...Introduction This essay intends to explicitly compare Karl Marx and Emile David Durkheim ideas on religion from a sociological and functionalist perspective. Functionalists’ belief that religion is beneficial for both the community and its members e.g. it unifies the society which in turn gives each individual member a source of support when they need it. It will begin with their brief historical backgrounds, definition of religion as well as their similarities and differences in studying it. Karl Marx Marx was born in Prussia on May 5, 1818. He began exploring sociopolitical theories at university among the Young Hegelians. He became a journalist, and his socialist writings would get him expelled from Germany and France. In 1848, he published The Communist Manifesto with Friedrich Engels and was exiled to London, where he wrote the first volume of Das Kapital and lived the remainder of his life (Engels, 1869). Marx is considered as one of the founders of economic history and sociology. Emile Durkheim According to Jones (1986) “David Emile Durkheim was born in France, on April 15, 1857 and raised in a Jewish family with his father as a rabbi. Emile was, thus destined for the rabbinate, and a part of his early education was spent in a rabbinical school” (p.12). Durkheim is considered the father of modern sociology and well known for his work on Division of Labour in 1912. Definition of Religion Both Marx and Durkheim have rather contrasting definitions of what religion is with...
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...Topic 2: Emile Durkheim Many company and corporate advertisements celebrate the values of community, such as this one from Starbucks (NYT Magazine 12/17/07, p. 83). It states: Community: “People you share space with, some that you know and some that you don’t. Your lives have a common thread, a tie that binds, whether it’s where you live or beliefs you have or the fact that you give when they need. Yes, it can be as simple as that.” Discuss how this Starbucks advertisement captures the different meanings of community associated with Durkheim’s concepts of mechanical solidarity and organic solidarity. Find additional examples that illustrate the value of community as both a local and a global phenomenon. Solidarity refers to the integration amongst groups of people and neighbors within society due to social ties that may arise from common responsibilities and interests. Social bonds are created between people from these communal ties which revolves around the principles of shared morals, values, kinship and association. According to Durkheim without the smooth correspondence of morality and social organization to form a properly functioning society through social cohesion and adaption social ties will be nonexistent hence creating anomie. This essay will be covering both mechanical solidarity and organic solidarity, showing the differences and overlapping factors in relation to the Starbucks advertisement. Following Durkheim's concept of mechanical solidarity and organic...
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...Introduction This essay intends to explicitly compare Karl Marx and Emile David Durkheim ideas on religion from a sociological and functionalist perspective. Functionalists’ belief that religion is beneficial for both the community and its members e.g. it unifies the society which in turn gives each individual member a source of support when they need it. It will begin with their brief historical backgrounds, definition of religion as well as their similarities and differences in studying it. Karl Marx Marx was born in Prussia on May 5, 1818. He began exploring sociopolitical theories at university among the Young Hegelians. He became a journalist, and his socialist writings would get him expelled from Germany and France. In 1848, he published The Communist Manifesto with Friedrich Engels and was exiled to London, where he wrote the first volume of Das Kapital and lived the remainder of his life (Engels, 1869). Marx is considered as one of the founders of economic history and sociology. Emile Durkheim According to Jones (1986) “David Emile Durkheim was born in France, on April 15, 1857 and raised in a Jewish family with his father as a rabbi. Emile was, thus destined for the rabbinate, and a part of his early education was spent in a rabbinical school” (p.12). Durkheim is considered the father of modern sociology and well known for his work on Division of Labour in 1912. Definition of Religion Both Marx and Durkheim have rather contrasting...
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...Trung Vu Roxanne Ezzet Sociological Theory 375 30 April 2015 Utopia: Work in Process For as long as the human species has been living on this earth, it has always pondered with a question of whether or not a perfect place where there is forever peace, harmony, and happiness. The concept of heaven reflects this worldly desire for such dreamland. But does one have to die to live in this uncertain utopia after living morally on earth? Many argue that with the right combination of certain social and economical policies, we actually don’t have to wait till afterlife to live in an ideal society. This paper will present the classic theories and contemporary arguments circulating the essential elements of societies and from these arguments, construing what elements are most important that could be used to create an ideal society. In order to part away from the religious view that heaven can only exist in the hereafter, we try to establish a scientific explanation of how we as human beings have come to existence through the process of evolution. This theory appeals significantly to us for at least two reasons. First, it gives some of us who aren’t as religious a more satisfying validation of our origin and our destination. This view opposes Max Weber’s description of a Calvinist who always suffers great inner loneliness due to his ambiguous predestined fate. Second, the theory of evolution is in alignment with our positive and pre-established perception of progress and improvement...
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...Role of religion in human culture Anthropologists define religion as a cultural universal that encompasses beliefs and behavior concerned with supernatural beings, powers and forces (Kottak, 2013). Even though it is a human universal, the rules of religion vary from culture to culture. Even within the major religious traditions, there may be a great many variations. Methodist traditions are different from Baptists who are widely different from Catholic tradition. Signs of religion date back as far as sixty to one hundred thousand years. Prior to the Neanderthals there were no signs of religion. Neanderthals were the first to bury their dead, suggesting a belief in an afterlife. Religion serves many different functions in society. First and foremost, it provides an answer to universal questions humans have. These questions are: What am I? Where do I come from and where do I go? What is death? What happens when I die? Why do bad things happen? What is the meaning of life? Religion can provide a sense of comfort and security to people as it provides explanations for events that are outside of people’s control. It also can establish and “maintain social control through a series of moral and ethical beliefs along with real or imagined rewards and punishments. (Kottak, 2013)” For most religious people, their beliefs are the very core of their world views. These believes also are important in defining humans’ ideas of what is right and wrong. If one does the right...
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...At first glance, sport and religion appear to have little in common, apart from being perennial human activities. Religion is transcendent, concerned with the divine, and involves sacred things. Sport is immanent, concerned with the human, and involves profane things. However, a deeper examination reveals that there are at least five ways in which sport and religion are deeply interrelated: first, it can be demonstrated that, in pre-modern societies, ritualized sport was very often part of worship of the gods; second, altered states of consciousness attained during sport have frequently been compared to religious or mystical experiences; third, some modern sporting champions have professed religious faith and attributed their success to divine power; fourth, the devotion of fans to sporting teams and individual “stars” resembles religions fervor; fifth and final, in the modern West, sport has become a functional equivalent of religion for some people. These connections between religion and sport are undeniable, but not uncontroversial. Scholars and critics who have attempted to articulate them and offer explanations for them have encountered pitfalls. Adherents of traditional religions such as Judaism and Christianity have vigorously objected to the equation of sport with religion and of sporting “peak experiences” with religious experiences or mysticism. Christian commentators have questioned how compatible the modern sporting ethos of bodily perfection and fierce competition...
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...Rasheedah Moore Essay 4 Thanatology Identify the four types of suicide that Emile Durkheim delineated. Include in your description the particular way in which people who commit each type of suicide are connected to their society. Egotistic suicide is committed by people who are not supported by membership in a cohesive social group (www.sociologyindex.com). Hey are often loners. Extremely wealthy people are easily cut off from everyday society and don’t have a lot of support from society. These people tend to make and live by their own rules, for this reason if they begin to entertain suicidal thoughts it is hard for them to “shake it.” (p. 219) These people who commit egotistic suicide may also believe that they have concurred everything and that there is “nothing else,” for him or her to do. No more goals, nothing else to live for. Altruistic suicide is committed occurs when a person is overly concerned with the community, (p. 219) An example of this is when a Soldier throws himself on a grenade to save the lives of his comrades or intentionally run into a firefight to become a lone target. This person has a strong bond with the community and would do anything to protect the people in it. In Western society it isn’t often witnessed, but when it is, it is deemed heroic. Anomic suicide occurs when someone looses ties with society (p. 219) Example of this is someone who has to retire do to age or someone who is physically incapable of completing task. Another example...
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...Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) was one of the founding fathers of sociology as a vital and highly regarded academic discipline. According to Durkheim, social facts are sui generis, and must be studied distinct from biological and psychological phenomenon. In order to understand what he meant by his claims that social facts are sui generis or self existent, it is first vital to define what a social fact is and understand the approach that Durkheim undertook when creating his sociological methodologies and interpretations. Therefore, after a brief explanation of social facts and examination of Durkheim and his sociological practices, this essay will attempt to provide a valid explanation as to what Durkheim meant when he claims that social facts are self existent. Social facts are specifically defined by Durkheim as “a category of facts which present very special characteristics: they consist of manners of acting, thinking, and feeling external to the individual, which are invested with a coercive power by virtue of which they exercise control over him.” Social facts are characterised by two aspects. Firstly, they are external to the individual and secondly they must implement a control over the individual such as the existence of some predetermined legal penalty or by their reaction to those forms of individual belief and action which individuals perceive as threatening. No social fact can exist outside a well defined social organisation and the presence of social facts is easily...
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...to choose we who we will worship or to not worship. Social Spirituality Emile Durkheim was born in April 1858 in Einal, Located in the Lorraine region of France. His family was devoutly Jewish and his father, great grandfather were all rabbis, Durkheim however, broke with tradition went to all Eole normale superiecure in 12879, where he studied philosphosy. He was a French Socialist and formally established academic discipline and, with Karl Marx and Max Weber was commonly cited as the principal architect of modern of social science and father of sociology. Emile Durkheim discussed about the totems or natural things like trees, animals, nature ETC that people worship and became the center of their rituals. We the people are always looking for a reason why we exist. We are always naturally curious that’s why we are always asking why we are here on earth and many other intriguing questions that are essential in our life. We are finding our purpose and searching for the answers. No one can really give us a concrete answer to our questions, because of this all the things that we can’t explain are works of our God. In our prehistoric times, when there is an earthquake or other natural phenomenon the people teach to be afraid and assume that their God is angry. But still nowadays, even we can explain it scientifically the earthquakes and other, our religion still remains. Emile Durkheim said that we create Religion but it became more powerful than us. As time goes...
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...Durkheim on Religion “If religion has given birth to all that is essential in society, it is because the idea of society is the soul of religion." (Bellah, 1973, p. 191 [excerpt from The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life]) "For we know today that a religion does not necessarily imply symbols and rites, properly speaking, or temples and priests. This whole exterior apparatus is only the superficial part. Essentially, it is nothing other than a body of collective beliefs and practices endowed with a certain authority." (1973, p. 51 [excerpt from "Individualism and the Intellectuals"]) The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, the last major work published by Durkheim, five years before his death in 1917, is generally regarded as his best and most mature. Where Suicide focused on a large amount of statistics from varying sources, The Elementary Forms used one case study in depth, the Australian aborigines. Durkheim chose this group because he felt they represented the most basic, elementary forms of religion within a culture. Durkheim set out to do two things, establish the fact that religion was not divinely or supernaturally inspired and was in fact a product of society, and he sought to identify the common things that religion placed an emphasis upon, as well as what effects those religious beliefs (the product of social life) had on the lives of all within a society. Durkheim's finding that religion was social can best be described by this excerpt...
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...Philosophy of Religion Essay: Religious experience at Ram Mandir Hinduism is one of the oldest religions since the beginning of time and has grown from its ancient roots to become the third largest religion in the world. The majority of its followers originate in India and Nepal. Hinduism is a religion based on traditional values and philosophies that have evolved in India over period of more than a thousand years. On my visit to the Ram Mandir while I experienced a puja, “which is a name for prayers in Hinduism”. (V,2011) among the people, I noticed two different patterns that they follow, and observed that Hinduism has related the patterns to Emilie Durkheim’s and Stuart Hall’s theories of social solidarity and culture respectively through use of prayers and congregations, which is going to be the main focus of my essay in Hinduism the distinct patterns while performing the prayers. The two patterns are congregation who came together for the ritual performed by the Pundits( priests) and the book that priest themselves distributed to the people. The first pattern that was visible to me in the Ram Mandir was based on the congregation who came together for the ritual performed by the Pundits (priests). This gathering of people had a majority of Asian descendants which were mostly North Indians that spoke Hindi. Also, there were different languages that were being spoken by south Indians that are dark skinned, which were easy to distinguish. Since, Hindi is the most common...
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...2012-03-PSY-300-OL009 Identify and describe the four (4) types of suicide that Emile Durkheim delineated. Include in your description the particular way in which people who commit each type of suicide are connected to their society. Emile Durkheim’s study led him to establish the four categories of suicides we know today, the first being Egoistic suicides. These are the result of excessive "individuation", or isolation from the social group as a whole. A lack of social integration will lead an individual to possibly take their life due to loneliness or depression. Durkheim found out that males, usually the single ones, were much more likely to commit suicide than those with better social connections (customs, jobs, and families). Males are more likely, as well, to seek out an individual life away from a community, which can lead to depression and killing oneself. Egotistic suicide is committed by people who are not supported by membership in a cohesive social group (www.sociologyindex.com). They are often loners. Extremely wealthy people are easily cut off from everyday society and don’t have a lot of support from society. These people tend to make and live by their own rules, for this reason if they begin to entertain suicidal thoughts it is hard for them to “shake it” (p. 219). The people who commit egotistic suicide may also believe that they have concurred everything and that there is “nothing else,” for him or her to do. No more goals, nothing else...
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...via the free market) “{In The Gift] Mauss summarily eliminates the two utilitarian ideologies that purport to account for the evolution of contracts: “natural economy,” Smith’s idea that individual barter was aboriginal; and the notion that primitive communities were altruistic, giving way eventually to our own regrettably selfish, but more efficient individualism. Against the contemporary move [i.e. at the time that Mauss was writing ] to replace markets with communist states, he insists that the complex interplay between individual freedom and social obligation is synonymous with the human condition and that markets and money are universal, if not in their current impersonal form. In this way he fleshes out his uncle’s [that is, Emile Durkheim] social agenda, but also questions the accuracy of his model...
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...SOUTHERN RURAL SOCIOLOGY, 24(1), 2009, pp. 200–222. Copyright © by the Southern Rural Sociological Association DURKHEIM DID NOT SAY “NORMLESSNESS”: THE CONCEPT OF ANOMIC SUICIDE FOR INTRODUCTORY SOCIOLOGY COURSES PHYLLIS PUFFER BIG SANDY COMMUNITY AND TECHNICAL COLLEGE ABSTRACT The definitions of anomic suicide presented in introductory sociology textbooks from 1996 to 2007 were compared with the definition given by Durkheim in his own writings both in the original French and the English translation. It was found that only one textbook correctly gave Durkheim’s own definition while the other definitions showed little or no relationship to the original concept. The original concept was based on an analysis of the economy, more particularly the business cycle, and refers only to the structure of society and not to the mental state of the individual. An attempt is made to discover the source of such a widespread and well-accepted error. All of us are concerned about the introductory course in sociology, no matter the august reaches of academe we might have attained. Nearly all of us have taught it at least once, if only as teaching assistants during our graduate school days. Some of us always teach it. The rest depend on it as a basis for their advanced courses, for a supply of research assistants, and ultimately to build public appreciation and support for the field. If we think of the number of students who take introductory sociology in just one small...
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...Social Solidarity in the Kalahari Rachael L. Smith SOCI 111 In Robert Lee’s Eating Christmas in the Kalahari, he describes his time spent as an anthropologist studying the hunting and gathering subsistence economy of the !Kung in the Kalahari desert, specifically around Christmas, where he aims to show his gratitude to the villagers by getting them an ox to slaughter and feast on. He is told consistently by members of the /ai/ai village that the ox he purchased was not substantial for the villagers, and will not please them. After he discovers that his ox is indeed substantial and will feed the village, Lee learns of the villages’ socialization customs to one another, which is to humiliate them. With the /ai/ai village comparable to a Gemeinschaft, Lee discovers that the Bushmen use humility to enforce social status within their mechanical and organic social solidarity. The !Kung Bushmen understand Christmas as essentially “praise the birth of white man’s god-chief,” as their knowledge about Christmas was told to them by Bantu-speaking pastoralists, and Christianity was not prominent in their society nor traditionally practiced. But, they still looked forward to Christmas due to the Tswana-Herero custom of slaughtering an ox for their Bushmen neighbors as a gesture of goodwill, in which the slaughter is followed by several days of feasting and trance-dancing. Amongst the Bushmen, Lee provided tobacco handouts and medical supplies but did not interfere with...
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