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How convincing was Durkheim’s argument that ‘society’ exists over and
above individuals?
‘There is no such thing as society’

Margaret Thatcher for Women’s Own, 1971

Introduction

It is not surprising that among those who reacted fiercely to the above aphorism of
Margaret Thatcher were sociologists. Arguably, sociology cannot exist as an academic
discipline without the assumption that society not only exists but also plays a role in
individual’s life. Although the term sociology had been coined by Auguste Comte in the
first half of 19th century it was not until Durkheim’s appointment at Bordeaux in 1887 that
sociology gained a wider currency in the academic world. Even then, the newly emerging
discipline had to be clearly defined against the well established fields of philosophy and
psychology, where especially the latter viewed society through the scope of individualism.
An enthusiast of organic metaphors, Durkheim held an assumption that society, just like
the living body constructed of singular cells, is more than the sum of distinct individuals
(Durkheim 1964: 103). Drawing on a metaphor of an organism with its relation to
constructing elements, he claimed the society defines individuals and their social roles.
For what causes us to recognise how to be a brother, a Catholic or even how to
communicate with each another is a larger determining structure above each of us that
carries social meaning and links the generations. The aim of this essay is to explore the
elements of the structural approach presented by Durkheim. Arguably, his work can be
best understood with reference to the intellectual climate of post-republican France, hence
this will be the starting point of our discussion. We will draw on the notion of social fact to
demonstrate how in Durkheimian sociology the society dominates and shapes the
individual. Last but not least a discussion on the shortcomings of his theory will be
presented.

Influences

Historically, Durkheim’s interest in sociology was shaped by social and political climate
of post-revolutionary France (Morrison 1995: 120). The legacy of the French Revolution,
with a strong emphasis on individual rights and freedom, shook the old foundation of
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society and caused political unrest often perceived as a threat to the social order. Unlike
some conservative critics of French revolution who virtually dismissed any notion of its
positive impact on the French society, Durkheim did not reject social change per se. Yet,
he is considered to be a conservative gradualist in the reference to his stand point that
social change should be brought about as a result of gradual and peaceful processes so
that the social order can be maintained (Coser 1960: 212). The Third Republic, fragile and
torn by unnecessary wars with Prussia was far from a state of social order. An illustration
of the tension arising from a shift in the sphere of ideas and common beliefs can be found
in the political scandal known as the Dreyfus Affair which deeply divided French society
over the dilemma of the individual’s right for justice against the authority of the state.
While some, notably the intellectual circles associated with Émile Zola, called for justice in
the case of a misjudged Jewish artillery officer, others cried that exposing the mistakes of
the court-martial would destroy the authority of the French army (Morrison 1995: 121).

The origins of the crisis in France of the late 19th century can be traced back to the
fundamental changes in the sphere of ideas which were brought about by the
Enlightenment. The intellectual stir of that epoch prompted a conservative reaction, as
argued by Irving Zeitlin the roots of early sociology can be traced to a conservative
answer to Enlightenment (cited in Ritzer: 10). What were the dangerous explorations of
enlightened philosophers that impacted early sociology of Emile Durkheim? Originally
trained in philosophy, Durkheim was familiar with the thought of Thomas Hobbes, who in
his work titled ‘Leviathan’ considered the original state of nature in which law and state,
two main constraints to the individual, were absent. A supporter of atomism, Hobbes
perceived individuals as autonomous particles of the society. Without a strong, repressive
state, he argued, individuals would be indulging in satisfying their immediate drives which
consequently would result in chaos and anarchy, or what he called ‘a war of all against all’
(Hobbes cited in Giddens 1976: 706). Thus, one arrives at the conclusion that society
comes into existence only as a form of a ‘social contract’ which secures peace and
predictability of the daily life. This important thesis had an influence on the development
of utilitarianism, a philosophic stand associated with Adam Smith. An important feature of
utilitarian doctrine is that it is based on an assumption that individuals are self-
determined, autonomous actors who enter social interaction merely to pursuit their own
interest. Durkheim’s notion of society was conceived from his disagreement with both
Hobbes and Smith. While the former diminished the role of society to a mere form of
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contract which stands in opposition to human nature, the latter practically erased the
subject matter of sociology. Above all, Durkheim believed that the society was real and
had a morally positive impact on humans, whose nature, partly social and partly individual
made them inseparable from the society.

Society as a coercive and external force

In the ‘Rules of Sociological Method’ Emile Durkheim postulates that the subject
matter of sociological enterprise is to be the study of social facts which consist ‘of ways of
acting, thinking and feeling, external to the individual, and endowed with a power of
coercion, by reason of which they control him’ (1964: 3). Put together, social facts
constitute what is known as society. The knowledge about society and social phenomena
is available to an average member of the group, who having internalized the rules of social
life through education would follow them on a daily basis. The coercive nature of social
facts is apparent when one attempts to break the social conventions. Depending on the
magnitude of the offence one can expect to be penalised by the law, ostracised by peers
or ridiculed at best. Interestingly, although Durkheim sought to use social facts to prove
law like statement about society, he did acknowledge that the level of control differs from
one situation to another. Dressing improperly is, at least in the French society which
Durkheim studied, more acceptable than committing incest.
Another major feature of Durkheim’s society is its existence prior to the individual.
When we start our life, he reasoned, social institutions are already there, one does not
need to establish the state nor the religious conduct for both have been structured long
before one became a member of society. Drawing on a rather ambiguous theoretical
framework, Durkheim concludes about the social facts that ‘their existence prior to his
own implies their existence outside of himself’ (1964: 2). Consequently, an observation
that social facts exist prior to individual existence implies their continuity after we
descent. How then is the coactivity of social facts reproduced? The answer Durkheim
provides is that the society is present in every individual member, who passes its rules on
to the next generation. As argued by Jones Durkheim attempts to prove that in the society
‘the parts are derived from the whole rather than the whole from the part’ (1986: 61).
Furthermore, Durkheim emphasises is their objective nature. In ‘The Rules of
Sociological Method’ Durkheim advises that society should be viewed as a thing, an
objective reality existing independently, outside of the individuals. This postulate had a
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far-reaching theoretical implication; sociology is different from philosophy in a sense that
it is not occupied with ideas, but exploration of reality sui generis. Here, the theme of
society being above the individual comes back again - a class of objects is indifferent to
the acts of individual will. Unlike the realm of ideas objects retain their physical properties
whatever angle they are observed from. Durkheim’s recommendation to ‘treat social facts
as things’ (1964: lix) shows that he recognised a hierarchical nature of the relation
between individuals and the social facts in which the society dominates and exists above
of its individual members.

Social facts in action – Suicide

Having defined the rules of the sociological enterprise, Durkheim employs his
methodology to study what seemed to be the most individual of all acts –suicide. The
subject of his study was carefully weighted; Durkheim recognised that if it would be
possible to explain suicide in terms independent of the psychological narrative of
individual motives and thoughts, sociology would triumph. It is worth mentioning that at
the time suicide was a growing social problem in Western Europe, with countries such as
France noting especially high suicide rates. Some preliminary studies drew attention on
the fact that social factors such as industrialisation, urban migration and religious decline
could contribute towards the number of voluntarily deaths and Durkheim decided to
conduct a rigorous analysis of this phenomenon. As a sociologist he was not concerned
with individual circumstances, but examined suicide statistics in search for patterns and
regularities. A study on the governmental statistics provided Durkheim with a strong
argument for claiming that indeed he captured a social fact in action. In the preface to
‘Suicide: A Sociological Study’ he wrote that the suicide rates ‘merely reflect the rhythm of
social life; and that marriage, divorce, the family, religious society, the army, etc., affect it
in accordance with definite laws, some of which may even be numerically expressed’
(Durkheim 1952: 39). Durkheimian theory of suicide accounts to saying that when the
social context fails to provide an adequate level of social integration or does not regulate
individual life enough, people are prone to psychological health impairment with those
vulnerable responding by a suicidal act (Lukes 1972: 217). It should be noted that
Durkheim, driven by a paradigm of positivist science, developed a diagnostic tool which
allowed him to generalise and predict suicide rates. Hence Protestants with less common
practices and little church integration are more likely to commit a suicide than Catholics or
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Jews. Similarly unmarried men, with little social integration, are more vulnerable to
suicidal acts than those with families. Nowhere else can the statement that the society
exists over and above individuals be more visible.

Homo Duplex - Towards a duality of human nature

From what has been demonstrated so far it would be easy to criticise Durkheim on the
grounds that he underestimated the autonomy of the individual agent. Indeed, this
argument has become a cornerstone of Durkheim’s criticism. Nevertheless, some authors
argue that Durkheim’s reluctance in acknowledging the importance of individual actor is
often exaggerated (Ritzer 2000: 95). Recent developments in Durkheimian studies provide
evidence that Durkheim should be analysed as a dynamic author, whose views on society
evolved and crystallised over time (Alexander 1986: 91, Werner 1978: 1329). A striking
contrast to Durkheim’s early structural stand can be found in his later works in which a
complex account of the relationship between the individual and society is presented. In
an essay titled ‘On the duality of Human Nature’ Emile Durkheim notes that ‘our internal
life has a double centre of gravity’, on one hand it consist of our individuality, on the other
of ‘everything that, within us, expresses something other than ourselves.’ (1960: 328).
Furthermore, he remarks that this duality is not one of a harmonious nature, as it had
been maintained in his early work, but one that contradicts itself. The human nature is one
of tragic dichotomies. In some sense Durkheim reluctantly submits to Hobbesian notion of
man as an egoist. However, Durkheim’s complexity relies on the fact that the duality of
the human nature assumes man to be egoistic and social in the same time. He therefore
submits that an individual in its purest form in an egoist; yet society has a positive impact
on his existence and is only through the social elements of the human nature that he can
be freed from immediate desires and urges. This contradiction is evident when Durkheim
wrote that the individual ‘cannot exist without it [society] or deny it without denying
himself’, but at the same time ‘he cannot desire it without to a certain degree violating his
nature as an individual’ (Durkheim cited in Lukes 1972: 416)

Durkheim’s late work on religion reveals even more subtle side of his view on society
as a source of morality. In ‘Elementary Forms of Religious Life’ Durkheim noted the
interesting connection between religion and morality; for long centuries they were
intermediately linked or even completely fused. At a time when religious dogma started to
fade, Durkheim proposed that the society, as the source of recognising wrong and right,
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took over the place previously devoted to religion. (Lukes 1972: 413-414) Perhaps Emile
Durkheim, himself unreligious, held a view that modern world society commands human
beings in a way God had done before? In many ways the metaphors he used echo the
biblical creation of man; it is evident when he argues that the society that is ‘exterior and
superior to us’ (cited in Lukes 1972: 416), internalized by every member and capable of
shaping us ‘in its image and likeness’ (1960: 325).

Weaknesses of Durkheim’s structural approach

Considering the question of social institutions again – if religion or the state has
existed prior to the individual, how can a notion of the social change be accommodated in
Durkheimian framework? Let me illustrate the point by an example of the Catholic
Church, a body which throughout centuries gained a status of a well established social
fact. Doubtlessly, the Church played a major role in shaping peoples’ lives, yet it can be
shown that some people had an impact on the religious dogma. What caused the Church
to call Ecumenical councils was often a reaction to social change and heresy of
charismatic individuals such as Arius or Martin Luther. Perhaps social facts are more
susceptible to acts of individual will than Durkheim assumed? Looking for an adequate
answer to shortcomings of Durkheimian sociology one may turn to the work of Max Weber
who, as if in response to Durkheim, claimed that ‘There is no such thing as collectivity
which acts’ (cited in Gilbert 1994: 86). What we know as the society is not an ontological
entity above individuals but merely a product of their interaction.

What is more, his vision of the society as a whole severely limited the scope of his
sociological inquiry. Interested predominantly in the study of social cohesion, Durkheim
seemed to dismiss the possibilities for social conflict (Coser 1960: 211). This problem can
be exemplified by Durkheim’s approach to emerging socialism. As remarked by Giddens,
when reading ‘The Division of Labour’ one can notice an attempt Durkheim makes to
distance himself from Marxism and socialism in general (1978: 30-31). Emile Durkheim
understood that socialism cast a potential threat to his notion of collective consciousness,
a shared body of beliefs and norms, which Marxists could perceive as a dominant ideology
which had to be eradicated. The socialist movement encouraged to question the existing
social order and in its radical form assumed that the new social order could be achieved
only by the means of revolution. According to Giddens, Durkheim neglected the potential
of class struggle by assuming that the class conflict merely ‘expressed the incomplete
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realisation of organic solidarity’ in the industrial society (1978: 31). Ironically, the historical
developments proved Durkheim wrong – class inequalities became a major theme in the
history of 20th century, whereas utopian organic solidarity, one cannot help thinking, has
never been really achieved.

Conclusion

In this essay an attempt was made to show Durkheim’s reasoning behind the claim
that the society exists over and above the individual. Emile Durkheim was a sociologist of
social order and cohesion, an individual deeply concerned about the state of an infant
Third Republic. Underlying his work, one can recognise a sentiment for a strong collective
conscience and morality, an observation which some authors labelled as ‘Durkheim’s
drunkenness on the society’ (Craib 1997: 64). Durkheim’s sociology seems to neglect the
reflective nature of a social actor, and by focusing on utopian state of social harmony and
order overlooks the problem of conflict in the modern society. Overall, when assessing
Durkheimian sociology one should consider that Emile Durkheim worked in a spirit of
fulfilling a certain mission – that is to establish sociology as a professional science.
Exaggerated as his notion of the society may seem now, at the time Durkheim was writing
it was of primary importance to show that society is not merely a creation of philosophic
ideas but a real entity upon which the individual depends.

Word Count: 3005

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