Book Review: The Elementary Forms of Religious Life by Emile Durkheim

Emile Durkheim, sociologist

The Elementary Forms of Religious Life
by Emile Durkheim
p. 1912
Oxford University Press, USA; 
abridged edition edition (June 15, 2008)


       Is there any shame in reading an abridged version of this book?  Dear lord, I hope not.  You could probably condense the take-away from this book in two sentence:  Society creates religion, communication creates society.  Durkheim was one of the earliest articulators of the principles of "social constructivism," or as morons like to say, "cultural relativism."  
     I would frankly recommend this particular edition of Elementary Forms of Religious Life BECAUSE it's abridged.  Every time I saw the ellipsis [...] indicating that there had been an editing of Durkheim's torturous prose I breathed a tiny sigh of relief.
       That Elementary Forms of Religious Life continues to be relevant today is more a testament to the philosophical introduction and conclusion that place Durkheim squarely in the tradition of Kantian idealist philosophy (actually, squarely opposed to it.)  I find Durkheim's argument that Society can only be analyzed in terms of the relationship between people to be compelling.  I find Durkheims subsidiary claim that such analysis ought to be composed in scientific terms to be much, much, much less compelling.
      Let's face, it the very category of "social sciences" is a  joke because you can't perform scientific experiments with society very well.  Oh, you can do studies proving the obvious ("Fat people watch more tv.")("Poor children are more likely to commit crimes.") till the cows come home but more often then not you will either be stating the obvious, or just wrong.  Durkheim is also methodologically incompetent, choosing to base his observations about indigenous life solely on books that other people wrote.  Durkheim wrote an entire book about the religious life of indigenous Australians, but he appears to have never conversed with one.
    Durkheim probably bears of much of the blame as anyone for the current state of social "science."  Elementary Forms is just as interesting today for the epistemology of early twentieth century social science as it is for anything else, since his observations regarding the underlying human relationships of society have been well and truly observed and expanded upon for the last fifty years.
      In terms of his argument, Durkheim likes to lead with an observation made by a so-called specialist,  then he likes to establish a dichotomy/opposition and then he will describe both sides, and draw conclusions based on his categories and observations.  What he does not do is challenge the technical authorities that he cites, or challenge the idea that religion might not be describable in simple dialectic categories or challenged the idea that you can describe all of world religion based on Australian indigenous religious practices.  In fact, at times you get the distinct impression that he wants to say something about Christianity and/or Judaism but he is scared to challenge Christianity directly.
     Like Max Weber, the other great early 20th century European sociologist/philosopher, Durkheim is seeking to bring some kind of "scientific" rigor to philosophical/historical type observations of society.  It's a move that is grounded in the exponential increase in the need for university professors during that time.  It's easy to see how young professors expounding scientific SOUNDING theories about society behaved would have been attractive to those hiring professors and students alike.  The 20th century was all about "scientific certainty" and later on, about opposing scientific certainty.   Swinging like a pendulum, mirroring the larger recurring philosophical debate between metaphysics and epistemology.  
    Here, in Elementary Forms of Religious Life, Durkheim actually kind of starts swinging the pendulum, towards the scientific certainty side but at the same time you can see how truly shaky that argument was, right at the beginning.  Time has done his position no favors, but he did outline the debate early on.  That's why this book is more relevant for someone reading about 20th century philosophy then someone seeking to become a sociologist in the 21st century.

Book Reviews: The Road by Cormac McCarthy & Roderick Random by Tobias Smollet

the road


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If there is one thing I've learned from reading several 18th century classics of British literature: The English novel basically owes its existence to Don Quixote by Cervantes. I'm talking about the style of narrative called the "picaresque." You can define it in terms of Don Quixote or in more general terms as, "The English-language term can simply refer to an episodic recounting of the adventures of an anti-hero on the road."

The style continues to hold its power: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson. On the Road, maybe? It's a style of novel. It's important to focus on the generic forms of novelistic style, because if you happen to be a kick-ass writer like Cormac McCarthy you can set that shit in a post apocalyptic wasteland and forget the punctuation and score a Pulitzer in... 2006. Winner! The Road is in fact being made into a movie as we speak. It could be great like No Country for Old Men, or terrible like "the Postman" a sci-fi variation on the exact same story (but different) that was a decent piece of genre fiction and a TERRIBLE movie starring Kevin Costner.

Roderick Random is an example of the style at the very beginning: It is the anti-hero/hero on the road having adventures. Roderick is a bastard nobel man, raised in Scotland. He's well educated but poor, and he spends the rest of the novel trying to get paid circa 1740 or so. It's a delirious, exhausting ride. It's also four hundred pages long and written in 18th style language.

The Road, on the other hand, is practically a short story. I read it in 2 hours? It won the Pulitzer Prize AND was a pick for Oprah's Book Club in 2007. A film adaptation of the novel is currently in production. It is directed by John Hillcoat and written by Joe Penhall. The film stars Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee as the Man and the Boy, respectively. It's a really big deal, in other words.

But it's basically a picaresque focusing on an unnamed protagonist and his son. It's set in a post-apocalyptic version of the south eastern states of the east coast. It is probably the best piece of post apocalyptic literature ever. However it's the way it ties together genre fiction premise with a hallowed literary form and impeccable craftsmanship that makes it a classic.

It's amazing to be talking about two novels with a similar narrative shape that exist three centuries apart. It's pretty cool if you stop and think about it. The form actually influences the way people think about life. Read one, then the other. Post apocalyptic.

That's not to say that Roderick Random lacks any comic chops. The funniest part in the whole book comes at around p. 225 when Doctor Wagtail shows up. (GOOGLE LIBRARY RODERICK RANDOM FULL TEXT) He is a ridiculous fop.

While he thus indulged his own talkative vein, and at the same
time, no doubt, expected a retaliation from me, a young man
entered, dressed in black velvet and an enormous tie-wig, with an
air in which natural levity and affected solemnity were so jumbled
together, that on the whole he appeared a burlesque on all decorum.
This ridiculous oddity danced up to the table at which we sat, and
after a thousand grimaces, asked my friend, by the name of Mr.
Medlar, if we were not engaged on business.

That is the description of a ridiculous fop circa 1740s-50s, whatever. That's modern fashion society nearly three centuries ago. Anyway, the form allows you to explore a wide varieties of events within a single work. It's the kind of story people want to hear. It's as basic as "travelling on a boat." You just take an interesting dude and spool him through a series of locations and interactions. Simple. Both Roderick Random and The Road are excellent examples, separated by time.

left unanswered: What the fuck is a "skull kontrol"?

Be sure to check out the San Diego Union Tribune "Scenemaker" monthly feature with... Skull Kontrol! Yay!

Let's play the MO blind item guessing game:

Start:

Question: What a tool. Speaking of, who's the biggest tool in town right now?

MO: I'll describe him. He wears print hoodies, "DJs" crapola from a laptop, doesn't love music and does what he does for "chicks."

You may post guesses in the comment section. I KNOW who he's talking about- but I ain't talking shit. That doesn't mean anonymous commenters shouldn't' "SPREAD THE HATE."

And, for those of you who are going to cleverly nominate "cat dirt"- I don't know how to dj, and chicks hate me, fyi.

7/7/7 Cat Dirt Presents v. Skull Kontrol @ Beauty Bar San Diego
7/6/7 Cat Dirt Presents Vinyl Radio, Fifty on Their Heels, The Dirty Novels (Albuquerque, New Mexico!) @ The Ken Club