One aspect of modernity that worried Durkheim a significant amount was the increased urbanisation due to industrialisation. Durkheim had a more direct focus on this worry over urbanisation as he looked the impact of suicide in his book ‘Le Suicide’, analysing 26,000 suicides with the use of official statistics to see what caused certain societal groups to have higher rates of suicide compared to others. He looked at four different types to distinguish reasons for suicide rates: egotistic, altruistic, anomic, and fatalistic suicide. Haralambos and Holborn write that ‘Durkheim thought that egoism and anomie were problems that affected all industrial societies to a greater or lesser extent. Because of the highly specialised division of labour
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Arguably it was his greatest worry as Haralambos and Holborn explain that ‘Durkheim emphasised the importance of collective worship. The social group comes together in rituals full of drama and reverence. […] In this highly charged atmosphere […] the integrity of society is strengthened.’ (1970) To Durkheim religion reinforced the collective conscience and social values of a given society. He believed that religion was a way of worshiping society which in turn strengthens social solidarity within the group. However, Durkheim was worried because modernity seemed to hold less of an emphasis on religious practice; thus, he feared that modernity’s rejection would cause a strain on social solidarity and overall a strain on society itself. This may have been aided with his suicide work because as Durkheim himself found, suicide rates tended to be higher in Protestant countries rather than Catholic ones. For example, the Evangelical Lutheran country* Denmark had higher levels of suicide where in 1866 to 1870 it stood at 277 (1970) deaths classified as suicide. In comparison in the same years there was only 30 (1970) in the highly Catholic Italy. Protestantism tended to hold greater emphasis on individualism where you work on yourself to get to heaven whereas Catholicism was much more about helping the community to get there which may be why protestant countries where there …show more content…
Out of all the aspects Durkheim was worried about, Religion seems to reign the prime aspect that caused many of the other fears. As the focus on religion declined and collective worship held less sentiment in peoples lives, individualism grew as did focus on science which allowed industrialisation and urbanisation to occur because mechanisation got better. Therefore, Durkheim had a greatest worry with religion because this growth in questioning created a different society to the one he knew meaning he did not understand that it may be positive to society as
Arguably it was his greatest worry as Haralambos and Holborn explain that ‘Durkheim emphasised the importance of collective worship. The social group comes together in rituals full of drama and reverence. […] In this highly charged atmosphere […] the integrity of society is strengthened.’ (1970) To Durkheim religion reinforced the collective conscience and social values of a given society. He believed that religion was a way of worshiping society which in turn strengthens social solidarity within the group. However, Durkheim was worried because modernity seemed to hold less of an emphasis on religious practice; thus, he feared that modernity’s rejection would cause a strain on social solidarity and overall a strain on society itself. This may have been aided with his suicide work because as Durkheim himself found, suicide rates tended to be higher in Protestant countries rather than Catholic ones. For example, the Evangelical Lutheran country* Denmark had higher levels of suicide where in 1866 to 1870 it stood at 277 (1970) deaths classified as suicide. In comparison in the same years there was only 30 (1970) in the highly Catholic Italy. Protestantism tended to hold greater emphasis on individualism where you work on yourself to get to heaven whereas Catholicism was much more about helping the community to get there which may be why protestant countries where there …show more content…
Out of all the aspects Durkheim was worried about, Religion seems to reign the prime aspect that caused many of the other fears. As the focus on religion declined and collective worship held less sentiment in peoples lives, individualism grew as did focus on science which allowed industrialisation and urbanisation to occur because mechanisation got better. Therefore, Durkheim had a greatest worry with religion because this growth in questioning created a different society to the one he knew meaning he did not understand that it may be positive to society as