When reading Durkheim, I am extremely confused and have no idea what he is writing about. The concepts as a whole are extremely hard to put together, but I am going to attempt to try and attempt and explain a few facts that I think I understand.
When he asks what a “thing” is, he gives an extremely lengthy and complicated definition. I think that he really is trying to say is that a “thing” is just something that we really don’t know what it is, we know that we won’t understand it, and because of that, we just try and explain the unexplainable.
When discussing groups and social fact, Durkheim, in my opinion, sees people as fitting into a role within their own consciousness. He gives the examples of being a husband, father, or citizen. These roles are defined by law and custom. This means that some of these roles are kept by enforcing the laws of society. An example of this would be a police officer and a crook. The officer represents justice and order, while the crook represents disobedience and anarchy. The customs aspect of roles is that society needs people to follow (or not follow) the customs so that society can exist.
Durkheim defines a social fact as “… any way of acting, whether fixed or not, capable of exerting over the individual and external constraint; which is general over the whole of a given society whilst having an existence of its own, independent of it individual manifestation.” The words “fixed or not” refer to how a person has to fit into a certain character role. Most of the time, people act within a fixed role, where their decisions are “made for them.” They with their lives as monotonous human beings. Those who do not act in a fixed manner are free to think and express their thoughts and ideals. In the next part of the sentence, Durkheim explores on how a situation may have power not only on the individual, but in other aspects of reality. This means that while some things may happen to an individual, things also happen inside society as a whole and can affect that society; therefore, having an affect on that person. Society exists on its own. There are other people living here and they may live by the same social facts that we do. They carry on their lives as if we were not even there. Granted, we may interact with each other, but we do not interact with all six billion people on their planet. What we may perceive to be social fact may not be true for someone living on the other side of the planet.
I really had a difficult time reading and understanding. I found this piece to be more about our interpretation of reality than social fact. I mean that I felt that it was more about our concept of being rather than our existence among other human beings.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
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If you are saying that we give the name thing to anything that we don't understand then yes I can agree. I say this because we can give traits to a thing. there for come to understand it but we will still not be able to name it. I also agree that he gives a lot of information that is hard to understand.
what is meant that a person fits into a role within their own consciousness. I think that a person fits into the role that society pushes on them. People can go against society and be considered an outsider or they conform and be excepted by society. I agree that we need people to follow but not everyone need to follow someone if that were true we wouldn't have leaders. I think Durkheim believed that our decisions came from our understanding of similar situations that happened in the past. So we might make our own decisions but they came from an understanding of the past or from how society would act on that decision or situation. overall I also found this hard to read and understand but what I took from it is more of we can either go with society or we can fight it. also if we fight society it is still going to leave its mark on. the other point to that is that some times we have to conform to society to get anywhere. like living in a culture where they speak a different language. we would have to learn to speak that language to get what we wanted from that society. I think that's what Durkhiem is trying to say we can go with society or we can be changed trying to fight it.
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