Essay about Durkheim and the Relevance of His Theories in Modern Society

Words: 1215
Pages: 5
Open Document
“Treat social facts as things” is an expression that epitomises the works of Emile Durkheim. This essay focuses on four main sociological concepts proposed by the functionalist Emile Durkheim; the division of labour; mechanical and organic solidarity; anomie and suicide, and examines their relevance in contemporary society.
Along with Marx and Weber, Durkheim is considered one of the founding members of modern sociology. He is also credited with making sociology a science through his application of scientific and empirical research. Durkheim believed that sociology should be seen as a science separate from other sciences such as psychology, by studying “social facts” objectively as things. (Kiviston, 2011)
Through his four major …show more content…
(Macionis and Plummer, 2005, p.93) Of all of Durkheim’s theories, anomie is without doubt the most prevalent today.
Durkheim believed that anomie occurs because of rapid growths in industrialisation resulting in huge changes to social structures. This can leave people feeling disconnected from the society they live in. (Share et al, 2007) The advent of the ‘internet age’ is a prime example of societal norms not able to keep up with fast paced industrial changes. The rising popularity of social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter etc. changed the way individuals interact with one another. Lack of human contact between individuals can result in loneliness and feelings of detachment from society can emerge. Another symptom of social media’s increasing popularity is cyber bulling which can cause a high level of anomie amongst the people affected by it. (Giddens, 2009) (Alexander et al, 2012)
An extreme example of anomie today, is the plight of celebrities; becoming ‘famous overnight’ results in individuals becoming detached from the secure surrounds of the world they once knew causing society’s support and regulation of the individual to become disrupted. This issue can be life threatening to some celebrities e.g. overdose of Kurt Cobain (1994) and more recently of Amy Winehouse (2011). (Macionis and Plummer, 2005) Other examples can be seen as a result of the economic
Show More

Related Documents: Essay about Durkheim and the Relevance of His Theories in Modern Society

Essay on The Culture of Narcissism.Critical Book Review

culture of narcissism was widely recognised as a socio-cultural critique of American society when published in 1979. Written by Christopher Lasch, the book analyzes a social phenomenon identified by Christopher Lasch as ‘cultural narcissism’, a process by which certain attributes of the pathological branch of narcissism (Bocock, 2002) become societal characteristics (Lasch, 1991). This review will be analyzing the relevance of the book within wider sociological debate. I will argue that although the book…

Words 2302 - Pages 10

Suicide: Suicide and Natural Suicide Rate Essay

questions are raised by applying the Gaia Hypothesis to suicidal behavior: (1) Is suicide ever a rational act? (2) How common is burdensomeness as a motive for suicide? (3) Can suicide be an instinctive behavior? (4) Does suicide benefit the society? (5) Is suicide found in animals other than humans? (6) Why have we failed to have a major impact on the suicide rate despite all of our efforts and will we ever have an impact? (7) Is there a natural suicide rate? Keywords: Gaia hypothesis;…

Words 4997 - Pages 20