Essay About Social Fact And Emile Durkheim

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Emile Durkheim was strongly influenced by Auguste
Comte, usually regarded to be the founder of sociology.
Comte believed in positivism. All phenomenon that
belonged in the category of science had to be observable
and provable. To Durkheim, a social fact was a fact that had a basis in
scientific observation. In his famous study, “Suicide,” he
began by pointing out a number of social facts and then
proceeded to attempt explanations based on the facts. For example: Social fact: Protestants committed suicide
more than did Catholics or Jews. Social fact: Single people
committed suicide more than did married people. Social
fact: Married people with children committed suicide less
often than married people without children, and so forth. One of his conclusions was that the more social ties a
person has, the less likely he/she is to commit suicide. In
this context, its easy to understand the married v. single
and married-with-children v. married-without-children
phenomenon. What may not be so obvious is the
religious factor. In his time, Protestants were closer in belief to the teachings of Martin Luther, who believed
that there should be no church. However, John Calvins
teachings about the importance of communal worship
were also influential. At any rate, Protestant churches
were more loose-knit than the very close and traditional
Catholic and Hebrew churches (synagogues).
Oh okay, how about his theory of the normality of crime
then? Durkheim believed that crime is normal because there has
been no society in history where some level of crime was
not present, and it was functional because it served to
reinforce social norms. Crime will always be present, even
in a city of saints there would be crime. The activities and
behaviours of those that were not widely understood would come to be understood as crime because it would
create an otherness and difference