How Durkheim Responded to the Issues of His Day

Emile Durkheim came to prominence at a time when Europe was attempting to redefine itself. It had already experienced a significant and major break with the past (its customs and traditions) during the Protestant Reformation in the 15th and 16th centuries, when Catholic Europe splintered apart. The Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment that followed led to a new rationalist spirit in Europe (England and France in particular), which served as the basis of modernism. A counter-swing (and prelude to post-modernism) was the Romantic Era, out of which Durkheim emerged in France -- a beneficiary of the Enlightenment doctrine's emphasis on rationalism and the Romantic Era's emphasis on imagination, and feeling. As French society attempted to redefine itself in the wake of political chaos (the Napoleonic Wars had destabilized the country), Durkheim offered a new approach to the science of society -- sociology -- and he became, so to speak, the father of sociology.

The major issues at that time in France were regarding labor, religion, crime, suicide, and social order. Durkheim addressed all of these issues in his writings. He approached them from the perspective of viewing society holistically: his theory was that in order for societies to survive, they must be integral and coherent; with society fracturing into numerous parts and fragments, it was the sociologist's job to analyze the parts and the whole and assess why and how the "collective consciousness" was being formed and where it was going. Durkheim presented a mechanical, methodical, and systematic way of examining society and thus advocated for the adoption of sociology as a legitimate science.

I would use Durkheim's theory of the "collective consciousness" to analyze our society today, as it is an apt way of describing the manner in which the whole of society appears to be moving. It is like identifying the zeitgeist of an age/culture in order to explain why events occur at a given time. For instance, the rise of Trump in the U.S. as a political contender can be explained by examining the "collective consciousness."

Part II

Something that I and members of my family have long believed to be true WW2 was the "good war" and that the U.S. along with the allies played the part of the "good guys." This belief originated in the propaganda offices of the U.S. Department of War and was reinforced through cartoons (Looney Tunes) aimed at children and the baby boomer generation in the post-war era to legitimize the reconstruction of the post-war world in terms that were favorable to the U.S. and the allies. Yet, even as the U.S. was said to be fighting Communism, it was allied with the Communists in Russia against Germany and Japan. This point could serve as a starting point into an investigation about what were the underlying causes and reasons for the war and the U.S.'s entry into it. The fact that Pearl Harbor was attacked does not provide a sufficient justification, as there was pre-knowledge of the attack, as the inquiry into who was responsible for the lack of preparation at the naval base showed. Thus, I would test this belief by pursuing lines of inquiry into the work of revisionist historians, who typically challenge the mainstream or state-supported narratives that provide the propagandistic basis for the popular belief.