Durkheim: Session 9

In “The Increasing Preponderance of Organic Solidarity,” Durkheim repeatedly emphasizes the paradoxical unity that is brought about through differentiation.  It is no longer feasible for society to resolve conflicts by simply by splitting into different factions. “In lower societies, where solidarity through similarities is the only , or almost the only one, these breaks are most frequent and the easiest.” In higher societies, “the different parts of the aggregate, since they fulfill different functions, cannot be easily separated.”  However, couldn’t these splits also be interpreted as further differentiation that would eventually become beneficial to a society already held together by organic solidarity? Where do we draw the distinction between a harmful division and beneficial differentiation, and how does organic solidarity arise from mechanical solidarity except through a series of divisions?

Durkheim also identifies assaults to the common consciousness as the basis of punishment and law in mechanical solidarity: “Strong, well defined states of the common consciousness are at the root of penal law.” He further implies that the common consciousness steadily withdraws as societies progress and become differentiated, and laws are no longer based on the preservation of similarity. Does the division of labor truly do away with the common consciousness, or is it simply transmuted? The maintenance of a differentiated society requires the recognition of more universal standards of behavior, and it might be more adequate to say that the individual consciousness has absorbed the common consciousness rather than become separate from it.