1. Durkheim

2. Durkheim and Marx
Marx doesn’t really have a theory about what holds a society together (except maybe to say it’s “human nature.”) The earliest societies, primitive communist ones, shared everything, emphasized cooperation over competition. The reason we are conscious animals at all has to do with how we evolved, as social beings. Class-based societies that evolved later are a sort of mental illness that we need to, and will, overcome when we get to true communism.
In any case, Marx’s view is sometimes referred to as a “conflict theory” in that he emphasizes what pulls a society apart (“The history of hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle”) but has little to say about what holds it together.
But this is one of Durkheim’s major questions: what holds a society together?

3. Durkheim and suicide
We already saw this in Durkheim’s argument about suicide: he is very concerned with social cohesion.

4. Marx, Durkheim, and religion
For Marx, religion is a human invention, it’s part of the ideological superstructure. It’s a lie we tell to ourselves, part of our false consciousness.
And it’s an unhealthy lie: the lower social classes are willing to put up with exploitation by the upper classes because of their religion, it’s the “opiate of the people.”
Durkheim, like Marx, thinks that religion is a human invention.

5. But Durkheim’s answer to what holds society together is: religion
But Durkheim’s answer to what holds society together is: religion. So, though it’s all made up, for Durkheim it’s a good thing (or a necessary thing), not a bad thing.

6. Defining “religion”
So what does Durkheim mean by “religion”? In the West when we think of religion we tend to think of a transcendent god, and the supernatural. But many consider Confucianism to be a “religion.” Confucius didn’t give any role in his system for a transcendent god. The same goes for Buddhism, and Daoism.
Durkheim doesn’t define religion in the passage I gave you, but earlier in the book (Elementary Forms of Religious Life, 1915) he says this:
“A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, i.e., things set apart and forbidden--beliefs and practices which unite in one single moral community …”

7. So according to his definition religion has three features:
i) beliefs and practices,
ii) a notion of the sacred (Shénshèng 神圣) ,
iii) a moral community.
Notice that this definition says nothing about a transcendent god, nor about the supernatural. In this sense I don’t see any major differences between Durkheim’s conception of “religion,” and Confucian rituals (Yíshì 仪式.) On this definition, Buddhism and Confucianism are both religions. But, so is the game of baseball.

8. The power that a religion has over us isn’t just physical power, it’s a sort of moral power, because it’s the object of respect. So imagine your mother very sternly telling you to do something; you don’t just do it because she’s physically more powerful than you, she has moral authority.
Durkheim says “a god is not merely an authority upon whom we depend, it is a force upon which our strength relies.” (p. 208) The point he is making: our religions are not merely outside us. They are part of our identity, and we get strength from that identity.

9. A further point: our relationship to our society as a whole is a religious one. Society is bigger than we are, it has rules concerning how we are to behave, we obey these rules not just because of the physical authority of society (to throw us in jail), but because of a sort of moral authority. We take our identity from it. It fits all those criteria he gives for religion. (This point seems very Confucian to me.)
[That’s why breaching experiments are interesting; they violate a sort of moral force.]

10. This is why social movements, political parties, and so on periodically have reunions, to revive the common religious feelings. (4th of July celebrations as analogous to going to church? Super Bowl parties?)

11. Group Effervescence
Durkheim uses the word “effervescence” at the bottom of p He also uses the term “general exaltation.” (So “religion” is “group effervescence.”) Normal people can become heroes, or butchers, in this situation.
Some examples: a preacher speaking to a congregation is an obvious example, but so is a man speaking to a crowd (with which he is in communion.) Like Marc Antony’s speech in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. “In the midst of an assembly animated by common passion, we become susceptible of acts and sentiments of which we are incapable when reduced to our own forces” (top 209.) French Revolution example.

12. Effervescence

16. Sacred and Profane
Some things (like a flag) get metamorphosed by this process, they become “sacred.” Distinction between “sacred” and “profane.” (So a pile of cloth is “profane,” it has no extra meaning, but when it is sewn into a flag it becomes “sacred.”)
So do some people (Che Guevara? Mao? Cult leaders?) They embody, become symbols of, the group effervescence.

17. Uncle Mao

18. Mao again

19. Che

22. Ideas, beliefs too
This also happens to ideas (p. 212.) “If a belief is unanimously shared by a people, then it is forbidden to touch it, to deny it or contest it.”
US flag burning debate is interesting in this regard: a symbol – the flag, versus an idea- freedom of speech. They’re both “sacred” in the US context.

23. Group Effervescence
Top p. 213, he uses Australian Aborigines as an example. Sometimes they live in separate hunter-gather groups, sometimes they come together for “group effervescent” meetings.
See bottom for a description: “This effervescence often reaches such a point that it causes unheard of actions. The passions released are of such an impetuosity that they can be restrained by nothing. The sexes unite contrarily to the rules of sexual relations. Men exchange wives. Sometimes even incestuous unions, which in normal times are considered abominable…”

24. Summary
The very existence of social life implies something (language, meanings, institutions, practices, customs) that go beyond the individual. The individual takes his/her identity from them, they are inside of us, but they have a reality that goes beyond us.
These things have a sort of moral authority, they create respect.
They give rise to symbols, to which this respect is transferred: could be totems, ideas, people. So we get a distinction distinction between the sacred and the profane.
There are special times when we come together with other members of our group, when we feel our oneness with our group, and/or these symbols.
This is the basis of all religion. And since it’s central to all social institutions, all social institutions are, at bottom, religious. Religion is a central part of human social life.
So there are three elements to every religion: sacred objects, a set of beliefs and practices, and the existence of a community committed to these objects/beliefs.

25. Religion is society worshipping itself
Religion is society worshipping itself. (I stole that line from internet encyclopedia of philosophy.) The football is just a leather ball. The flag is just colored cloth. Society is what gives it meaning.
All religions then are, in a sense, true. Religious phenomena can’t just be rejected as meaningless or foolish.
(Neither are they merely “things we should either believe or disbelieve, based on the evidence,” as your philosophy teacher will insist.)

26. Durkheim is a scientist and is discussing all this at a meta-level, and Confucius is not. However, it seems to me that Durkheim and Confucius have a lot in common. For Confucius, a society without ritual is barbaric. The depth and richness of ritual that we find in a society indicates the level of civilization. Likewise, Durkheim was cynical about “modernity,” because he thought one of the main features of modernity is loss of religion.

27. I’m personally intrigued by all this, but one question I have (for either Confucius or Durkheim): can we say that some religions/rituals are better than others? What if we find a society that has a highly ritualistic form of virgin sacrifice, or cannibalism? The samurai tradition in Japan could be interpreted as the ritualizing of killing.