the “horde” as The Borg.
- When Durkheim talks about “the central organ” that “regulates” the other members, to what is he referring? If you are asked to describe Durkheim’s theory of the state in modern society, would this passage help?
- It may be hard for us, who develop in what Durkheim would call organized societies, to recognize the pull of “birth” to which he refers in part 2 of Chapter 6. You may want to consider what it might be like to live in a society in which all that mattered was who your ancestors were. Can you think of historical examples when this might have been the case? Compare Durkheim’s “birth vs. occupation” to Weber’s “status vs. class.”
Concepts
Segmented Society
Collective Conscience
Organized Society
Mechanical Solidarity (and MS Societies)
Organic Solidarity (and OS Societies)