In What Ways did Durkheim and Weber Regard Totemism and Ascetic Protestanism - Coursework Example

In what ways did Durkheim and Weber regard totemism and ascetic protestanism, respectively, as important influences on the behaviour of people? Marx,Weber and Durkheim together comprise the historical core of the sociological tradition. While they each come from very different perspectives and offer profound contributions to the field, they each have tried to address problems associated with the advent of modernity. One issue that has developed within the context of modernity is how religion factors into a society that increasingly is built on the foundations of rationalism (Townsley, 2004). Emile Durkheim Durkheim defines religion as “a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden—beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them” (Elementary Forms for Religious Life, p. 44). Nearer to the end of the book Durkheim revises and secularizes his definition as, “first and foremost, a system of ideas by which men [sic] imagine the society of which they are members and the obscure yet intimate relations they have with it” (p. 227) (Townsley, 2004). Emile Durkheim placed himself in the positivist tradition, meaning that he thought of his study of society as dispassionate and scientific. He was deeply interested in the problem of what held complex modern societies together. Religion, he argued, was an expression of social cohesion. His underlying interest was to understand the basic forms of religious life for all societies. Durkheim, saw totemism as the original form of religion. The totemic animal, Durkheim believed, was the original focus of religious activity because it was the emblem for a social group, the clan. He thought that the function of religion was to make people willing to put the interests of society ahead of their own desires. One of the major functions of religion according to Durkheim was to prepare people for social life. Durkheim thought that the model for relationships between people and the supernatural was the relationship between individuals and the community. He is famous for suggesting that "God is society, writ large." Durkheim believed that people ordered the physical world, the supernatural world, and the social world according to similar principles. Durkheim’s first purpose was to identify the social origin of religion as he felt that religion was a source of camaraderie and solidarity. It was the individual’s way of becoming recognisable within an established society. His second purpose was to identify links between certain religions in different cultures, finding a common denominator. Belief in supernatural realms and occurrences may not stem through all religions, yet there is a clear division in different aspects of life, certain behaviours and physical things. He suggested there were two categories: the sacred and the profane. In the past, he argued, religion had been the cement of society--the means by which men had been led to turn from the everyday concerns in which they were variously enmeshed to a common devotion to sacred things. He said "A religion is a unified system of beliefs…relative to sacred things…beliefs and practices which unite in one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them." Durkheim believed that “society has to be present within the individual”, he saw religion as a mechanism that shored up or protected a threatened social order. He thought that religion had been the cement of society in the past, but that the collapse of religion would not lead to a moral implosion. Durkheim was specifically interested in religion as a communal experience rather than an individual one. He also says that religious phenomena occur when a separation is made between the profane (The realm of the nonsacred. That which is used or acted on in an everyday, utilitarian manner), and the sacred (the realm of the extraordinary and the transcendent); theses are different depending what man chooses it to be. An example of this is wine at communion, as it is not only wine but it represents the blood of Christ. Durkheim believes that religion is ‘society divinised’, as he argues that religion occurs in a social context. He also, in lieu of forefathers before who tried to replace the dying religions, urged people to unite in a civic morality on the basis that we are what we are as a result of society. Durkheim condensed religion into four major functions: 1. Disciplinary, forcing or administrating discipline 2. Cohesive, bringing people together, a strong bond 3. Vitalizing, to make more lively or vigorous, vitalise, boost spirit 4. Euphoric, a good feeling, happiness, confidence, well-being (Wikipedia, 2006a). Drawing on the identification of social group with spiritual totem in Australian Aboriginal tribes, Durkheim theorized that all human religious expression was intrinsically founded in the relationship to a group. In his essay Le Totemisme aujourdhui (Totemism Today), Claude Lévi-Strauss shows that human cognition, which is based on analogical thought, is independent of social context. From this, he excludes mathematical thought, which operates primarily through logic. Totems are chosen arbitrarily for the sole purpose of making the physical world a comprehensive and coherent classificatory system. Lévi-Strauss argues that the use of physical analogies is not an indication of a more primitive mental capacity. It is rather, a more efficient way to cope with this particular mode of life in which abstractions are rare, and in which the physical environment is in direct friction with the society. He also holds that scientific explanation entails the discovery of an arrangement; moreover, since the science of the concrete is a classificatory system enabling individuals to classify the world in a rational fashion, it is neither more nor less a science than any other in the western world (Wikipedia, 2006b). Durkheim argued that religious phenomena emerge in any society when a separation is made between the sphere of the profane--the realm of everyday utilitarian activities--and the sphere of the sacred--the area that pertains to the numenous, the transcendental, the extraordinary. An object is intrinsically neither sacred nor profane. It becomes the one or the other depending on whether men choose to consider the utilitarian value of the object or certain intrinsic attributes that have nothing to do with its instrumental value. The wine at mass has sacred ritual significance to the extent that it is considered by the believer to symbolize the blood of Christ; in this context it is plainly not a beverage. Sacred activities are valued by the community of believers not as means to ends, but because the religious community has bestowed their meaning on them as part of its worship. Distinctions between the spheres of the sacred and the profane are always made by groups who band together in a cult and who are united by their common symbols and objects of worship. Religion is "an eminently collective thing." It binds men together, as the etymology of the word religion testifies. Religious rituals prepare men for social life by imposing self-discipline and a certain measure of asceticism. Religious ceremonies bring people together and thus serve to reaffirm their common bonds and to reinforce social solidarity. Religious observance maintains and revitalizes the social heritage of the group and helps transmit its enduring values to future generations. Finally, religion has a euphoric function in that it serves to counteract feelings of frustration and loss of faith and certitude by reestablishing the believers sense of well-being, their sense of the essential rightness of the moral world of which they are a part. By countering the sense of loss, which, as in the case of death, may be experienced on both the individual and the collective level, religion helps to reestablish the balance of private and public confidence. On the most general plane, religion as a social institution serves to give meaning to mans existential predicaments by tying the individual to that supra-individual sphere of transcendent values which is ultimately rooted in his society (Coser, 1977). Max Weber Max Webers theory of the part which Protestantism, specifically Calvinism, played in the development of a spirit of capitalism in western Europe has had a profound effect on the thinking of sociologists and historians since its publication in 1904. Many historians value its application of social theory to historical events and praise it for its attempt to explain why capitalism thrived in Europe and subsequently the United States and not as much in other places. Weber hypothesized that capitalism was a product of the western mind for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the Protestant Ethic. The Protestant Ethic spawned and encouraged what Weber called the "spirit of capitalism." By Webers definition, this is more than simply capitalist activity. It is, in fact, the essence which underlies the economic system. During the long 16th century, this spirit became embodied in European society and provided the impetus for capitalism to emerge as the dominant economic system in the world. For Weber, capitalism was more than simply an accumulation of wealth. It had in roots in rationality. In fact, Weber insisted that capitalism was the triumph of rationality over tradition. Explicit in his view of capitalism were a disciplined labour force and the regularized investment of capital. Weber asserted that this combination took place only in Europe and most strongly in Protestant nations, such as England, Holland, and Germany, where there were influential groups of ascetic Protestant sects (Pierotti, N.D.). According to Weber, Confucianism and Puritanism represent two comprehensive but mutually exclusive types of rationalisation, each attempting to order human life according to certain ultimate religious beliefs. Both encouraged sobriety and self-control and were compatible with the accumulation of wealth. However, Confucianism aimed at attaining and preserving "a cultured status position" and used as means adjustment to the world, education, self-perfection, politeness and familial piety. Puritanism used those means in order to create a "tool of God", creating a person that would serve the God and master the world. Such intensity of belief and enthusiasm for action were alien to the aesthetic values of Confucianism. Therefore, Weber states that it was the difference in prevailing mentality that contributed to the development of capitalism in the West and the absence of it in China (Wikipedia, 2006c). Webers most famous book is The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904-5). It is generally taken as a counter to the Marxist thesis of the primacy of base over superstructure: Weber is supposed to have argued in this book that capitalism in fact developed historically as a result of a religious movement, protestantism, specifically Calvinism. The argument is that Calvinism, with its doctrine of predestination - i.e. the doctrine that God eternally decreed the salvation of some and the damnation of others, not in view of the good or evil deeds they would do, but simply because he willed it - that this doctrine made Calvinists anxious about their salvation; that this led them to seek reassurance in attempting to succeed in their economic (and other) undertakings, in the belief that God signifies his favour by giving prosperity to the undertakings of the elect; at the same time the Calvinist did not spend his money on self-indulgence, so had nothing else to do with it but plough it back into the business. And his employees, being Calvinists also, had a sense of their jobs as callings to be done well out of religious duty even for small earthly reward. Hence the Protestant ethic - the famous work ethic -, the drive for economic success, the will to work hard, the habit of not spending on frivolous self-indulgence - all this, originating in theology, provided a spirit for capitalism, the set of motivations and attitudes that led to rational investment of profits continually ploughed back, and to the modern world (Kilcullen, 1996). Max Weber argued that Calvinism grew in a symbiotic relationship with the rise of industrial capitalism.As Sara Diamond explains: Calvinism arose in Europe centuries ago in part as a reaction to Roman Catholicisms heavy emphasis on priestly authority and on salvation through acts of penance. One of the classic works of sociology, Max Webers Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, links the rise of Calvinism to the needs of budding capitalists to judge their own economic success as a sign of their preordained salvation. The rising popularity of Calvinism coincided with the consolidation of the capitalist economic system. Calvinists justified their accumulation of wealth, even at the expense of others, on the grounds that they were somehow destined to prosper. It is no surprise that such notions still find resonance within the Christian Right which champions capitalism and all its attendant inequalities. What Calvinism accomplished was to fulfill the psychic needs of both upwardly mobile middle class entrepreneurs and alienated workers. Middle class businessmen (and they were men) could ascribe their economic success to their spiritual superiority. These businessmen and others who were predestined to be the Elect of God could turn to alienated workers, and explain to them that their impoverished economic condition was the result of a spiritual failure ordained by God. Their place in the spiritual (and economic) system was predestined. This refocused anger away from material demands in the here and now. Because of their evil and weak nature, those that sinned or committed crimes had to be taught how to change their behavior through punishment, shame, and discipline (Berlet, 2005). The General Economic History is Webers last work. An account of the theory of capitalism found in it is given by Randall Collins in Webers Last Theory of Capitalism, American Sociological Review 45 (1980), pp.925-42. Capitalism is rational in the sense that it bases decisions on calculations of likely return; this presupposes some degree of predictability, in particular a predictable legal system; capitalism also supposes that there are free markets for products and for labour and other factors of production, and that these markets are wide - given wide markets and some predictability innovation in search of profit gets under way. Among the social preconditions of the original development of capitalism are a predictable legal system, and behind that a state bureaucracy; and (to establish wide markets) a habit of treating all people as having rights and as possible partners in law-regulated commercial dealings. In some societies a strong distinction is made between insiders and outsiders: one does not drive commercial bargains with insiders, and one does not much respect the rights of outsiders. Universalistic religions such as Christianity break down such distinctions. Behind the legal order is the notion of universal citizenship - that residents are mostly citizens with rights, not subjects at the rulers discretion; universalistic religion favours that. The legal order also requires a bureaucratic state to enforce the law - professional administrators and jurists. The bureaucratic state arose partly by natural selection, because such states can supply larger armies with better weapons. (Weber notes the analogy between capitalism, in which workers do not own the means of production, bureaucracies in which bureaucrats do not own their offices or means of administration, and armies using centrally supplied and team-operated weapons). The bureaucratic state presupposes literacy (which religion may foster), and various other factors. So the chain (or rather web) of causation is traced backward to many factors. Calvinist predestination is not mentioned; protestantism figures as another surge of christian universalism, and as abolishing the monasteries. The abolition of monasteries is important as removing an obstacle, namely the preoccupation of people with the strongest religious motivation with other-worldly ends (Kilcullen, 1996). Emile Durkheim and Max Weber, two theorists that almost everyone now accepts as founders of the science of society (sociology) - despite the fact that they start from opposing principles. They are usually praised for their adherence to facts. In their writings they used their sociology to critique the society of their day, and forecast many of our modern structures and problems. Both of them had tremendous influences on the behaviour of people. References Berlet, C. (2005) Calvinism, Capitalism, Conversion, and Incarceration. [Online] The Public Eye - Vol. 18, No. 3. Available from: [Accessed 4 January 2007]. Coser, (1977) Sociology at Hewett. [Online] Available from: [Accessed 4 January 2007]. Kilcullen, J. (1996) Max Weber: On Capitalism. POL264 Modern Political Theory. [Online] Macquarie University. Available from: [Accessed 3 January 2007]. Pierotti, S. (N.D.) The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism: Criticisms of Webers Thesis. [Online] Available from: [Accessed 4 January 2007]. Townsley, J. (2004) Marx, Weber and Durkheim on Religion. [Online] Available from: [Accessed 3 January 2007]. Wikipedia, (2006a) Émile Durkheim. [Online] Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., Available from: [Accessed 3 January 2007]. Wikipedia, (2006b) Totem. [Online] Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., Available from: [Accessed 4 January 2007]. Wikipedia, (2006c) Max Weber. [Online] Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., Available from: [Accessed 3 January 2007]. Read More