Emile Durkheim was not afraid to challenge the way that people thought about the world. One of his most interesting topics is that of solidarity. He believed that there are two different kinds of solidarity. The first kind of solidarity is mechanical, and can be seen with small preindustrial communities. In these communities there is a focus on the collective well-being of the group. Everyone gets to know the people that are in the community on a personal level, and they become important to each other. These social bonds are what create solidarity. The people do not have a lot of division of labor because they have multiple roles within their community. The laws that they have in place serve to punish an individual for what they did wrong. The second kind of solidarity is organic, which is seen predominately in large postindustrial societies. These societies are more focused on individuality. There is a division of labor where everyone has their own specific role to focus on. This also means that the people are interdependent on one another even if they do not know each other personally. They have to rely on others for the things that they need to succeed in society. This interdependence is what creates solidarity in these societies. There are also rules and laws that are established to keep everyone under control. When someone breaks the rules they are usually forced to compensate for what they did wrong to restore order to society.
When we think of the two different kinds of solidarity we will usually think of moving from a mechanical society to an organic society. People start off as a small close knit group, and as the population grows larger it shifts to a more individualistic and specialized society. We like to think that society will always be growing and advancing, but what happens when the opposite takes place? It would take something very serious like war or widespread disease to get this to happen. An example where we can see this is on the TV show The Walking Dead. On this show a virus spreads that reanimates the dead and causes them to attack the living. It is set in Georgia, and focuses on a specific group of people that are trying to survive. When the series started we could see how the people had a hard time getting by when the zombies first attacked, but after they formed their groups and started working together they began to figure out how to survive and keep humanity going.