...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...
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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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...AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY DIPLOMA IN SOCIAL WORK AND DEVELOPMENT STUDIES COURSE CODE: SWD112 COURSE TITLE: INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY QUESTION PICK ANY SOCIOLOGY FOUNDING FATHER, WRITE HIS OR HER CONTRIBUTION TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIOLOGY BY HEZEKIAH KELLY .M.O. D12SG0016 DATE: JUNE 2013 EMILE DAVID DURKHEIM (1858 – 1917) BRIEF HISTORY AND EARLY LIFE STAGES OF DURKHEIM Durkheim was born in the eastern Pascoag providence of Lorraine, which at that time was part of Germany, on April 15th 1858. He came from a long line of conservative French Jews but, he decided early in his life he would not follow in his family’s footsteps. He led a completely secular lifestyle. he never completely detached himself from his family or the Jewish community. Many of his colleagues and students were either from the Jewish community or of blood relation. In 1879 Durkheim entered École Normale Supérieure, as a very promising student. That year’s class was one of the most brilliant in the nineteenth century. Many of his classmates, such as Jean Jaurès and Henri Bergson, went on to become very influential to France’s history. Very early in his career, Durkheim became interested in the scientific approach to society by reading works by social scientists, Herbert Spencer and Auguste Comte, and studying with Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges. Thus, he found many problems with the French...
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...any other theorist who expressed his/her views on religion. Names: Oabona Moses Sello ID #: 201204434 Due date: April 15 2014 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...
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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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...freedom 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...
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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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...In 1894, a Jewish artillery officer in the French army named Captain Alfred Dreyfus was arrested and charged with supplying the German Embassy in Paris with military secrets. After a private trial in which only the military were involved Dreyfus was convicted of treason and was consequently imprisoned on Devil’s Island off the coast of French Guyana. From the outset the case was full of ambiguities and unanswered questions. The evidence used to convict Dreyfus was dubious and the lack of concrete evidence provoked his brother Mathieu to start a campaign to prove Alfred’s innocence. The army had wanted to keep the trial out of the public sphere and deal with it as swiftly as possible but Mathieu Dreyfus ensured that people were made aware of his brother’s plight, even though the public were not always on his side. With the start of Mathieu’s campaign came the involvement of the daily press, and this meant that the Dreyfus case could no longer be kept behind closed doors. Articles informing of the arrest of an army officer charged with treason appeared in the press soon after the court case, but information was incomplete and the newspapers did not know who or what exactly was involved. The matter properly came to the public’s attention on the 31st of October in an evening issue of Le Soir, which identified the perpetrator as Alfred Dreyfus and the following day the press was saturated with articles on the affair. Most notably, on the 1st November 1984 the main headline in...
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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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...Future of Modernizations SOC/120 January 8 2012 Modernization manifests itself in the U.S. In many different ways. The reading suggest Peter Berger defined the key factors of modernizations as being an increase in diversity, a decrease in traditional communities, more awareness to personal choice, and a look towards the future and realization of time. One main key feature in modernization manifesting itself is the fact that most of the population lives in the bigger parts of cities. 80 percent of the population according to population bureau, 2010. Their statistics showed that individuals would much rather live in bigger cities, even after knowing that health care pollution were greater in these places. The studies showed that rural areas can give one a healthier living standard, but people continue to choose to live with consequences that the may be encountered with. I think that people do not even realize the difference between the two, they just find that living in the bigger cities makes their life seem easier. The statistics also showed that the individuals that live in the bigger parts of the cities tend to rely on drugs and alcohol more than the individuals that choose to live in rural areas. I really do not see modernization trends changing anytime soon. Modernization has been happening for many years and has improved individuals life's over a period of time. I think that we have...
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...A Piece of the Action Norman Mailer’s sports article on boxing, The Death of Benny Paret published in 1984, claims that Paret was a powerful young boxer who had his life cut short when he fought for keeping his welterweight title against Emile Griffith. Mailer supports this by explaining how vicious Griffith was throughout the entire fight, ending with Paret’s tragic death. He goes into extreme detail using similes and a large amount of commas to show imagery. Mailer connects with his readers by showing the tragic sorrow of a death happening right in front of their eyes, but also showing that Paret did not die in vain, but in glory. The fight was cast as brutal and vicious, and with every crowd, there comes a story. The certain sportscaster who wrote this attempts to place readers into his seat as if they were there, viewing the fight in all its glory their selves. In doing so, the writer makes sure that his words keep up with the rhythm of the battle, his words having as much impact as the punches thrown. Descriptive words that the writer uses include “clubbing” and “whimpering” accompanied by similes which simply explain the impact that each one of Griffith’s punches had on Paret. Guardado 2 “Griffith was in like a cat ready to rip the life out of a huge boxed rat…right hand whipping like a piston rod which has broken through the crankcase, or like a baseball bat demolishing a pumpkin.” These phrases use extensive use of both diction and imagery to bring the battle to...
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...By the 1860’s the pandemonium induced by the Industrial Revolution settled as the Second Empire established itself in France. While both took a firm hold on social norms, cultural expectations, and business practices, the machines replaced human artistry. Precisely because of this transition, individual craftsmanship became outdated and obsolete; the big department store, an emblem of capitalism, continued to emerge, dominate, and swallow up smaller competition. As a contemporary issue for its time, Émile Zola’s The Ladies’ Paradise comes as no surprise in its concentration on the struggle of smaller shops against the immense success and dominance of the big new department store, Ladies’ Paradise. Although the stark difference between the dying shops of an age past and the avant-garde emporiums of the future equals the quintessential experience of the modernization of the nineteenth century, the symbolic description of the Ladies’ Paradise as a soulless “machine” captures the perspective of what the department store represents. In the novel people resent Ladies’ Paradise and its seemingly unexplainable success. However, not until the “machine” gains a soul does the Ladies’ Paradise become complete and wholesome. Denise felt that she was watching a machine working at high pressure…. these passions in the street were giving life to the materials: the laces shivered, then dropped again, concealing the depths of the shop with an exciting air of mystery; even the lengths of cloth...
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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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...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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