2. Symbolizing Society--Durkheim

Introduction

Welcome to Section 2 of Symbols and Society. The theme this week is Symbolizing Society. This follows from Section 1: Symbols as Survivals. Here's the introduction to this week

You often read the mantra that Durkheim says 'Religion is society reflected back onto itself through symbols' or something to that effect. This is correct. But, according to Durkheim, what are these symbols? How do they reflect society? And to what ends?

Overview

This week we study Durkheim's theory that religious symbols actually provide solidarity to the community. His theory marks the starting point of a theoretical school known as "Functionalism". By the end of the week, you should be able to identify how Durkheim's Functionalism differs from Frazer's Origins & Evolution approach. Specifically, you should be able to formulate the different questions Durkheim asks about symbols compared to Frazer. You should also be able to elaborate the different visions these two theories present regarding humans and culture.

Understanding Durkheim

From about the 1880s-1910s the approach of elaborating Origins and Evolution predominated. Influenced by Frazer, when we looked at symbols we asked, "What primitive or ancient belief does this symbol emanate from?"

Durkheim provide us with a new paradigm. He provided a new question, namley, "What is the role or function of this symbol in society?". From the 1910s-1950s, many anthropologists asked similar questions about all kinds of phenomena (kinship, politics, magic etc.), not just symbols. For example, "How do marriage patterns among the Japanese contribute to social stability?" or "How does Navaho politics assist in maintaining their society?" The approach of asking these questions came to be called "Functionalism".

What is Durkheim's theory about symbols? Durkheim argues that there are two kinds of things in the world: sacred (you treat with special respect) and mundane (you treat normally). His main point is that in worshipping the sacred (a flag, a totem, a football team), we are brought together. This is because the sacred symbol = us. To take a specific example, when we worship our God, we worship our community. Religion makes, and keeps, us social. In the same way, we think depend on God, we actually depend on our community. How does this work?

I'll rephrase the point using Durkheim's terms. According to Durkheim, when we worship the totem we are worshipping the totemic principle. And when we worship the totemic principle, we are worshipping ourselves. But how does Durkheim make these equations? Hopefully, my presentation entitled  "Anthropology and Symbols: Durkheim" will help:

Please feel free to use my slides.

Reading Durkheim.

Durkheim uses the example of a clan-based form of social organization (specifically from Central Australia). So it is important to gain an understanding of what anthropologists mean by words such as "clan", "totem", "taboo", "moiety", and so on. You might need to look these up as you proceed, but a good starting place might be my summary of Boas on the social organization of indigenous societies from around Seattle and Vancouver.

You should then read Durkheim in the original. I use Lessa and Vogt's selections in Reader in Comparative Religion. These come from the Elementary Forms Chapter IV, Sections 1 & II; and Chapter VII, Sections I-III. You can find similar sections online at various places. Durkheim’s Elementary Forms is difficult but rewarding. Reflecting the language of the period, the terms are definitely dated (“aborigine”, “primitive”, “simplest”). The underlying ideas, by contrast, remain powerful and incisive. 

Applying Durkheim: Australian Rules Football

To give you an example of how useful I find the ideas, you could take a look at my analysis of how people follow Australian Rules Football teams. According to one of the nicer comments, this “WAS the most CRAP I have ever read”. Hopefully, you find it more useful.

One point that I wanted to imply, unsuccessfully it seems, is that, for Durkheim, everyone is religious. Religion does not have to be about supernatural belief and faith. Rather, it's about setting some symbols aside as sacred, worshipping them, and thereby forming and reinforcing community. Personally, if I think about the US flag, the Star Spangled Banner, the Stars and Stripes, and their role in history, Durkheim's theory seems to provide great insight.

Applying Durkheim: 

Now let's see if you can apply Durkheim yourself. Let's turn to one of the main sources that Durkheim used in developing his theory of elementary forms; Urubanna society as described by the famous pair Spencer and Gillen. Before you get going you should be clear on the definitions of  "Clan"; "Totem"; "Taboo"; "Sacred"; "Profane"; "Churinga" (or "Alcheringa"). Read the following section from Spencer and Gillen (1904:145):

(Spencer, Baldwin and F.J. Gillen 1904 The northern tribes of central Australia. London: Macmillan.)

Durkheim defined religion as follows:

 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 called a Church, all those who adhere to them. 

How would you apply this definition to totems and clans of Aboriginal Australian cultures? What is the relationship here between ancestor, individual, clan, and place?

Veteran's Memorial

This image features the Vietnam Veterans War memorial in Washington. This is a sacred space with several noticeable symbols. Applying Durkheim's theory, what is the moral community, and associated beliefs and practices. Can you also discern the spirits? What are the totemic emblems/symbols? What would be taboo at the memorial?

Assessing Durkheim

To reflect on Durkheim, the first thing I want to do is contrast his method with that of Frazer's. Frazer's Golden Bough is ostensibly an attempt to describe the ritual killing of the priest-kings of a forest outside of Rome. In Chapter 1 of Frazer describes how he will go about studying this ritual, which he calls “the strange rule of this priesthood”:

The strange rule of this priesthood has no parallel in classical antiquity, and cannot be explained from it. To find an explanation we must go farther afield… Accordingly, if we can show that a barbarous custom, like that of the priesthood of Nemi, has existed elsewhere; if we can detect the motives which led to its institution; if we can prove that these motives have operated widely, perhaps universally, in human society, producing in varied circumstances a variety of institutions specifically different but generically alike; if we can show, lastly, that these very motives, with some of their derivative institutions, were actually at work in classical antiquity; then we may fairly infer that at a remoter age the same motives gave birth to the priesthood of Nemi. Such an inference, in default of direct evidence as to how the priesthood did actually arise, can never amount to demonstration. But it will be more or less probable according to the degree of completeness with which it fulfils the conditions I have indicated. The object of this book is, by meeting these conditions, to offer a fairly probable explanation of the priesthood of Nemi.

How is this approach to symbols different from that of functional anthropologists? Let's look at the following section.

What about contemporary society?

Durkheim was writing about Australian Aboriginals. He viewed them as holding the most elementary religious beliefs of all societies. Most current anthropologists would disagree that the beliefs he wrote about were 'elementary'. But both Durkheim and most current anthropologists could agree that his ideas about symbols can apply, in certain respects, to contemporary societies around the world. I showed, for example, how to do this by applying Durkheim's theory to AFL. 

Nevertheless, clearly, the Indigenous Australian societies of the late 1800s differed from industrial societies such as Germany, the USA, etc at the time. Today's post-industrial societies are probably even more removed. Is there the unity of society that Durkheim saw in the clans of the Australian Aboriginals? Maybe Durkheim's description of egoistic suicide characterizes post-industrial societies better.

Assessing Durkheim's Theory of Symbols   

What do you find least convincing about Durkheim’s approach? As with all the theories we look at in this course, Functionalism both illuminates and obscures understanding symbols. So, unsurprisingly, a number of weaknesses or cons beset Durkheim's theory. You can uncover these by researching the topic more carefully.

One way to analyze the theory is to see how it fits with other theories. For example, it fits in quite well with Mircea Eliade's idea of sacred space.

One weakness, in particular,  frustrates undergraduates (and me). With Durkheim one of the main points is that humans divide the world into sacred and secular. And in The Elementary Forms, Durkheim is looking at sacred symbols and how revering them provides cohesion or solidarity. So, Durkheim's theory really only works for symbols that people can rally around and hold dear. Put another way, Durkheim only discusses symbols that people form communities around and hold sacred. However, in every culture I know of, there are many important symbols that we don't necessarily rally around or hold particularly dear. As will be discussed later machines--especially cars and computers--provide an important symbol. But there is no way that I hold the Dell desktop screen in front of me to be sacred. Later theorists--particularly Ortner and Geertz--will provide ways to account for these other important, but not sacred, symbols. Looking forward to that marks a good point to complete our introduction to Durkheim's theory of symbols.

The classic argument against functionalism holds that functionalism cannot account for change. Put another way, societies constantly change. But functionalist theory--Durkheim, Malinowski, Radcliffe Brown, and others--can not explain how this occurs.  Functionalist theory can account for how a society remains cohesive and functioning, but this is a static model of society. That's the standard criticism of functionalism. (I am not sure if I agree with this criticism. Writing in the 1940s, the functionalist Kluckhohn was deeply concerned with the effect of colonialism on the changing Navajo life.) Whether or not this criticism is valid, functionalism is pretty much dead-and-buried in contemporary anthropology.

Summary

You are now familiar with Functionalism, a theory that followed on from, and responded to, the 'Origins and Evolution' theory of Frazer and others.  You related Durkheim’s ideas to totems among indigenous groups of central Australia, Anzac Day rituals, the Veteran War Memorial in Washington, and Australian football. Along the way, you also considered the pros and cons of Functionalism. Your take-home message? Symbols give us something we can rally around. Now it's time to move on to the two major psychoanalytical theorists of symbols--Freud and Jung. But, for now, Durkheim's take-home message: sacred symbols are social glue.