A Summary of Emile Durkheim’s Book
Book Review of the Elementary Forms of Religious Life
The Elementary Forms of Religious Life is wrote by Emile Durkheim, a French sociologist, social psychologist and philosophe. Durkheim is considered as the principal architect of modern social science and father of sociology since he formally established the academic discipline. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, as one of Durkheim's most notable and influential works, comparing the social and cultural lives of aboriginal and modern societies. In this book, Durkheim analyzes religion as a social phenomenon and he considers the society is the foundation of all religious beliefs. Since Durkheim considers primitive religions are most privileged cases because they are simple, he adopts an assessment on primitive form of the Aborigine religion.
The book was cast as a study of supposedly most previous type of religion- the Australian totemism. Though the previous investigation contributed by ethnographers, Durkheim analyzes the principal totemic beliefs, the origin of these beliefs and the notion of soul, spirits and Gods. He also discusses the two principal modes of ritual conduct- the negative cults and the positive cult and seek to explain their functions. In this book, he makes several great discovers. According to Durkheim, a religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things. That is to say, things set apart and forbidden-beliefs and practices which unite into one single normal community called church, all those who adhere to them. For Durkheim, the sacred is generated by means of rituals that created social cohesion and bound individuals to the society. Durkheim, as the most recognized sociologist and loyal disciple of Empirical Science offers sociological area a stunning theoretical imagination in this work.
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As contemporary readers going through the arduously intellectual labor Durkheim has put together, I'm profoundly impressed by his formidable analytical ability and penetrating viewpoints. However, after reading his interpretation of religion in a sociological view, I became a little confused. If Durkheim attempts to theoretically account for the functional and universal nature of religion in a materialist perspective, it is inevitably that he won't take any transcendental experience into account. The question is, is he still talking about religions after he eliminating certain elements that religion originally possessed? Under Durkheim's description, religion is considered as a social fact, and the objective entity behind religious symbolism and rituals can thus be comprehend as society. That is to say, the concept of God in religion actually is equal to the apotheosized society. However, on one hand, this term of non- transcendental, objective religion would be intensely controversial for the religionist.
On the other hand, if the concept of god can be replaced by society and collective consciousness, and thus the worship of god can be replaced by any other worship of group behaviors-some may share no relation with 'religion', for instance, political ideology. In my opinion, in principle, Durkheim seems doesn't differentiate the religious experience of Australian aborigines from the political favor of orgiastic citizens.
In fact, his description of collective representations and collective consciousness reminds me not only the formation of religion, but also several other forms of ideologies. Additionally, in some extent, comparing to the contemporary religious doctrines, those ideologies actually share more commons within Durkheim's interpretation. And I want elaborate this point by taking a comparative analysis on the smallest, simplest process of ideological formation- the Third Wave Experiment. Through this analysis we can find that this experiment shares surprisingly similarities with Durkheim's findings on Australian aborigines and if we apply his religious theory it can almost be deem as another kind of religion.
The Third Wave Experiment was an experimental social movement created by a high school teacher. This teacher wanted to explain how German populace could accept the action of the Nazi regime during the Second World War. In this experiment, he established a united group that in order to imitate Nazism. Every member in this movement shared a coherent association with the group and they were also restrained by it rules. The teacher started it by teaching the students 'strength through discipline', commanding them to sit with perfectly posture and requiring them shouting out answers with obedience. After a short period, this group started to have names, salutes, sign, mottos and it soon swept out the whole school.
Firstly, this movement consisted a unified system, and they certainly had beliefs. And what fits in perfectly with Durkheim's prospection is that, they believed in community. According to Durkheim, society is the anonymous, impersonal force behind the subject of worships. Coincidently, unlike primitive aborigines who couldn't comprehend it and contemporary religionists who don't admit it, the teacher made the statement at first that 'strength through community'. Besides, the Third Wave movement owned plenty rites and rituals. We can find plenty element that included in positive cults in these rites and rituals. For example, the teacher created a salute for group member and it was considered as a silent signal of recognition. The students were required to repeat the mottos to enhance the sense of collective consciousness. Every group member was ought to be more concentrating, more obedient and more initiative during the activity.
Those behaviors, as same as positive cults, severed to sustain in the vitality of their belief and they constantly revivifying the most essential elements of the collective consciousness. The negative cults didn't manifest clearly in this movement since the sacredness in the Third Wave was still in its nascent, vogue form. However, the sacredness verified its existence by serval phenomenon: on one hand, the teacher became the spokesman of the Third Waves and student started to guard him and segregate him from his original identity.
On the other hand, the students themselves started to feeing that they became someone beyond themselves- they displayed accurate recitation of fact and asking question with more compassion. Especially for Robert, the student who was originally ordinary and somehow invisible, became equivalent with others, and even prominent in this particular group. Moreover, the concept of totemism also appeared in the Third Wave movement, as students started to design the Third Wave's banner and hang it in front of school's library. In the movie that based on the experiment, the totem of the Third Wave appeals to be an image of scarlet waves.
According to Durkheim, the totem is not about itself, but about the clan as symbolized by the emblem. Similarly, the symbol of the Third Wave also represented both the group principle and the group itself. In conclusion, the Third Wave movement, if looking through Durkheim's perspective, could also be deemed as an initial form of religion. Here comes to my interpretation. In my opinion, the religion comes from the worship of society, but in turns, the worship of society wouldn't certainly generate religion.
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