TAKE HOME EXAM 2

Durkheim (IV) Integration and Regulation, the Diagnosis of Modern Society© Meyer Kestnbaum, University of Maryland -- Sociology 203

Overview

I. From last time II. What does it mean to understand suicide as social?

III. Why does D distinguish between integration and regulation? IV. What are the four types of suicide and how are they characterized? V. How does each type work?

VI. How can we understand individualism in this context? VII. How does D assess (diagnose) society around him?

VIII. Exercise

Terms and concepts

Integration vs. regulation

Altruistic suicide

Anomic suicide

Fatalistic suicide

Anomie and egoism

Melancholy

Weariness

Renunciation

Chronic conditions -- pervasive malaise, restlessness

I. From last time

I. A few muddy points A. “Freedom from” and “freedom to” -- what does that have to do with morality, regulation?

1. “Freedom to” emph. connection, working together, &the importance of living under coll. det. rules B. Religion, knowledge and their relationship to suicide

1. Religious groups =societies, where people are attached and connected to particular beliefs 2. Attachment to traditional beliefs offers a shield, but only as attachment to those beliefs is strong. 3. As religious society built on traditional beliefs increasingly becomes disorganized, causes people

to search for other knowledge--AND at the same time undermines the source of connection that offered them support and solace, and a sense of “what it’s all for”

4. So, growing intellectualism/knowledge and growing suicide among (former) religious believers form a spurious causal relationship a) Real cause of suicide is the breakdown of attachment to the religiously defined group (in

this case, in the form of accepting beliefs that must go unquestioned)

II. Suicide as a social phenomenon

I. Suicide is built on several broad, underlying claims, which together allow D to make the argument that its cause is social (=rooted in the groups of which one is part and which morally regulate persons) A. Society is a reality of its own--outside of/apart from persons, a power over every person;

currents within it carry individuals along, collective tendencies as forces indep of individuals B. Human nature is dual--the individual is always ”social man”: presupposes a society into which

the individual is integrated and by which regulated, vs. those parts of a person that distinguish the person and define her or him as distinct

C. Collective representations are key to this “social man” and to social life--they are how society inhabits and constitutes the individual, and what persons orient to as they relate to others

D. → Q: What if social man dissolves?

III. Why integration and regulation?

I. What underlies Durkheim’s move to distinguish integration from regulation? How are they each related to solidarity? A. Why do you think he began with regulation, in DofL? B. What is important about considering integration? What does it get us, here? C. Why is it significant to distinguish between them, in principle? D. Speculate--why do you think integration arises as a concern here?

IV. The types of suicide

I. Distinguishing among types of suicide by their cause A. We know, after reading, are four types. What are they? B. They are related to integration--which we read about for last time-- and regulation, which

we dwelled on in The Division of Labor C. But that would only get us two varieties. What else is important? What difference does it

make? D. Moreover, something further is implied by this strategy for arriving at his four types. What

is it?

IV. The types of suicide

Analytic distinctions among the four types of suicide, with varieties

Insufficient or Too Weak Excess or Too Strong

Integration EGOISTIC ALTRUISTIC

Regulation ANOMIC FATALISTIC

IV. The four types -- 2 based on integration

Egoistic

Excessive individuation, socially isolated, detached from society/others

For example?

A law unto themselves, orients only to what matters most to self

What happens? Self-concern and self-interest swamps other considerations, there’s nothing beyond you alone, so no buffer & no purpose

Altruistic

Insufficient individuation, social integration is too strong, overwhelming

For example?

Principle of action is entirely outside self, there is no self relative to society

What happens? Lose self in society

IV. The four types -- 2 based on regulation

Anomic

Insufficient regulation, breakdown of equilibrium

For example?

Value of things outside oneself is unknown; nothing to set expectations, limit wants

What happens? Endless pursuit….

Fatalistic

Excessive regulation, crushing discipline

For example?

Value within that society minimal, subordinated to extraordinary degree

What happens? Controlled in every respect, without aspiration or hope

V. How do integration and regulation work?

I. Integration--issue of society attracting the person, producing coherence for her A. Well integrated

1. Feel cohesive, constant interchange of ideas/feelings betw self and society, mutual support 2. If ask self, what’s it all for? Answer is, for society, that power over us and enfolding us

B. Too little integration 1. Detached from society, left alone and adrift, all that matters is self (and that’s insubstantial) 2. If ask, what’s it all for? Answer is, there is no purpose, no longer a basis for life outside self

C. Too much integration 1. Society gives too little value to the person; “the ego is not his own property”; the principle of

action is entirely external to the person 2. If ask, what’s it all for? Answer is, the group takes absolute precedence (enforced often by

honor), basis for life resides outside of self

V. How do integration and regulation work? I. Regulation--issue of society’s control of the person, teaching self-discipline

A. Well regulated 1. Starts from the notion: People’s appetites are inherently boundless, so they must have limits

(not just rules) and this requires moral regulation the person takes as just 2. These limits create legitimate aspirations, what a person may legitimately hope for

a) it is an issue of what people see as their needs and what means they have to satisfy them; each social class has its own set

B. Too little regulation 1. When society cannot adjust and teach self-discipline there is a disruption of equilibrium

a) Public conscience requires time to reclassify things, people; when not in equilibrium, values are not known and activity lacks regulation for some time

b) Location within class structure matters -- poverty may teach discipline, but wealth--especially sudden wealth--can be overwhelming (compare the former to Marx)

V. How do integration and regulation work?

I. Regulation -- control of the person (cont.) A. Too little regulation (continued) -- what happens in this disrupted equilibrium?

1. “Appetites are freed of any limiting authority” (255) 2. Endless possible gain over-excites ambition (irrespective of material well-being) 3. People suffer from what D calls the “morbid desire for the infinite” (271)

B. Too much 1. Again, social position matters--in a position of subordination, so powerfully regulated

and controlled that all aspiration and even hope disappear 2. May involve institutionalized subordination of some groups or strata within society

and physical coercion

V. How do integration and regulation work I. Comparing egoistic vs. anomic

A. For both--society is insufficiently present in individual B. Egoistic--without attachment to society, society no longer provides a basis for existence

1. Collective activity is deprived of its object (society), which justifies sacrifice and suffering

2. Characterized by feeling “languorous melancholy” C. Anomic--society’s influence is lacking in the domain of individual passions

1. Is no check, no constraint on wants, desires 2. Characterized by “exasperated weariness” (compare to Tocqueville’s restlessness)

D. Vs. Altruistic--so strongly attached to society there is no separate self 1. Basis for life appears outside of self, no longer basis for existence in life 2. Characterized by “active renunciation”

VI. Individualism in organic solidarity I. D reformulates his understanding of individualism, positive/social than earlier

A. The individual only exists within society, formed by society, is society’s “masterpiece” 1. Individual conscience formed only in union and combination, through what is shared, that is

“social man” 2. Individualism NOT = egoism (who does this remind you of?);

B. In fact, in modern society, see critical development: “Cult of the individual” 1. “The Individual” her or himself acquires a kind of religious stature 2. As noted in Div of L, individualism per se cannot be the glue that holds society together,

however it does have tremendous power 3. Person cannot dispose of self as they will (at limit: prohibition against taking one’s own life) 4. The cultivation of the individual becomes an obligation 5. And recall from DofL, cultivation not just in any way--Individual development in socially useful

ways (performing function) central, and free to do so...

VII. Diagnosis of society

I. Going from suicide to society more generally A. Is Suicide a book about persons taking their own lives, or about modern society more

generally? 1. Conditions for life in modern society: relations between society and individual

persons, in terms of integration and regulation B. How does D’s analysis of suicide set up an analysis of society?

1. Acute, chronic…. C. How does D see society currently?

1. Is the patient healthy? Sick?

VII. Diagnosis of society I. Diagnosing present ills of society

A. D looks out at world he lives in and identifies a “poverty of morality” 1. Specifically, he sees a maladjustment in moral terms 2. Large part of this is a poorness of fit between shared representations and the pattern of social

relationships as they’ve developed and changed over time B. How is this related to his analysis of anomie? To egoism?

1. What does D mean when he talks about a pervasive malaise, restlessness? (p. 323) C. Why? With d of l, changes in rels that outstrip society’s capacity to develop appropriate shared

representations, and part of this comes from a series of changes in intermediary groups D. → State is sole organized collectivity, but is not able to perform the moral function(s) needed

1. It is the only way people are reminded of society and their dependence upon it, 2. But it “is distant and discontinuous,” --“for most lives, nothing draws [people] out of themselves

and imposes restraints on them” (389) a) Who does this sound like?

VII. Diagnosis of society

I. What is the solution to the present problem? A. Need national unity, B. But also increasing # of centers of communal life

1. Centralized elaboration of new shared representations will not work; they need to fit social situations that are divided and differentiated

2. Decentralized through occupational groups--bear directly on social life as it is divided and through occupations are attached; rendered solidary since decentralized groups perform this regulative function

C. Prospects? Is he hopeful?

Group Exercise I. As a table group,

A. Identify a new scribe and please discuss the following questions. After you’ve discussed them among yourselves, the scribe should write your group responses into her or his ‘assignment’ space with all of your names included at the top, as well as your table #.

B. Question 1: Which arguments or concepts of Durkheim’s do you see playing out in any 2 of the following current US concerns: social media use and possible displacement of face-to-face interaction//online bullying//#MeToo and its sweep through different occupational groups//fatigue in response to constant new political challenges and mobilizing to change things politically, both in terms of protest and in voting for different leaders

C. Question 2: Looking at whichever of the previous you focused upon, what do you think this says about the current condition of American society in terms of solidarity? What is your diagnosis of American society, and why? (mirroring Durkheim’s diagnosis of French society broadly when he wrote)

VIII. Exercise

I. We’ve identified three clusters of claims Durkheim makes A. Foundations--Society is a moral reality, and a reality all its own/human nature is dual/shared

representations are the key to social life and how society inhabits the person B. Suicide has social causes, is rooted in the social groups of which one is part, and is understood

through the lenses of integration and regulation C. Integration and regulation help us to understand and even address the current situation of society,

well beyond suicide

II. Do these things A. Draw and briefly label causal arrows linking these three clusters to one another B. Briefly explain why you think it’s important for D to distinguish integration from regulation C. In a few sentences, explain the significance of the analysis of suicide for understanding modern

society D. Extra credit: identify a remaining muddy point or question this raises for you more broadly