Durkheim’s many abstract ideas about our social world and how we make rules that govern our everyday lives. It is easier to understand when someone like Gabriel A. Acevedo uses his ideas and interprets what it is that Durkheim is trying to explain to us. In Acevedo’s article “Turning Anomie on its Head” In this reading we come to understand many concepts that provide us with a different perspective of social life which contrast Marxist ideas of social life and the idea that people are innocent by nature. Anomie as Durkheim explains it is the under-regulation or the lack of social norms like rules, for people it becomes a sense of lost. Other things that Acevedo talks about in this article is that unlike Marx who believes that over regulation will lead to anomie under-regulation for Durkheim is what leads to anomie. Durkheim believes that people are born to either good or evil and that there is really no such this and pure innocence or good. Fatalism and alienation arise from over-regulation, yet fatalism is distinct in that it is more of a sense of giving up. Also Durkheim’s idea of collective consciousness that arises from his work “Suicide” is a form of collectiveness that comes from peoples shared beliefs that bring them together as a society whether these beliefs are good or bad.
One example that I thought was perfect for this is the book, which is also a film, Lord of the Flies by William Golding that can be used to help show how anomie and collective consciousness can be portrayed in this book. Lord of the flies is about a group of children who are left stranded on an island. These children after having given up hopes of being rescued create rules for survival. Two of the eldest children are in charge and there are some rivalries that arise from the different approaches to survival. Ralph is one of the leaders who despite all the odds has not lost complete hope to be rescued, yet Jack, who is the other leader, gathers the support of the majority of the group to become “savages”. Jacks power lacks structure and you can say that although the children who follow Jack have some rules they are in a sense of anomie because they do not really know what is expected from them they govern themselves as they see fit without rules they are just like animals just trying to survive. This sense of anomie creates chaos and disturbance amongst the children that they have grown to distrust anything that they don’t know about. After one of the children in Jack’s group kill the only adult left alive after mistaking him for a beast another child from Ralph’s group finds him and he runs back to tell the children of his discovery and is killed by the children because they were scared and panicked. After seeing what they’ve done they lose all sense for rules and seek out to have the rest of the children in Ralph’s group join in course of events Ralph loses two of his friends and is left alone and on the run from Jacks group because they were sent out to hunt him down to kill him. Durkheim’s definition of collective consciousness can be seen in this book in a negative way through Jacks use of solidarity and control of the children’s feeling of fear and distraught to bring them to commit horrible acts and they all collectively agree to kill the children and hunt Ralph. Another this that I can point out from this is Durkheim doesn’t believe that humans are not truly innocent as Marx believes, but that we are “creatures endowed with certain potentials for good and evil” (82). We come to believe that children are the innocent of all humans and if these children theoretically could commit these horrible acts of violence then Durkheim’s belief is not far from truth.
One example that I thought was perfect for this is the book, which is also a film, Lord of the Flies by William Golding that can be used to help show how anomie and collective consciousness can be portrayed in this book. Lord of the flies is about a group of children who are left stranded on an island. These children after having given up hopes of being rescued create rules for survival. Two of the eldest children are in charge and there are some rivalries that arise from the different approaches to survival. Ralph is one of the leaders who despite all the odds has not lost complete hope to be rescued, yet Jack, who is the other leader, gathers the support of the majority of the group to become “savages”. Jacks power lacks structure and you can say that although the children who follow Jack have some rules they are in a sense of anomie because they do not really know what is expected from them they govern themselves as they see fit without rules they are just like animals just trying to survive. This sense of anomie creates chaos and disturbance amongst the children that they have grown to distrust anything that they don’t know about. After one of the children in Jack’s group kill the only adult left alive after mistaking him for a beast another child from Ralph’s group finds him and he runs back to tell the children of his discovery and is killed by the children because they were scared and panicked. After seeing what they’ve done they lose all sense for rules and seek out to have the rest of the children in Ralph’s group join in course of events Ralph loses two of his friends and is left alone and on the run from Jacks group because they were sent out to hunt him down to kill him. Durkheim’s definition of collective consciousness can be seen in this book in a negative way through Jacks use of solidarity and control of the children’s feeling of fear and distraught to bring them to commit horrible acts and they all collectively agree to kill the children and hunt Ralph. Another this that I can point out from this is Durkheim doesn’t believe that humans are not truly innocent as Marx believes, but that we are “creatures endowed with certain potentials for good and evil” (82). We come to believe that children are the innocent of all humans and if these children theoretically could commit these horrible acts of violence then Durkheim’s belief is not far from truth.