Emile Durkheim Quotes on Politics
Émile Durkheim’s The Division of Labour in Society (1893), Suicide (1897), and the late The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1912) gave the founding generation of French sociology its most influential political-philosophical statement of social solidarity. The central thesis is that the modern shift from mechanical solidarity (the homogeneous integration of small traditional communities through shared collective consciousness) to organic solidarity (the differentiated integration of complex modern societies through the interdependence of specialized functions) is the constitutive social transformation of modernity — and that the corresponding pathologies of anomie and forced division of labor frame the proper political-philosophical work of restoring the moral and institutional resources through which organic solidarity can be sustained. The framework, integrating Comtean positivism with the developing sociological tradition, shaped subsequent French and broader European political sociology through Marcel Mauss, the early Annales school, and the contemporary engagement with the moral foundations of liberal democratic society.
Quotes
-
Attributed to Emile Durkheim:
“Society is not a mere sum of individuals; rather, the system formed by their association represents a specific reality which has its own characteristics.”
-
“When mores are sufficient, laws are unnecessary; when mores are insufficient, laws are unenforceable.”
As attributed in: Jeffrey Eisenach et al. (1993), Readings in renewing American civilization, p. 54 -
Attributed to Emile Durkheim:
“Religion is the system of symbols by means of which society becomes conscious of itself.”
-
Attributed to Emile Durkheim:
“Anomie is a state of normlessness, in which the individual is left without a moral compass.”
-
Attributed to Emile Durkheim:
“Man cannot become attached to higher aims and submit to a rule if he sees nothing above him to which he belongs.”
-
Attributed to Emile Durkheim:
“It is from public opinion that the moral order receives its sanction.”
-
“Men already had ideas on law, morality, the family, the state, and society itself before the advent of social science, for these ideas were necessary conditions of his life”
The Rules of Sociological Method,1895 | p. 14 -
“Methodological rules are for science what rules of law and custom are for conduct.”
The Division of Labor in Society(1893) | p. 364 -
“It is society which, fashioning us in its image, fills us with religious, political, and moral beliefs that control our actions.”
Suicide: A Study in Sociology(1897) -
“Once the generality of the phenomenon has been established, one can, by showing its utility, confirm the results of the first method. We may, therefore, formulate the three following rules:”
The Rules of Sociological Method,1895 -
“To pursue a goal which is by definition unattainable is too condemn oneself to a state of perpetual unhappiness.”
Suicide: A Study in Sociology(1897)