Introduction
In The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912), Émile Durkheim posited that religion is fundamentally a social fact rather than a supernatural phenomenon. He argued that when individuals worship a deity or totem, they are unconsciously projecting society's moral authority onto external symbols, thereby leading to the proposition that through religion, society deifies itself.
1. The Dichotomy and Self-Deification
This process of social self-deification operates through a fundamental, bipartite classification of reality into two non-overlapping spheres:
- Sacred vs. Profane: The sacred consists of things set apart, forbidden, and collectively revered through social sanction. The profane encompasses the mundane, routine, and utilitarian individual activities of daily life.
- Totem as a Mirror of Collective Force: Because the abstract moral authority of society is difficult to conceptualise, the group objectifies and projects its collective energy onto a physical symbol (the totem), thereby converting diffuse social pressure into tangible divine authority.
- Collective Effervescence: Periodic religious gatherings and rituals (such as the Puri Ratha Yatra) generate intense group emotional energy, temporarily suspending profane individual preoccupations, replenishing the collective conscience, and reinforcing mechanical solidarity.
2. Anthropological and Empirical Limitations
Field-based anthropologists have strongly questioned Durkheim’s rigid binary and his methodological reliance on secondary ethnographic accounts of the Australian Arunta tribe:
- E.E. Evans-Pritchard: In his fieldwork among the Nuer and Azande, Evans-Pritchard argued that the sacred and profane are continuously intermingled, requiring a situational flexibility that Durkheim's rigid, absolute dichotomy fails to capture.
- W.E.H. Stanner: From his empirical studies of Australian Aboriginals, Stanner declared the binary operationally unusable, noting that the more closely the profane category is studied, the less suitable it appears, thereby demonstrating an oversimplification of Aboriginal social reality.
- Bronislaw Malinowski: Malinowski observed that pragmatic, profane tasks (such as open-sea and lagoon fishing among the Trobriand Islanders) are interwoven with magical and sacred rites to reduce psychological anxiety, disproving any strict spatial or cognitive separation.
3. Sociological and Neo-Durkheimian Re-evaluations
- Max Weber's Theory of Social Action: Weber departed from Durkheim's static functionalism. Rather than viewing religion solely as an integrative mechanism for social cohesion, Weber demonstrated in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism that religious ideas act as independent, dynamic catalysts of rationalisation and economic transformation.
- Jeffrey Alexander's Cultural Sociology: Employing a neo-Durkheimian framework through his 'Strong Program', Alexander argues that contemporary secular societies still code reality via this binary. Modern cultures sacralise core democratic values and profane institutional crises (e.g., political scandals and digital violations), proving that modern civil religions continue to deify collective social ideals.
Conclusion
While Durkheim's rigid empirical dichotomy has faced substantial ethnographic critique, his central theoretical premise remains deeply insightful. Modern secular nationalism, civic rituals, and constitutional sacralisation demonstrate that human societies persist in constructing sacred boundaries to venerate their own shared collective values.