Talk:Mechanical and organic solidarity

Some incoherent text
The following text was following the table before it was split from the solidarity article. Perhaps somebody can make some sense from it and resuce something useful. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk 21:27, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

"...if I have properly understood gesellschaft is supposed to be characterised by a progressive development of individualism, the dispersive effects of which can only be prevented for a time, and by artificial means by the action of the state, it is essentially a mechanical aggregate."


 * Durkheim believed that Ferdinand Tönnies saw individualism as working against moral order, people become unattached like atoms flowing in space suggesting that the only thing holding people together, prevented relationships from fracturing, and holds people to society was the imposition of order and coherence of the state.


 * Durkheim asserted that the life of social agglomerates is just as natural, and is no less internal as that of small groupings.


 * He characterised preindustrial societies as mechanical and industrial societies as organic (thus opposing Toennies theories by using opposite terminology)


 * Although the bonds of mechanical solidarity were based on "a more or less organized totality of beliefs and sentiments common to all the members of the group," this gave way in industrial society to potent new forces that were characterised by heightened complexity and differentiation, an increased dependence on society, and, seemingly paradoxically at first glance, a growing level of individual autonomy. (Kivisto, Peter, Key Ideas in Sociology, 2nd ed. Pine Forge Press 2004)

Relationship between organic and mechanical solidarity
Relationship between Mechanical and organic solidarity 41.186.78.225 (talk) 09:37, 19 June 2022 (UTC)