Salvaging Durkhiem

Durkheim, Mechanical and Organic Solidarity, and ‘Scientific’ Racism

Isaac Christiansen

Upon reading “The Division of Labor in Society” by Emile Durkheim, the incorporation of ‘scientific racism’ of the era in this work deserves to be analyzed if it takes away from the principals of mechanical and organic solidarity, along with if those principals are connected or if they form a fundamental place in Durkheim’s thought. First let us bring to light the particular sections in which the use of ‘scientific’ racism is present.
Durkheim quotes the notorious Dr. Lebon’s work on the sizes of craniums of different peoples and a supposed connection between their cranium size and their level of evolutionary development and connecting this to the principal that the more an organism evolves the more heterogeneous it becomes, thus indicating that the indigenous communities, (being noted for a less developed division of labour and dominance of mechanical solidarity) were less evolved than the European ones (p19 & p89-90). He also indicates that within these societies the individuals do not differ significantly from one another (either physiologically or in any other way) citing slave traders who cared to know only the ethnicity of the individual, for all other essential traits (for their line of ‘business’) were irrelevant- and significant differentiation non-existent (p89-90). He also claims that this is notable in women, that in advanced, industrial societies the women have been removed from the duties of war and political life and their “brain has developed differently”, and in the ‘primitive’ ‘savage’ societies there is little distinction between the sexes, thus less division of labor, and less advanced on the ladder of humanity a particular group finds themselves (pp.19-21). Currently, the social and physical sciences wholeheartedly reject the ideas of pseudo-scientific racism, like Dr. Lebon’s, to the point of not only stating that not only do we not have superior or inferior races, but races themselves do not exist amongst human beings, save as a social construct (Feagin and Feagin, 1996).
However, we find some discrepancy with the above racist postulations in Durkheim’s work itself (albeit not as much as we may like). First, these postulations assume the evolution of organisms and society in a strictly teleological and linear sense, always moving from ‘inferior’ to ‘superior’ development. However, Durkheim’s critique of anomie, and dislike of cities, shows that he had some reservations on the matter. Is it possible to separate Durkheim’s contribution, which was social and not biological in nature, from both the ethnocentricity and scientific racism of the world which surrounded him and which he drew from in this work?
If we do not separate the bulk of Durkheim’s work from the odious nature of social Darwinism, we run the risk of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It is, however, a sign of progress that what once did not offend, now does, but we still may benefit from the main concepts of the division of labor, and mechanical and organic solidarity. We can understand, without being racists, that there are and have been smaller self-sustaining groups with less of a division of labour out of necessity that had everything to do with social and economic realities and nothing to do with supposed biological ones. While it was necessary to point out the error for it now offends our collective consciousness to some degree, the concepts provide such utility that they can be applied even in this instance.
So let us distinguish the idea that the function of retributive punishment of a crime is not to serve the offender, but the honest people by helping by reestablishing and defining their cohesion, and “healing the wounds of the collective sentiments” (p.63). The concept of organic solidarity and the further development of mutual interdependence in associational societies is perhaps his most interesting and significant contribution. The concept is important as well to socialists, who once involved in the construction of a new society, seek to affirm mans interdependence, for if one piece of the chain is missing it effects all other parts of those on the chain. The idea of solidarity based on difference as we as likeness is a valuable contribution to the social sciences that merits retention.
Although, not recognized within Durkheim’s work here, much of Europe’s development was due to entire sections of labour being forcibly imposed upon indigenous peoples, which freed a section of Europeans from those tasks, as well as enriching it in raw materials and value-added congealed labor. Thus, although not able to be fully developed here, the indigenous and colonized exploited as well as the exploitation of the European proletariats contributed invaluably to the division of labor analyzed here.
Whereas, I find his analysis of indigenous societies, which drew upon the anthropological sources of the time- perfunctory, it may be said that the perfunctory character of the analysis was due to the shallow and colonialist serving nature of the anthropological work of the era, from which this part of his analysis was based; his analysis of organic solidarity as well as the innovative method of analyzing both through respective legal systems remains a significant contribution. Thus, we must as social scientists develop a method of separating and retaining the ideas that are valuable from those that we might wish never existed.


References
Durkheim, Emile. 1933. 1984. “The Division of Labor in Society” The Free Press. New York NY
Feagin, Joe and Feagin, Clairece. 1996. “Racial and Ethnic Relations” Fifth Edition. Prentice Hall. Upper Saddle, New Jersey.

Interesting info on Charles Darwin and social darwinism: http://www.racismreview.com/blog/2009/02/12/charles-darwin-did-he-help-create-scientific-racism/