Key Quotes on Durkheim's Division of Labor in Society & Additional Lecture Material

Below are the passages I quoted in class yesterday from sources other than our text which I believe help elucidate Durkheim's argument in The Division of Labor in Society:

First, his use of the organic analogy in comparing "restitutive law" in modern society to the nervous system in the body:
"This law (restitutive) definitely plays a role in society analogous to that played by the nervous system in the organism. The latter has as its task, in effect, the regulation of the different functions of the body in such a way as to make them harmonize."

Durkheim had doubts about the possibility of "organic solidarity" emerging automatically from the increasing division of labor. He believed the modern world was in a transitional phase in which what was needed was a new set of moral rules to address the condition of ANOMIE (often defined simply as a condition of normlessness or breakdown of moral guidelines). But I quoted a longer description of ANOMIE:

"In general, the anomic state of modern society has led to a relatively unrestrained citizenry, wherein people primarily look out for their own interests and have disregard for those of others....The individual's social part, Durkheim insisted, is just as natural to humans as their individual (self-interest) part. The problems of modern society are due not to a basically anti-social human nature but to the structure of contemporary society, which does not adequately nurture, develop, and sustain the individual's socially oriented part." -- and sociology could play a key role in developing a new morality (a "science of ethics") to cultivate the "individual's socially oriented part."

So, what Durkheim perceives is a "moral crisis" (NOT one rooted in a capitalist economic system, as Marx would contend). As George Ritzer observed -- "In the end, structural reform was subordinated in Durkheim's mind to changes in the collective morality. He believed the essential problems of modern society were moral in nature and that the only real solution lay in reinforcing the strength of the collective morality."

1. Initially, the OCCUPATIONAL GROUP was seen as the key intermediate institution (or vehicle) through which this new morality could take hold, but ultimately Durkheim advocated a MORAL EDUCATION (which is also the title of his last book).

The theme of a moral education is taken up a bit later by the authors of our text, and they do a good job describing what it involves and why it is needed in modern society.


I am going to leave it there. As you'll note, I provided a bit of lecture material along with those passages I quoted. We'll be able to wrap up Chapter 4 tomorrow (Thurs. 3/6) and move on to Radical Theory and Chapters 5 & 6. I will also give the families some more time to work on your family activity for next Tuesday (3/11).