Industrialization as a Cultural Logic
How can bonds between individuals be maintained when traditional institutions, beliefs, and practices are weakened?
“Organic solidarity” in industrial and modern societies
Social division of labor which fosters “organic solidarity” based on functional interdependence between actors performing specialized roles in modern society, need not draw upon preexisting ties of kinship or locality.
“Mechanical solidarity” in traditional and small scare societies
People feel connected through similar work, education, and religious training and lifestyle. This similarity and homogeneity ensure both social integration and regulation.
Some kind of alienation of humankind in industrialized modern society:
The industrialization’s transformation of solidarity engenders a cross-culturally and historically particular type of personality: the specialist, who strives to be fully integrated into society by becoming one of its organs. à“Equip yourself to fulfill usefully a specific function” that departures much from the humanist vision of “Renaissance Man”.
The industrialization does not need well-rounded person and try to perverse individual independence, what it needs and tries to produce is a skilled organ (to form a dense web of social interdependence in the way of industrial version of division of labor) that facilitates the operation of industrialization.
Durkheim’s critique on the western industrial capitalism: capitalist economy has developed a logic that colonizes the rest of the social field. And the “possessive individualism” was a social and historical constructs created during the rise of modern capitalism in western Europe.
The Cult of the individual
In Durkheim’s idea, the emergence of the individual as a distinct entity only can be found in modern West. Comparatively, in primitive societies, individuals were indistinguishable from, and fully incorporated into society.
Durkheim did not denounce/criticize individualism itself, but question the philosophical foundation of the privilege of individual over community. He asserted the importance of altruistic利他主义 and societal tendencies. For social interactions among human beings, he thought competition should be balanced by cooperation and the search for solidarity. In his mind, it is not individuals that create society, rather is society creates individuals and depends on them for existence. If we overemphasize the individuals, it may result in excessive individualism and cause serious social problems, such as egoism, anomie.
By ethnological and historical juxtaposition of the non-western societies and the west, Durkheim believed that through different mechanism (e.g. temporary combination of collective consciousness by groups and individuals, strict discipline and respect for traditions etc.), nonmodern and nonwestern societies quell减轻the sources of radical moral interrogation. He thought individualism was a weak basis for social solidarity and morality. Instead of combating individualism, he proposed that modern Western settings should cultivate “the cult of individualism” in a manner that promotes social solidarity. They must embrace the common set of beliefs to unite citizens, and the liberal humanist ideal of protecting the sanctity神圣性 of the individual as human being against the violation of his/her inalienable不可剥夺的rights. This shared attachment to human rights and the cult of individualism can act as the central dynamic of social integration within western modernity.
The Moral Malaise of Western Modernity
The uninterrupted and rapid spread of scientific rationalism, industrialization, and individuation combine to bring about a moral malaise in the modern West.
“The former gods are growing old or dying, and others have not born.”
Transcendental divinities have fades away, while moral and solidaritic mechanisms have not yet feed the heart and soul of society.
This assessment draws from his cross-cultural analyses of religion among “primitive” peoples. “Primitive” rituals and beliefs inject vitality into human existence and conjure up a sense of community: they provide both the space and time for individuals to join together, reaffirm their commitment to shared values and rules mediated by a common symbolic order.
On the other hand, it cannot unproblematically serve as blueprint for Euro-American society because of heteronomy. So, Euro-American must nurture their own collective rituals and creeds, in order to immerse social life in a republican sense of civic morality nourished by the sacred’s creative forces.
ð Sociology as a problem-solving science
Questions:
(1) Durkheim in certain extent took sociology as a problem-solving science to overcome the anomie, so in the last section, he made suggestions to resolve the moral malaise problem, that is, to form a collective consciousness by using modern ceremonies (e.g. popular events, democratic assemblies).
BUT THE QUESTION IS (1) by holding these ceremonies, you need a political target, or undemocratic others. If it happens within a society, it will definitely split society as a whole. It actually forms collective consciousness of certain groups rather than that of the entire society (Nationalist movement against foreign countries may be an exception). Probably it will go to Marx’s direction, the consciousness of working class. And we can also say, holding public ceremonies in fact is undergoing a mobilization process, and then, who will and should be the mobilizers? And who will pay the costs? These are all very important political and practical issues. Moreover, ceremonies are only temporary events, how to maintain that consciousness longer or permanently?
(2) This article keeps talking about “how to hold society as a whole” by mobilization of collective consciousness, but I am thinking on the other side, is society really that loose? Or we can ask, is there any other way of nourishing/cultivating consciousness (as I don’t think mobilization is a sustainable way)? If we follow the intellectual tradition thinking of social contract, I guess laws or social regulations or some other forms of social contracts may signify the minimal consensus of mass population (certainly the law or regulation makings are dominated by certain social groups).
(3)Durkheim’s categories:
Mechanical Solidarity—based on similarity, found in traditional and small societies;
Organic Solidarity—based on division of labor, found in industrialized societies;
[Capitalist] Industrialization à Intensified division of labor & plurality of social life;
But in China’s socialist industrialization (pre-1980s), [compared to capitalist societies at that time] it tried to reduce the class differentiations and social inequality, emphasized on a homogeneous lifestyle; the division of labor still existed, but the specialization of labor skills were not generally that being emphasized (political loyalty is more important).
If we regard Durkheim’s assumption about industrialization and social division of labor as a kind of “universal truth”, what the socialist practices tell?
