Parsons on Christianity

In his late work on Christianity, Talcott Parsons obviously built upon the writings of both Durkheim and Weber. While he departed from the idea that increasing differentiation of the system of action did not have to threaten the unity of the system as a whole, his emphasis on structural differentiation was also complemented by one on value integration. He believed that, especially in the New World, religion (i.e. Christianity) has gradually become able to impose its definition of the situation in highly different, highly heterogeneous contexts of action. In this paper, I reconstruct Parsons' historical-sociological analyses of the relation between Christianity and modern society. I discuss how Parsons appropriated the writings of Durkheim and Weber - in ways which did not fully exploit the potential of some of these writings. I suggest some alternatives, which rely less on a concern with value integration (Durkheim) but more on one with the differentiation of meaning systems (Weber).In his late work on Christianity, Talcott Parsons obviously built upon the writings of both Durkheim and Weber. While he departed from the idea that increasing differentiation of the system of action did not have to threaten the unity of the system as a whole, his emphasis on structural differentiation was also complemented by one on value integration. He believed that, especially in the New World, religion (i.e. Christianity) has gradually become able to impose its definition of the situation in highly different, highly heterogeneous contexts of action. In this paper, I reconstruct Parsons' historical-sociological analyses of the relation between Christianity and modern society. I discuss how Parsons appropriated the writings of Durkheim and Weber - in ways which did not fully exploit the potential of some of these writings. I suggest some alternatives, which rely less on a concern with value integration (Durkheim) but more on one with the differentiation of meaning systems (Weber).A

Maggay\u27s Global kingdom, global people: Living faithfully in a multicultural world

Ce numéro de Trivium est consacré à un aspect de la réflexion de l’un des plus grands représentants de la pensée sociale en France, Emile Durkheim (1858-1917). Aussi bien en dehors qu’au dedans des cercles de spécialistes, on attribue communément à Durkheim la fondation de la sociologie comme discipline scientifique autonome ; on l’évoque comme l’un des « pères fondateurs », et aussi comme l’un des plus éminents représentants, de cette branche des sciences sociales. Qu’il existe un rapport ét..

Statistical Signs of Social Influence on Suicides

Certain currents in sociology consider society as being composed of autonomous individuals with independent psychologies. Others, however, deem our actions as strongly influenced by the accepted standards of social behavior. The later view was central to the positivist conception of society when in 1887 \'Emile Durkheim published his monograph Suicide (Durkheim, 1897). By treating the suicide as a social fact, Durkheim envisaged that suicide rates should be determined by the connections (or the lack of them) between people and society. Under the same framework, Durkheim considered that crime is bound up with the fundamental conditions of all social life and serves a social function. In this sense, and regardless of its extremely deviant nature, crime events are somehow capable to release certain social tensions and so have a purging effect in society. The social effect on the occurrence of homicides has been previously substantiated (Bettencourt et al., 2007; Alves et al., 2013), and confirmed here, in terms of a superlinear scaling relation: by doubling the population of a Brazilian city results in an average increment of 135 % in the number of homicides, rather than the expected isometric increase of 100 %, as found, for example, for the mortality due to car crashes. Here we present statistical signs of the social influence on the suicide occurrence in cities. Differently from homicides (superlinear) and fatal events in car crashes (isometric), we find sublinear scaling behavior between the number of suicides and city population, with allometric power-law exponents, $\beta = 0.836 \pm 0.009$ and $0.870 \pm 0.002$, for all cities in Brazil and US, respectively. The fact that the frequency of suicides is disproportionately small for larger cities reveals a surprisingly beneficial aspect of living and interacting in larger and more complex social networks.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure

La influencia de Durkheim en la teoría funcionalista de Malinowski

Se analiza la influencia de Durkheim en el pensamiento teórico y metodológico del funcionalismo antropológico de Malinowski. El análisis se hace a partir de dos vertientes: la primera considera la forma en que Durkheim propuso estudiar el fenómeno social; y la segunda relaciona el pensamiento de Durkheim con las obras clásicas del funcionalismo malinowskiano

Socioeconomic Complexity and the Sociological Tradition: New Wine in Old Bottles

Complexity is a purposeful integrating framework for interdisciplinary dialogue, namely between sociologists and economists. After presenting some properties of complex (social) systems, we consider the crucial role of the economic complexity research agenda in challenging the mainstream economic paradigm. This endeavor, we suggest, can greatly benefit from a neglected but relevant aspect, the concern regarding social complexity implicit in the sociological tradition, particularly the emphasis given by Durkheim to the idea of interdependence, a keystone of complexity studies nowadays. As we underline, instead of assuming interdependence/complexity and autonomy/simplicity in a tradeoff relationship, the French sociologist takes interdependence and autonomy as fundamentally complementary and positively correlated characteristics of modern societies. This fact suggests the convenience to conceptualize complexity as a broad socioeconomic, and not just a strict economic, phenomenon. Such a purpose is certainly more damaged than benefited by the existence of the economics/sociology academic divide.Socioeconomic complexity; interdependence; autonomy; sociological tradition; Durkheim

Online Gaming Can Make a Better World: Jane McGonigal

With personal feelings put aside and sociological theoretical depictions brought to the forefront, it is interesting to compare some of Jane\u27s ideas with that of both Emile Durkheim and Max Weber. The theorist who stood out right away, being exemplified through Jane\u27s positive attitude claims on a much larger, macro-level scale, was Emile Durkheim. Jane\u27s ideas about transcending human\u27s as a resource through the social fabrics of gaming into something that might solve world hunger, poverty, and global warming was nothing short of functionalism at it\u27s best. Jane\u27s platform for social structure and maintaining positive social order is the online world, and online gaming is the vehicle for change

'An Apotheosis of Well-Being': Durkheim on austerity and double-dip recessions

This article is an attempt to contribute a view on the economic crisis from classical sociology, a voice often missing from the sociological response to the crisis. The work of Émile Durkheim provides a unique perspective here centred on morality and inequality produced in a historical context akin to our neoliberal times. It is argued there are four key points to take from Durkheim’s work. Firstly, that the initial credit crunch can be more fully understood with reference to the economic anomie which Durkheim sees as ‘chronic’ in a time of marketization. Secondly, that this creates an antagonistic relationship between a supposedly self-dependent rich and lazy poor. Thirdly, this conception of self-dependency and individual initiative makes any attempt to regulate the economy akin to sacrilege. Finally, the state is unwilling to intervene due to the emergence of ‘pseudo-democracies’. Therefore, Durkheim’s theory accounts for the initial crisis, austerity and double-dip recessions in a sociological framework. The article concludes by returning to the centrality of morality to the crisis for Durkheim and highlighting the omission of this in contemporary debates

Modern Political Anomie

This study explores the political sociological theory of Emile Durkheim to demonstrate that political anomie has resurfaced in American society. Symptoms of anomie are identified by relating sudden regime changes affecting world politics and periods of political turmoil within the US with indicators of suicide, xenophobia, conservative ideology, and the stripping of rights. For Durkheim, democracy is effective communication between the State and the people, not simply rule by the people, but the role of the State must never be tyrannical. Political anomie occurs when the individualistic will of the people predominates and rules over the State. Durkheim links economic anomie with political anomie, because all major social functions in society are made secondary to economic functions: This is problematic as the only rule in economics is that of self-interest, which is insufficient for morality, and the consequences amount to “a public danger” (Durkheim 1957 p. 18). Durkheim describes democratic political systems ruled by the will of the people as “pseudo-democracies” characterized by chaos, stormy changes in politics, instability, and evil, because the will is inherently unstable. Durkheim’s works, primarily his book Professional Ethics and Civic Morals (1957), provide the theoretical framework. To better situate his work, I draw upon several research articles by Stjepan Mestrovic on Durkheim’s political anomie, Durkheim’s Political Sociology (1971) and Durkheim on Politics and the State (1986) by Anthony Giddens

Online Gaming Can Make a Better World: Jane McGonigal

With personal feelings put aside and sociological theoretical depictions brought to the forefront, it is interesting to compare some of Jane\u27s ideas with that of both Emile Durkheim and Max Weber. The theorist who stood out right away, being exemplified through Jane\u27s positive attitude claims on a much larger, macro-level scale, was Emile Durkheim. Jane\u27s ideas about transcending human\u27s as a resource through the social fabrics of gaming into something that might solve world hunger, poverty, and global warming was nothing short of functionalism at it\u27s best. Jane\u27s platform for social structure and maintaining positive social order is the online world, and online gaming is the vehicle for change