Elementary Forms of the Religious Life: Newly Translated by Karen E. Fields

This book is more than an explanation of the origins of religious belief; Durkheim was ultimately trying to show how religious thought lay the foundation for scientific thought, and how a priori knowledge was based on social norms rather than being "innate". I wouldn't say that Durkheim successfully proved all these notions, but there is enough good material in this book to furnish a reader with starting points for explorations in a number of different directions. The most important concept in the book, from my perspective, is that of "collective consciousness", meaning the ideas, instincts, and general world-views that are formed by social cohesion. Social conventions are not external to people, they are internalized and appropriated emotionally, taking on the guise of "supernatural" or "divine" truth. Even outside of the religious sphere, one can begin to observe that much that is assumed as "truth" is a function of social convention. The process is organic, with individuals contributing to the process to create a greater whole--the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It opens up the question of what it means to be an individual in society, how much individuality of thought is truly possible, how resistance to collective "groupthink" is possible, and how much of individual identity is shaped by collective forces. Related to this are ethical questions: are good and evil just products of social convention? Is the idea that there is an absolute measure of good and evil just a result of a social group's elevation of its social norms to divine/sacred status (which is the usual process, according to Durkheim)? The book also raises interesting questions about process of human symbol-making: how can people unite themselves around a seemingly arbitrary symbol (e.g. an animal totem like a snake), then take individual identity from that symbol, make the symbol sacred, and create an entire ritual and mythic world around that symbol? And there are a number of implicit and explicit questions about human knowledge. Durkheim says that scientific knowledge is based on the "generalizing" process inherent in a social setting: each individual has specific, particular perceptions and visceral responses, but when they become generalized beyond the purely individual, in order to allow communication between members of the group, they become universal; hence the beginning of universal principles, the foundation of scientific thought. But this tends to beg the question of what there is in the individual that allows him/her to have perceptions at all, rather than formless sense impressions; and it also tends to mean that science is nothing more than an explication of the social norms which give rise to the general principles in question, since they're supposedly derived from social conventions for group communication. In other words, does science say anything about the outside world, or is it just describing in detail the social processes which cre

Like Emile Durkheim, I was raised with a religious upbringing that didn't fit - I wanted to understand why we create religions in the first place and this book has answers. In the early 1900's Durkheim looked for religious patterns among tribal cultures of Australia and North America. He saw how religion was used to organize tribal society. He saw how religions combine and evolve when tribes merge, which reveals a lot about their purpose. Durkheim describes religious components of Gods, Sacred/Profane Objects and Rituals: -Gods provide an identity for the tribe and are chosen to represent significant concepts in tribal life. -Sacred or profane objects are artifacts given special importance by the tribe. Religious leaders control access to them. -Rituals reinforce social cohesion through group activity and they provide a stage to interact with sacred/profane objects. These components are used in religious life to differentiate between people and their roles. It can be hard to read at times, since there is a lot of conjecture over the evidence presented but the practicality of religion and its role within society is an important case well introduced.

I've read Suicide and Division of Labor and was interested in a historical sort of way. Elementary Forms is positively shocking. Pages 8-18 and 433-48 will change your life. In those 25 or so pages he outlines a sociology of knowledge that presages the works of Mead, Berger, and the phenomenologists. He's 50 years ahead of Merleau-Ponty's great Phenomenology of Perception which treads over much of the same material. The rest of EFRL is interesting as well but if you read nothing else of Durkheim's read those pages. They completely reinvigorated the stuffy "father of sociology" I had known.

Durkheim, of course, is a father of modern sociology and anthropology. Even though sociology and anthropology have rejected many of his theories over the years he is still worth reading. I think that many of his ideas can still provide useful ways to think about society and culture; this work may be a bit out-of-date but it's definitely not obsolete. Either way, anyone interested in sociology or anthropology should read this work, if only to get a better understanding of where these disciplines have been. Fields' new translation gives this old work new clothing and is well worth the investment.

Durkheim was not as scientific (or as sociological, or even as valid) as he might have been, but that matters little. He helped start the discipline, and the rest of us have had a century to make advances. This is where to see it just beginning to take form.