Example research essay topic: How Durkheim Theory Relates To New Mexico - 1,442 words

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How Durkheim's Theory Relates To New Mexico Agreement is widespread that Durkheim is one of the central theorists of modernity. Defenders and detractors alike concur that he has had unparalleled influence on twentieth-century social theory in general, and twentieth-century sociological theory in particular. Consensus over the extent of Durkheim's influence, however, is riven with dissension over the nature of that influence. His defenders and detractors obviously disagree about whether his influence has been primarily positive or primarily negative. In addition, contemporary social theorists disagree widely over the fundamental question of whether Durkheimian social theory is essentially conservative, liberal, or even radical. To address the question of Durkheim's political problematic, his social theory can be classified in terms of three pivotal issues: social determinism, collectivism, and inequality.

Durkheim's theory of the actual relationships that connect society, nature, and individuals is a naturalistic form of social determinism. This distinguishes his theory from conservatism because he emphasizes social rather than natural determinism; from radicalism because he emphasizes the naturalness and immutability of social structures; and from classic liberalism because he emphasizes social determinism over natural determinism and individual self-determination. At this point, Durkheim's theory can be tired to the New Mexico theory. This state has had a unique history, and its society has been changing according to a model, which very much reminds Durkheim's model of society. Territories of New Mexico very originally inhabited by Native Americans. Their society lived as a collectivistic society.

As the colonizes came, there started to appear inequality. Colonizers had ways to put the native population under into an inferior position. The treatment of the Pueblo people by Coronado and his men led to the long-standing hostility between the Native Americans and the Spanish and slowed Spanish conquest. The first regular colony at San Juan was founded by Juan de One in 1598. The Native Americans of Acoma revolted against the Spanish encroachment and were severely suppressed. Durkheim's theory of the ideal relationships among society, intra societal groups, and individuals is a modernist form of collectivism.

This distinguishes his theory from conservatism because he promotes abstract individual rights; from radicalism because he privileges the collective comprising society in its entirety rather than subordinate intra social groups; and from classic liberalism because he asserts collective interests at the expense of individual interests. It is interesting to see how people from the West converted so many Indians into Christianity. Some Indians accepted Christianity, others found it oppressive. By the middle of the 17 th century, there was growing discontent among the Pueblo people. On Aug. 10, 1680, after years of careful planning, the tribes rose up and drove the Spanish out of Santa Fe in the great Pueblo Revolt. By 1692, however, the Spanish had returned.

Don Diego De Vargas, the newly appointed governor and captain-general of New Mexico, began to reconquer the northern pueblos, a task that took four years. This proves again that Durkheim's theory can very much be proved by the New Mexico's history. Durkheim's political philosophy is extremely complicated, however, with respect to the categories of race, class, and sex. In the first place, Durkheim's neoliberal principles - social determinism, collectivism, and individual mobility -- apply to men only. In the second place, Durkheim appears to have not one, but two theories, a dominant theory and a subordinate theory, a liberal theory and a conservative theory, of race, of class, and of sex. Examining Durkheim's dual and contradictory theories of race, class, and sex adds both complexity and clarity to the debate over the political implications of his social theory.

Notably, such an examination reveals the contradictions and inconsistencies of liberalism, which I believe are indicative of the contradictions and inconsistencies of capitalism. Durkheim does, however, describe a third type of society that is intermediate between primitive and modern society (more precisely, between primitive and transitional society) -a traditional agrarian feudalism, or caste society. In contrast to primitive society, which has no division of labor, and modern society, which has an extensive division of labor, caste society has a simple division of labor that serves several specialized functions corresponding to several differentiated structures. These structures are transmitted genetically to distinct groups of individuals - intra societal races, or biological castes. It is not this description of caste society that sets Durkheim apart from other liberals. After all, bourgeois revolutions were waged specifically to eradicate ascription according to caste and to establish individual mobility according to merit.

What is remarkable about Durkheim's theory of caste society is that he defends it, quite definitively. He views caste society, like primitive and modern society, as an expressive totality in which naturally distributed structures are concurrently aligned with socially distributed functions. He sees castes as groups of people who biologically inherit specific skills and socially inherit specific, corresponding, occupations. In his view, the "proof" of this functional harmony is found in the persistence of caste society, and in its positive reflection in traditional culture (Durkheim).

The opening paragraph in Durkheim's chapter on heredity in The Division of Labor in Society illustrates a fundamental liberal contradiction: The individual, at birth, receives tastes and aptitudes predisposing him to certain functions more than to others, and those predispositions certainly have an influence on the way in which tasks are distributed. Durkheim's dominant theory is that class, the social distribution of functions to fixed biological groups (castes), is destined to disappear from modern societies, along with its natural foundation, race. The division of labor creates functions too numerous and too fluid to be distributed to finite, fixed groups, and too complex to be distributed exclusively by heredity. Social evolution engenders structural differentiation at the individual level, which forms the natural foundation of a new mechanism for the social distribution of functions: the modern, liberal system of equal opportunity and individual mobility.

Modernity is based on individualized structural differentiation, which is immediately expressed in individualized functional specialization, and is ultimately expressed in individualistic beliefs and values -- the cult of the individual at the core of the modern collective consciousness. Modernity is not complete, however, until the division of labor has produced organic solidarity-the integration and regulation of differentiated and specialized individuals. This should occur spontaneously, on the condition that the division of labor is itself spontaneous, natural, and normal, which is to say that it is characterized by "equality in the external conditions of conflict." For Durkheim, the only modern form of equality is equal opportunity. He associates modern society with not less, but more economic inequality than tribal or feudal society. "As the progress of the division of labor implies...

an ever growing inequality, the equality which public conscience thus affirms can only be equality in the external conditions of the conflict." Specifically, there are two natural orders of inequality, which must be reflected in social orders of inequality. The first is the unequal natural ability inherent in each individual structure. The second is the unequal "social value" inherent in each occupational function. The hierarchy of natural ability mandates that individuals will be deployed in a stratified set of functional positions. The hierarchy of social value mandates that individuals will be compensated with a stratified set of material rewards. In a spontaneous division of labor, "social inequalities exactly express natural inequalities." Collective ownership of property is incompatible with modern individualism, while collective ownership of the means of production is incompatible with modern differentiation, specialization, and organic solidarity.

Therefore class, as private property, including private ownership of the means of production, equally persists and characterizes Durkheimian modernity. Durkheim theory of sex is diametrically opposed to his theories of race and class, and his theory of women differs radically from his theories of individuals and society. Durkheim believes that women and men compose two distinct biological groups, and that their structural differentiation constitutes the natural foundation of their functional specialization. Furthermore, he believes that sex as caste -- as both a natural condition and the social expression of that condition -- is a specifically modern category. He views sexual similarity and equality in structure and function as primitive phenomena, and sexual difference and inequality as indices of social progress. In other words, for Durkheim the sexual division of labor parallels the social division of labor, as the "other half" of the evolution of (male) individuals and society.

REFERENCES Mitchell, M. Marion. 1931. "Emile Durkheim and the Philosophy of Nationalism. " Political Science Quarterly 46: 87 - 106. Muller, Hans-Peter. 1993. "Durkheim's Political Sociology. " Pp. 95 - 110 in Emile Durkheim: Sociologist and Moralist, edited by S. P. Turner. New York: Routledge.

Nikon, Paul. 1971. The Watchdogs: Philosophers of the Established Order. New York: Monthly Review Press.

Research essay sample on How Durkheim Theory Relates To New Mexico