Chapter 5. Progressive Preponderance of Organic Solidarity; Its Consequences

Part 2. [Three Conditions of Mechanical Solidarity]

Not only does mechanical solidarity bind people together less strongly over time, but we find it slackens as we progress socially.

Indeed, the strength of social links through likeness vary with respect to the following three conditions:

First, the relative proportion of collective and individual conscience.  The links are stronger the more the first overshadows the second.

Second, the average intensity of the states of the collective conscience.

Third, The distinctiveness of these states.  That is, the more specifically defined are the collective beliefs and practices, the less room there is for individualization.  The more general and abstract are the rules, however, the more individual reflection plays a role.  Centrifugal tendencies multiply at the cost of social cohesion.

Strong and defined states of the common conscious are the roots of penal law.  However, the number of such laws is less today than before, and diminish progressively as societies approach our modern type.

[Durkheim discusses the relative proportion of what he calls “repressive” laws, violation of which offends the collective conscience, and “restitutive” laws, violation of which is less shocking and more personally related to the parties at hand (think broken contracts).  He argues that, as societies advance, the proportional amount of repressive law diminishes as that of restitutive law increases.  This is, indeed, a key part of Book 1, and is used to support his argument about changes from mechanical solidarity to organic solidarity over time.  As anthropologists of law have criticized the empirical facts Durkheim used, limited as they were to what was available to him in the 19th century, you will not find more of this discussion in this reader, but you should know that Durkheim is using evidence, albeit imperfect, to build this theory, rather than engaging in “armchair philosophizing.”]