The religious tendency of navigating a complicated world according to Emile Durkheim

Summary: Society often appears static but, in reality, society is a conglomeration of history’s process of becoming which resulted in a variety of norms, patterns, and structures. Emile Durkheim claimed such a process was the result of society’s innate pursuit of the ideal. If true, we currently exist in this process and we might want to consider what it means to be a part of it.

Overview:

How do norms become normal?
Religion as a societal force that creates and enacts society.
This tendency comes through Durkheim’s conception of the ideal.
The ideal can only be a process and has several issues.
As a current part of society, we need to consider four ways to participate in this process today.

For more on Sociology & Emile Durkheim:

What It Means to Be Part of Society

The Key Ingredient to a Healthy Society

Is Society Good or Bad?

Secular, Spiritual, & Still Quite Religious

Introduction

Why do we consider certain things normal?

Eating three meals a day.
Wearing clothing.
Having an occupation.
Drinking coffee.

An insurmountable list awaits such speculation. However, if we might move past the apparent cultural norms of society in general, the question really is worth considering when we reflect on certain values and processes that are of assumedly common in our world today.

Society, as a general rule, is the cohesion of a group that constantly creates structures and organizes itself collectively in order to survive. We formulate various norms — what some folks call scripts — to make the world more predictable and stable. Occasionally, we question these routines, rhythms, and practices but, for the most part, we continue to swim in our assumed waters that we’ve inherited and have been generated and entrenched over time.

There is a larger societal force, however, that deserves more attention.

We, as a society, also seem to have certain values, principles, and assumptions about the way the world is meant to work. Some of these perspectives manifest in institutions. Others are moral prescriptions that tend to be dominant.

There are, generally, particular ways we assume the world works.

Where do these come from?

Why is marriage such an entrenched institution?

Why is sexuality presumed to have particular constraints?

Why is murder typically frowned upon?

Why is war an assumed and regularly utilized outcome of conflict?

Ad infinitum.

Occasionally a voice will come along to challenge the norms, but beyond considering if the societal patterns of existence are good or not (or whether or not such prescriptions fell out of the sky as a convenient deontological moral ethic), I’m interested in a more abstract inquiry:

Where do these engrained realities come from?

How do norms become normal?

This is a sociological question — the study of how society develops, functions, and organizes itself as large conglomerates of people.

Within this discipline, the answer to our pressing question has solicited more speculation than there are scholars. Of them, I’d like to consider just one; who was actually one of the first to consider this puzzling reality.

Part One — Religion as the Organizing Principle of Society

Emile Durkheim took this sociological phenomenon in a very particular direction. The short answer to how society develops its norms, practices, and values comes down to one proponent: Religion.

Durkheim was primarily enthralled with his notion of the collective — that human beings inherently gravitate toward collective belonging and are primarily formed according to the collective ideal conglomerated amongst society.

Essentially, as humans belong together, they fabricate and manifest what they believe they ought to become which is usually a reflection of the real, material necessities of their given situation.

This, then, creates an ideal that society and its component individuals seek to enact and become.

For Durkheim, the medium for this process was simply called religion.

Religion, therefore, was an organizing principle that embodied the intuitive nature of society itself. As this might be a departure from our common understanding of religion, a couple of facets are worth pointing out.

Transcendent External

Religion was a means of finite individuals belonging together as a single consciousness. Together, they participate in something that transcends basic humanity not only in the conjecture of metaphysics, but also in the proportion of time. Existing in a group as such is to participate in something that is apparently eternal — it existed before you and will continue beyond your death.

Religion is how a person becomes a part of a larger collective existence.

Real Experience

Religion, as Durkheim defined it, was a way to inhabit the real, material world and experience life. Durkheim even talks about how collective groups often create an accumulated energy unfounded in the individual. He called this a collective effervescence.

Through the group and its configuration, we experience the world in a real way that is not possible on our own.

Collective Strength

In the real experience offered by religion, it simultaneously connects you to a larger group. In the larger group, you have a strength and fortitude not available or inhibitable in your solitary existence. While mainstream, institutional religions make this obvious, this same occurrence happens with affinity groups or sports team or political ideologies; all of which would fit Durkheim’s definition of religion.

Durkheim noted in his research that participating in collective gatherings and collective rituals frequently emboldened and empowered individuals; especially by providing a transcendent purpose or meaning from the group.

Influence

The main emphasis of religion, however, is that it carried a powerful, even coercive, influence. Again, this is very visible in organized religions, but it functions similarly with any collective group. Essentially, the collective has a determining power for how the individual and, therefore, society will exist.

If society is a parasite, religion is the host.

Religion, for Durkheim, is how society is formed; it is the methodology for creating collective belonging and, in turn, a collective consciousness that allows society to continue to function. This is by no means a philosophical definition. Durkheim was not concerned about questions of metaphysics.

This is simply a sociological definition; one that, if taken seriously, may help explain our pressing question — where do the values, norms, practices, and assumed perspectives come from?

Religion.

Or, better put — any group of collective belonging that embodies the trajectory of society by forming a collective consciousness intergenerationally over time.

Part Two — Collective Consciousness and the Ideal

This brings us to what might actually be Durkheim’s intent when he discussed and researched religion. Durkheim may have been less concerned with religion than he was about this societal force that shaped how the world functioned.

He claimed there was this goal to the collective conscious of society that was unique to humans and he called this the ideal.

What we humans do is, in our collective belonging, we superimpose another world on the current and create an ideal for us to pursue. The rites and rituals and beliefs and practices exist to alter present conditions toward what is presumed to be good. Often, these reflect the real attempt to survive; to make the world as predictable and stable as possible.

Religion is the societal force to animate our lived reality. It configures the ideal and then enacts it as a pragmatic reality. It’s trying to make things better. Norms, values, and engrained perspectives are the natural byproduct of such a process. Religion is the means by which we make said ideal known and cultivate a common realization of it.

Often, these lead to established norms and traditions which come from real people trying to navigate a difficult world. That is how society often gets built — through the practical formulation of the ideal.

Part Three — The Difficulty of Durkheim’s Ideal

Herein lies the problem:

How we arrive at and enact the ideal in reality is constantly varied. There has, to my knowledge, been no fully agreed-upon version of this ideal nor how to practically create it in real time and space.

Further, there is an issue with having an objective means to conclude the veracity of a particular society’s ideal. Not only do you have cultural differences, the means to enact an ideal are as debated as ever. The philosophical ethics range from moral volunteerism and relative ethics to moral particularism and consequentialism; or utilitarianism to the furthest deontological reaches of moral absolutism.

Quite plainly, there are not only diverse and competing ideals — there is no agreement on how to resolve whether an ideal is actually an ideal nor how to make an ideal realistically exist.

This has always been the issue with teleological ethics and process ontology — two big phrases that simply imply that the universe is moving (it is in process) and that it is moving towards some end, goal, or purpose (teleology). How is it supposed to move? We’re still working on that. What is this telos supposed to look like and how do we know we have found the correct one? There is no conclusion (though there are lots of opinions and assumptions).

It appears that Emile Durkheim simply proposed a sociologically depressing reality:

That society exists as an attempt to solve an unsolvable predicament of being alive. Humans have a tendency to pursue a fullness or completeness that remains permanently unobtainable. In this pursuit, we create a world out of our unfulfilled attempts and hand them forward for generations yet unborn. They, then, pick up the task using what they’ve inherited to continue the building project that remains incomplete.

Humans try to survive. We collectively construct a world to make that easier. And it is all in pursuit of an ideal version of reality that we can’t quite grasp.

So, what do we do with norms? One response can be to call the bluff of inherited traditions. Remove them from their obsolescent pedestal. Norms are constructions of former generations that deserve no credence. In fact, those norms probably exist to control the masses. Enough!

At the same time, it might be worth considering that we, too, will only be creating constructions ourselves. I don’t know about you, but millions of people over thousands of years might have more wisdom than one rebellious soul with a penchant for deconstruction.

A better approach might simply be to have an awareness of what we’re being handed.

As we consider what is normal in society, we might want to put these norms and construct in their proper place by considering a few questions:

1 — What version of the ideal created this norm, value, or perspective?

2 — If we aren’t capable of objectively knowing the ideal — if such certainty is elusive — is the direction of what is normal worth continuing?

3 — If there are a variety of ideals all competing, who is right?

We also need to consider that not only are there a lot of different religions within society, but if any group, community, or institution is religious by its sociological nature, they, too, are offering a form of the ideal.

The ideals are constantly being handed to us.

And as globalization has exponentially grown alongside of technological access within an economic system in pursuit of accumulated profit, we have an interesting societal concoction being sold (often, quite literally) in the form of a variety of ideals.

They’re all fighting to dominate the landscape and create a final realization — from pop culture to science, nationalism to identity politics, and the global corporations vying for your attention and money from Amazon to Christianity.

We might, then, want to consider what they are handing us and how we are going to respond.

Part Four — Four Suggestions for the Ideal Today

Essentially, the real consideration here is how you fit in the process. How ought we engage with the traditions handed to us and how ought we continue to try and create a good world in society?

First, recognize that any current norms and their accompanying religions are simply forms and the process is ongoing.

They are attempts at the ideal, not the ideal itself (if such a teleological possibility even exists). If we have not yet arrived as a species, then how things are is not how they ought to be and no existing structure or group is the final culmination of reality.

The ideal, then, is still in process.

Instead of continuing the competition, we need to see the process as a continued conversation.

In terms of religions, we need to see this variety of institutions as open systems that, in attempting to articulate truth, are incapable of doing so conclusively. Various groups may contribute to the process; adding, in their moments of eminence, constructive proclamation.

However, religions and institutions shouldn’t be competing. Nor are they all correct in their own relative way. They are all incorrect — constrained by finitude and ineptitude alike. The best approach, in my opinion, is for any religious system in their sociological context to contribute what they can and be honest about what they can’t.

Society, unfortunately, continues to be a process by which we can only hope to contribute. We have to work with the contents time has handed us, but we have to see that they are a result of the process and so will anything we add.

Only then, hopefully, can an ideal be fully realized.

Second, we must have a proper relationship with tradition.

It would be easy — and convenient — to dismiss the past as incomplete and, therefore, worth only our neglect. We miss, as a result, the potential insights previous attempts could offer.

I think nostalgia for tradition that romanticizes the past is not only mundane but paralyzing. If we are exploring uncharted territory, we ensure that we will never move if we only travel the parts of the map already explored. An undiscovered ideal implies continuous movement. The process will not continue if we stay in the past — it will only leave uncharted territory uncharted.

But tradition — the explored parts of the map — should not be dismissed, either. The continued process must utilize, learn from, and understand what has gone before if we are going to better inform the unknown territory that we are just beginning to chart.

Tradition needs to be held loosely — learning from what ought to be replicated and what ought to be avoided — but also not being statically dependent on it. We ought to honor tradition while simultaneously overthrowing it. Use the attempts at the ideal that have been handed down. Assume that their construction was the good intent of folks trying to survive this chaotic existence. But then keep the story going. Only then will the possible ideal come a bit more in grasp.

Third, we must have a proper sense of proportion in reference to the present.

There is a wonderful illusion in modernism that our epoch is vastly superior to all that has gone before it and that we, too, might just be the hoped-for Nietzschean superhumans to finally culminate mortal life. Modern exceptionalism, we could call it.

As the past is a wasteland of failure and inferiority, we appear primed to accomplish what those lesser folks couldn’t. In turn, we have a world — only aided by the self-publishing platforms of social media — where an abundance of ideas, theories, and answers are nonchalantly given by those who felt no need to look at the map of human wisdom.

At best, the modern individual is simply reckless.

At worst, such a disposition is downright dangerous.

How many figurative shipwrecks could have been avoided had the navigators simply heeded the voices of those who have come before.

We may, therefore, want to have a proper sense of proportion of our place as individuals and of our society not only in the span of history but also in the propensity that is yet to come. We, in the present, are simply a bridge in the ongoing process of the world from past to future.

We may want to consider, then, that the only thing we will do is hand the next generation a slightly more filled-out map.

Fourth, you have a role to play in the process.

Your role begins by seeing the norms and values for what they are — inchoate attempts at the ideal. Yet, in using tradition to continue the process, we must see that we, too, have some agency; even if we won’t end up being the final piece to this societal puzzle and even if our attempts will be inchoate musings only left for someone else to one day continue.

Durkheim discussed how in society influencing who we are becoming, it, too, is in the process of becoming and is constantly affected by the humans that compose its existence. Durkheim remarked how the individual always exists in a social existence that they help form.

You are affected by and transformed by the ideal while also impacting the continued understanding of the ideal. The collective consciousness flat out determines your life, but you are also contributing to the creation of that continued consciousness.

You, then, are swimming in this sociological conundrum of an unfinished world in which you have some agency.

As you experience this ongoing process, what are you going to do to it? How ought you interact with the world as it is?

First, understand that you exist within the coincidence and inevitabilities of multifaceted decisions made by the infinite spectrum of humanity that has led to this moment.

And then realize that you will contribute to those decisions.

And the story will continue with your voice now being a part of it.

The hope, then, is that the ideal will one day be what it is meant to be, and you — though a tiny blip on the history of the world — will have contributed.

A final word, however, must be added to this talk about progress and the hoped-for ideal.

As a corresponding sociologist would contrarily point out, all of this talk of the ideal and progress might be to our own demise. It might be, one could say, an iron cage.

We ought to also be careful, then, that our pursuit of the ideal doesn’t turn out to be a nightmare.