Matthew Mo

The University of Chicago

December 5, 2010
mom@uchicago.edu
Power, Identity, Resistance—Section 18

“The question that has ben the starting point for our study has been that of the connection
between the individual and social solidarity.” (p.xxx) How does Durkheim balance the
competing claims of individual and society?

Durkheim balances the competing claims of individual and society by asserting that they

are in fact, not competing claims, but complementary claims. Durkheim believed that the

individual found its identity in the whole; thus the individual, while becoming more autonomous,

remains dependent upon society because the total system of society serves to regulate and

organize its parts. This paper will first explain how one may be misled to believe that

individuality and society are competing claims; then the paper will address how individuality

develops from society. Finally, the paper will explain how individuality and society work

together to strengthen social solidarity.

The preconceived notion that there exists a dichotomy between individual personality and

society is due to Durkheim’s idea of mechanical solidarity and its pervasiveness in segmentary

societies. Mechanical solidarity is a component of social overall social solidarity that is based on

similarities between individuals. Durkheim argues that humanity began with segmentary

societies, which consisted of homogenous and potentially autonomous units that generally

regulate and organize their own affairs, but may collectively appear in a large, collective system.

Durkheim theorized that segmentary societies are held together by mechanical solidarity in

which repressive laws are created, tolerated, and essentially derived from necessity (Division of

Labour, 127). The totality of beliefs and sentiments common to average citizens of the same

society forms a determinant system that has its own life and can be, according to Durkheim, a

The Complementarity of Individuality and Society 1

collective or common conscience. It is this common conscious, maintained by punishment and

by strictures against proscribed behaviors in both the public and the private sectors, which

creates mechanical solidarity and ensures homogeneity within a society (61). Mechanical

solidarity is achieved via repressive laws that integrate society to a certain degree, which is

dependent upon the greater or lesser extent of the social life with which the common conscience

embraces or regulates. In segmentary societies, individuality and individual personality are both

inhibited by the dominance of the common consciousness and its importance in the maintenance

of mechanical solidarity. This is due in large part to the fact that “religion pervades the whole of

social life,” where “social life is made up almost entirely of common beliefs and practices that

draw from their unanimous acceptance a very special kind of intensity” (130). Durkheim

attributes the collective nature of religion to explain the homogeneity of social life within a

segmentary society, where the people are bonded together by a common belief or value, but

nothing else. Therefore, in Durkheim’s segmentary society, where “the collective type is very

highly developed” and “individual types are rudimentary,” the individual personality is presented

as an opposing claim to the development of the collective consciousness because individuality

would interfere with the social bonds created by similarity and commonalities (130). It now

becomes clear that Durkheim’s claims about the individual and the society oppose each other

only in context of mechanical solidarity. However, Durkheim argued against a society that was

dependent on mechanical solidarity because he believed that it created weak social bonds and no

sense of interdependence; that societies regulated by mechanical solidarity are relatively

primitive, basic, and backwards. He proposed that a way to increase this social solidarity was

through the division of labour and individualism, which gave rise to organic solidarity. As

opposed to mechanical solidarity, organic solidarity is based on the division of labor where the

The Complementarity of Individuality and Society 2

parts of the system have different and special functions and each part is dependent on the other

ones. This happens as the cities become bigger and the population increases and people or

regions cannot be self-sufficient. The division of labour encourages the development of

personality and of the individual consciousness, as the individual is indirectly integrated into

society.

In The Division of Labour in Society, Durkheim shows that individualism had a social

origin and could therefore be explained sociologically. Durkheim’s reasoning took several

different directions. First, he believed that the individual was not a conspicuous social unit in

societies integrated by mechanical solidarity. According to this view, individuality must have

been at its lowest point of development because the toll exerted upon the individual by the

common religious practices was so great as to absorb all individual differences and purposes into

collective purposes. Durkheim states clearly that individuals per se do not appear in mechanical

solidarity, since the individual “does not belong to himself; he is literally a thing at the disposal

of society”, where individuality is something the society possesses (85). If mechanical solidarity

is the stage at which the individual is subordinated to the collective forces of society, then

organic solidarity must mark the beginning of individual separateness and autonomy. This can

take place only when the toll exerted by the common beliefs and practices is diminished.

A second direction taken by Durkheim was to look at the ‘individual’ from the point of

view of social development in different societies. He argued that in the historical sense,

‘individuals’ must have first made their appearance in society in the form of the chief or leader

of the tribe, and that chiefs must have been the first autonomous individuals to become ‘distinct

from the social mass’ (143). Chiefs, he maintained, must have been the first to differentiate

themselves and step out as individuals who were separate from the undifferentiated tribal mass.

The Complementarity of Individuality and Society 3

Chiefs were separate because their authority puts them beyond others and the distinctness of their

experience and responsibilities confers individuality upon them, making them distinct from

others. The power of chiefs makes them autonomous and capable of activity beyond the

collective norm, and this opens up the possibility of personal initiative, and constitutes the “first

moment when the individual steps forth from the group as someone distinct from its usage”

(143). It is because of the rise of the individual from the homogenous society that creates the

precedent for the successive growth of the individual personality within a society.

On this basis, Durkheim thought that ‘individualism’ was a direct product of industrial

society. This comes about, he suggested, as the change in social cohesion reduces the intensity of

the social attachments existing between society and the individual. In segmentary societies, the

individual tended to be absorbed in collective life and the common consciousness, links to

society were direct, and social control was repressive. As the force of social links began to

weaken the bond between the individual and society, individuals became the recipients of rights

and freedoms in which their ties to society were expressed indirectly. With the introduction of

the division of labour in societies, the activity of each individual becomes more specialized and

more personal. Through this, differences arise and individual personality begins to permeate a

society. Durkheim argues that as industrial societies developed, transformations in social

solidarity changed the overall nature of the social mass, and this encouraged the development of

individual personality specific ways. Durkheim notes that as the social density of society grew,

“the greater the number of people [become] associated together, the more they react upon one

another; the more also the product of these reactions flows out beyond the organism” (283).

Durkheim explains that individuals become generally freed from the claims which society placed

upon them in the form of social allegiances, and as a result, beliefs and customs, which were not

The Complementarity of Individuality and Society 4

originally a direct part of social life, began to develop. Individual ideas, which were at first lost

in the mass of social similarities, begin to emerge, take shape, and multiply. Through this, “a

host of things that remained outside the individual consciousness because they did not affect the

collectivity become the object of representations” (285). Simply put, individual ideas

subsequently dominated over collective ones, which stretched social life beyond the limits set by

previous beliefs and moral rules. Durkheim explains that initially, individual differences started

out by being subordinated to collective forces, but as social density increased, this transformed

the shape and nature of society. As a result, society itself became freer and more extensive.

Durkheim argues that as the social density of the population increased, “personal bonds

become rare and weak” and, in this case, individuals lose sight of one another and thus lose

interest (217). As this mutual indifference grows, it results in a loss of collective control and

regulation and the sphere of free autonomous action of each individual is extended in scope and,

in fact, becomes a right. As a result, the collective conscience begins to lose its hold over the

individual and become more vague, ambiguous and indeterminate. As such, collective social

rules lose their clarity and due to the increasing density of the population, the center of social life

changes. Individuals no longer live at the center of social life since it is spread over a larger

territory. Under these circumstances, public opinion has less of an effect on the individual and

exerts less constraint. As the collective grasp of society over the individual loosens, there is more

individual divergence and society is divided into smaller compartments enclosing the individual.

While now it is clear how individuality arises from society, it is important to address how

individuality and society work together to strength social solidarity. Though it seems counter-

intuitive that development of individualism promotes social solidarity, Durkheim believes

otherwise, and analyzes the impact of the society on the individual using a holistic approach.

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Individuality develops out of organic solidarity; we see that organic solidarity is derived from the

division of labour, where individuals are differentiated by their contribution to society. The

division of labour creates a specialization of function among each individual, and each individual

plays a different and unique role in the functioning of society. As a result, with organic

solidarity, individuals are more reliant on each other to satisfy their deeds, unlike in mechanical

solidarity, where they are self-sufficient.

With the introduction of the division of labour and the increasing preponderance of

organic solidarity, “the different parts of the aggregate, since they fulfill different functions,

cannot be easily separated” (103). Durkheim uses Spencer’s example of Middlesex County in

order to illustrate his point. He explains that the separation of Middlesex from its surroundings

would lead to the collapse of the county as well as the surrounding counties, simply because each

county fulfilled a certain function of that region, and depended on each other to thrive. Without

the presence of all of the its parts, the total system involving Middlesex would not survive.

Durkheim argues the importance of solidarity in modern societies because the division of labour

creates partitions of a whole system, where each part serves a different function. Without access

or interaction with the other parts of the whole, not only does the individual part fail to survive,

but the existence of society as a whole is endangered as well. Durkheim argues that “where

society constitutes a system of differentiated parts complementary to one another, new elements

cannot be grafted without disturbing their harmony” (105). Through his method of holism,

Durkheim shows that the differentiation of functions in a society tends to create a sense of

interdependence between the parts and society. Since there is an established “harmony” in a

system between society and its parts, a simple addition or elimination of a part of society will

disrupt and change the structure and nature of the system. Durkheim argues that individuals then

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view each other as irreplaceable organic parts of the whole system, which they cannot neglect,

lest they be neglected. This interdependence causes not only more solidarity, but also a more

pronounced moral character, wherein individuals feel responsible for one another. As a result,

individuality and society cannot possibly be competing claims, due to the fact that they both act

on each other to maintain social solidarity.

Durkheim’s notion of society as determining the cognitive operations of its members

makes the individual mind and society wholly interdependent. Because individuality arises from

the society and their related functions in promoting social solidarity, individuality and society do

not compete each other, but complete each other in the organization of a total system.

Works Cited

Durkheim, Emile. The Division of Labour In Society. 1st. New York: Free Press, 1997. Print.

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