Durkheim's Legacy
Mestrovic & the Rise of Barbarism
By Frank W. Elwell, Rogers State University
According to Stjepan Mestrovic, the world
is in crisis and sociology is having a difficult
time in apprehending 
that crisis.
The West is without a comprehensive system
of morality, each individual is left to his
or her own devices, there is little restraint
on the individual will. Without a moral system
that truly binds individuals to the social
order, crime has reached epidemic levels;
politics has become a game of power and dominance
rather than governance and consensus; economic
competition has become unrestrained and often
counter to the good of the social whole; violence
in pursuit of individual "happiness" has
become a way of life; suffering and discontent
despite material abundance has become the
norm (Mestrovic, 1988/1993, p. ix.).
According to Mestrovic, the western world
is living at the height of civilization and
barbarism. Human knowledge today is greater
than ever before; our understanding of nature
and our universe has never been more accurate.
Literacy has been spread to the masses; higher
education is increasingly made available to
wider segments of the population. Our technology
advances on a daily basis; we manipulate our
environment to fashion goods and services unparalleled in human history.
At the same time, we are living in an era
when wars kill thousands; divorce is rampant;
inequality within and between nations is high;
democratic governments engage in torture;
child abuse--sexual, emotional, physical--has
seemingly become epidemic; mass murder on
the part of governments has become commonplace;
corporations exploit workers, customers, governments,
and the environment; murder and other forms
of violent crime are at alarmingly high rates;
consumerism has become a way of life for many;
drug use and abuse is epidemic; and politicians
engage in lies and deception to get elected
and to govern.
And the list could easily go on; just go
to any cable news channel on any given day,
read a daily newspaper or a weekly news magazine; civilization
is indeed advancing, barbarism is on the rise.
Mestrovic asks, could the two be inextricably
intertwined?
Civilization, or the creation of rational
institutions through government to contain
barbarism, is simply not effective. Barbarism,
or the "will" of the individual, cannot
be constrained by such rationally constructed
systems. The "heart" (egoism) is always
stronger than the "mind" (society); the
constraining of the barbaric will can only
be accomplished by other "habits of the
heart" that are equally powerful.
These habits of the heart, Mestrovic claims,
are feelings of altruism and compassion, the
other side of human nature that must be cultivated
and given expression in our culture. But,
he warns, such altruism cannot be systematized:
"But I cannot repeat often enough that they
[Durkheim and Veblen] were against the neo-Kantian,
rational, systematization of these benign
traits. The moment that one tries to systematize
compassion into socialism, for example, one
has converted a benign trait into its opposite.
This is because, according to Durkheim, any
time we act from duty, fear, or any sort of
compulsion, we are really acting on the basis
of egoistic self-interest, which is the basis
for barbarism. Durkheim claims over and over
again in his writings that genuine human goodness
must be sought spontaneously, for its own
sake" (Mestrovic, 1993, p. 47).
For Mestrovic (and Durkheim) the problem becomes
how can we foster the development of such
empathy and compassion within the individual?
This problem becomes particularly acute in
that the development of civilization seems
to be eliminating the basis of such empathy
by weakening traditional institutions such
as family and community that instilled these
values within the individual, and strengthening economic institutions
that inflame the egoistic will.
Both Durkheim and Mestrovic argue strongly
that compassion cannot be learned, it can
only be transmitted through example. To do
this, Durkheim advocated "the revival of
guild-like associations and the family"
to model compassion and foster its development
within individuals; such development would
bind the individual to others with bonds of
love and commitment (Mestrovic, 1994, pp. 71-72).
Such guilds have not formed, and the family
as well as religion, community, and other
institutions that functioned to bind the individual
to the whole, continue to be weakened in the
West; Durkheim's aphorism that  "The old
gods are growing old or are already dead,
and others are not yet born" remains true
today. As a consequence, Western societies
are in danger of disintegration (Durkheim,
1912/1954, p. 475).
"In addition to the weakening of the social
bond that makes Western society more vulnerable
to disintegration, there are social forces
in the modern world which are promoting Balkanization
(fragmentation of nation-states into smaller
and smaller states).
Whereas the capitalist-industrial world promoted
the consolidation of societies melding ethnic,
religious, and racial groups into conglomerated
nation-states and empires, new forces of sectarian
religion and narrow nationalism focused on
these more traditional identities are now
actively promoting the disintegration of nation states. The
Soviet Union and Eastern Europe fell to such
forces; they will increasingly threaten the
West as well.
Seeking identity, values, direction, and meaning
in the modern nation state and failing to
find it, millions have turned to sectarian
religions and ideologies that glorify folk
identity and advocate "suspicion, paranoia,
and sometimes even hate of their neighbors." Perhaps
in reaction to the decline of traditional
religions that were universal in nature and
preached love and brotherhood, these fundamentalist
faiths have attached themselves to political
movements that seek to separate from the dominant
culture and establish a more homogenous social
order."
Again, it was Durkheim who encompassed all
of this within his sociology; Durkheim who
made religion and the sacred a centerpiece
of his thought; Durkheim who pointed to the
increasing division of labor as both the key
to modern society and economic development
as well as the root cause of anomie and widespread
discontent. According to Mestrovic, this key
insight of Durkheim and other early social
scientists that society is held together by
irrational feelings of love, affection, attachment,
empathy, and devotion to one another has been
lost to modern sociologists. This loss has
had tragic consequences for sociology and
for western society.
The spread of modernity has destroyed all
bases for the formation and maintenance of
a collective conscience necessary to bind
the individual to the society. The collective
conscience serves to guide individual behavior
and desires in ways that are beneficial to
the group as a whole. With this weakening,
the individual "will" becomes increasingly
unchecked, and consistent with our folk wisdom
of unchecked power, becomes more and more
egocentric, corrupt, decadent, and barbaric.
These groups compete with one another for
our allegiance often by debunking and attacking
each other; information in support of or attacking
the ideological position or mythology of these
groups is freely available to all; consequently
few can give unquestioned allegiance, all
causes and positions can be countered, ridiculed,
discounted, or balanced with additional information.
The result is the spread of a personality
that is unable to take a long-term committed
stand on anything, that takes all views as
relative.
The weakening of the collective conscience
also takes an emotional toll on the individual,
according to Mestrovic, for the emotional
bonds of individuals to the group are part
of our very humanity. The weakening of the
collective leaves us exposed to the manipulation
of our emotions by governments, corporations,
and the culture industry as a whole. These
cynical manipulations through the media are
aimed at evoking feelings of covetousness,
community, pride, and other pseudo-emotions
in an effort to harvest votes, poll numbers,
commitment, or money.
Much of Mestrovic's writings are philosophical
explorations of Durkheim's sociology and
its relevance to understanding the present
crisis of Western societies. Along with Durkheim,
Mestrovic asserts that men and women are born
with two natures, a strong ego or will and
a mind or spirit that seeks to make sense
of the world. The will is essentially our
animal nature, our drive to satisfy our biological
needs. The mind or "collective conscience"
primarily comes from the groups and organizations
that give us life.
Without strong integration into such social
groups, that is, without the bonds of love
and commitment that promote the internalization
of moral guidance, the ego/will is loosed
upon the world without mercy. Humans exploit
the natural and social world without check;
since unchecked desires can never be fully satisfied,
and rampant anti-social behavior is counter
to human welfare, unhappiness and misery (anomie)
become a widespread social condition, that is the condition of anomie.
 
The morality needed to check this condition cannot
come from rational sources, one cannot legislate,
teach, or contrive institutions to instill
morality; in fact, rationality tends to further
weaken traditional institutions that are the
source of the needed moral authority.
As a consequence, many fall prey to factions
that give meaning and identity to the individual,
but at the expense of the social whole. Others
searching for meaning and identity are cynically
manipulated by governments and corporations
for power and wealth.
What is needed, both Durkheim and Mestrovic
argue, is the birth of new social structures
that can inspire love and commitment of people
and fully integrate people into the social
whole. Lacking this integration, the will
is left to its own devices and engages in
barbarism and other exploitive behaviors in
a futile attempt to satisfy its whims.
For a more extensive discussion of Durkheim's
theories refer to Macro Social Theory, available
through Amazon.com at a reasonable price.
Also see Sociocultural Systems: Principles
of Structure and Change to learn how his insights
contribute to a fuller understanding of modern
societies. This book can be purchased at most
online bookstores or at Athabasca University
Press. If you are short of funds Athabasca
also offers a free pdf version of the work.
A significant portion of the royalties I receive
for these books go to the Rogers State University
Foundation in support of students in the Liberal
Arts. I thank you for your support and interest.
