SOCI 1001 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Mechanical And Organic Solidarity, Solidarity, Anomie
10 Dec 2018
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To durkheim, society was greater than sum of its parts. He asserted that individual behaviour is different from collective behaviour, and that studying collective behaviour is different from individual actions. Society acted as an external restraint on individual behaviour. Durkheim called the communal beliefs, morals and attitudes of society as collective conscience. He also believed that social integration, or the strength of ties that people have with their social groups is the key factor in social life. Durkheim was concerned about the modern society being in a process of social disintegration. He believed that the cultural glue that held the society together was failing and people were becoming more divided. He argued that as the society grew more populated, more complex and more difficult to regulate, the underlying basis of unity needs to evolve. Preindustrial societies were held together through mechanical solidarity. This type of social order is maintained through minimum division of labor and common collective consciousness.
