Durkheim/Signs Sumblog 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1Q7cP3ij5g

Signs

And the sign said, "Long-haired freaky people need not apply"

So I tucked my hair up under my hat and I went in to ask him why

.... 

And the sign said, "Everybody welcome, come in, kneel down and pray"

But when they passed around the plate at the end of it all

I didn't have a penny to pay

So, I got me a pen and a paper and I made up my own little sign

I said, "Thank you, Lord, for thinkin' 'bout me, I'm alive and doin' fine, woo

Five Man Electrical Band

Emile Durkheim is one of my favorite sociologists. His views on society are very applicable to my own personal opinions. Durkheim divided societies by division of labor. He defined them as either mechanical solidarity or organic solidarity. Solidarity means the cohesiveness of how a society stays and functions together. Mechanical solidarity is an example of pre modern societies such as before the Age of Enlightenment. Mechanical solidarity is a small-scale family based society where people are dependent on each other. Organic solidarity focuses more on interdependence of people and specialization, much like our current society.

Durkheim studied suicides and found that there were strong correlations between levels of integration and regulation and the suicide rates. Integration is how well people fit into a society and regulation are the rules that people are supposed to follow. When there is too low of an integration level one tends to fall into the Egoistic category of Integration. This means that they are usually an outsider and don’t fit in, this is also usually where religious affiliation comes into play. Those that aren’t affiliated with a type of religion are more likely to fall under the Egoistic category. On the opposite end of the spectrum those that have too high of levels of integration fall under the altruistic category of suicide. This means they are too involved with an affiliation and are willing to die for the cause, examples of this include soldiers at war and suicide bombers.

Regulation is the other component Durkheim found that helped to measure suicide rates. He found that those with too low of regulation fell into an anomic state and were more likely to commit suicide. This anomic state comes from not knowing one’s place in a society. On the other hand when one faces too high of levels of regulation they fall into the fatalistic category. This applies to those that are in prison, political regimes, and slavery. The lyrics above are a song that I feel helps explain Durkheim’s views on finding the balance between integration and regulation in our daily lives. Many people feel they don’t fit the “proper” mold in one way or another and have to read the signs in order to maintain themselves in the social order.