One can describe sociology as the study of social facts. Durkheim explains a social fact as “every way of acting, whether fixed or not, which is capable of exercising an external constraint on the individual; or, which is general throughout a given society, whilst having an existence of its own, independent of its individual manifestations (Thomas pg. 3). In layman’s terms a social fact is something that is expected in everyday life, somewhat like a norm. In order for social facts to be possible in a world there must be a collective conscious within the society. According to Durkheim, collective conscious represents overall moral components of a social fact. Although there is a collective conscious, there is also a collective representation, which is the way the individual interprets the collective conscious.
When the term social fact comes to mind I think of high school. High school is a social society that every person goes through in life. In high school everyone knows there place. In a typical high school there you have the athletes and cheerleaders (who are usually the cool kids), nerds, drama club, the rebels, and the “nobody’s” (the people who don’t fit into a category). The high school is a social fact because there are certain rules and guidelines that everyone must follow in order to survive high school. The nerds know that they don’t belong anywhere where the cool kids are and the nerds understand not to go near the rebels. These are all social facts within a high school. To go a little further, there is also a collective conscious in the understanding of how high school operates and how it works. The collective representation is how every individual student experiences and sees high school. It is a simple concept but gets to the point that Durkheim was trying to make.
Within collective representation, solidarity occurs. According to dictionary.com, solidarity is a “union or fellowship arising from common responsibilities and interest. . .” This in the end means that because the nerds are nerds and they don’t fit in with the cool kids, they have a certain common interest. This in the end causes them to have a tighter bond with one another and therefore cause unity among them but separation among the rest of the high school students. Then within the group of nerds rules and regulations are formed and people break away from each other causing more separation but solidarity at the same time.
I feel that this is how separation among people starts. Because there are norms and restraints among people, there are certain labels attached in which they can never get rid of. These labels separate each other instead of bringing society together.
When the term social fact comes to mind I think of high school. High school is a social society that every person goes through in life. In high school everyone knows there place. In a typical high school there you have the athletes and cheerleaders (who are usually the cool kids), nerds, drama club, the rebels, and the “nobody’s” (the people who don’t fit into a category). The high school is a social fact because there are certain rules and guidelines that everyone must follow in order to survive high school. The nerds know that they don’t belong anywhere where the cool kids are and the nerds understand not to go near the rebels. These are all social facts within a high school. To go a little further, there is also a collective conscious in the understanding of how high school operates and how it works. The collective representation is how every individual student experiences and sees high school. It is a simple concept but gets to the point that Durkheim was trying to make.
Within collective representation, solidarity occurs. According to dictionary.com, solidarity is a “union or fellowship arising from common responsibilities and interest. . .” This in the end means that because the nerds are nerds and they don’t fit in with the cool kids, they have a certain common interest. This in the end causes them to have a tighter bond with one another and therefore cause unity among them but separation among the rest of the high school students. Then within the group of nerds rules and regulations are formed and people break away from each other causing more separation but solidarity at the same time.
I feel that this is how separation among people starts. Because there are norms and restraints among people, there are certain labels attached in which they can never get rid of. These labels separate each other instead of bringing society together.