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Emil Durkheim
Emil Durkheim
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EMILE DURKHEIM AND THE PHILOSOPHY
I
OF NATIONALISM 1
N spiteof his untimely
deathin 1917, thereis stilla lively
interest in the doctrines of the eminent French soci-
ologist, ]mile Durkheim, heir of the Positivist phi-
losophy of Comte and Spencer. Brilliant members of the
Durkheim school, like Marcel Mauss, Celestin Bougle, Georges
Davy, and Paul Fauconnet, have followed the path of special-
ization for which he blazed the trail.2 By consecrating
themselves to the posthumous publication of his courses in
education and sociology they have kept his memorygreen in
intellectualcircles. In the United States, Charles Gehlke and
Harry Elmer Barnes have estimated his contributionsto so-
ciological theory,and his plans for pioliticalreconstruction."
Although the raison d'etre of his scientific research in
sociology was the welding of France into a well organized and
well integrated nation, and although there is a great deal in
his thought which is pertinent to an understanding of the
national fermentof contemporarytimes,no one has approached
Durkheim's work fromthe standpointof his nationalism. This
1 The works of Durkheim which bear most intimatelyupon this subject are
as follows: La Division du travail social, 2e. edition avec une nouvelle Preface
intitulee," Quelques remarquessur les groupementsprofessionelles ", I9oi; Les
R?gles de la mithode sociologique, I895; Le Suicide, I897; The Elementary
Forms of Religious Life, translatedby Joseph Ward, 19I5; the monographsin
L'Ann6e sociologique, pulblishedunder the directionof Durkheim, I898-I9I3;
the war pamphlets, Germany Above All, translated by J. S., I9I5, Who
Wanted War? translatedby A. M. Wilson-Garineau, 19I5, and Les Lettres a
tous les franfais, I916; the posthumouspublications Aducation et sociologie,
1922; Sociologie et philosophie,I924; L'Aducation morale, 1925; Le Socialisme,
sa definition,ses de'buts,la doctrinesaint-simonienne, 1928. The Revue philo-
sophique and the Revue de mhtaphysiqueet de morale contain many additional
monographs.
2 Paul Fauconnet has an article on "The Durkheim School in France", in
the Sociological Review, Vol. XIX, pp. I5-20.
3 Gehlke, Amile Durkheim's Contributionsto Sociological Theory; Barnes,
"Durkheim'sContributionto the Reconstructionof Political Theory",POLITICAL
SCIENCE QUARTERLY,Vol. XXXV, p. 236.
87
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88 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VOL. XLVI
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No. i] DURKHEIM AND NATIONALISM 89
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go POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VOL. XLVI
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No. I] DURKHEIM AND NATIONALISM 9I
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92 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VOL. XLVI
2Ibid., p. 22I.
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No. i] DURKHEIM AND NATIONALISM 93
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94 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VOL.XLVI
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No. i] DURKHEIM AND NATIONALISM 95
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96 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VOL. XLVI
that " social facts" must be considered as " things", and who
exalted the group as a personality infinitelysuperior to the
individual, came to regard the nation as the supreme reality
of his time.
When he spoke of " societies" he included not only the
family, the clan, the tribe, the city-stateand the nation, but
also the religious sect, the school, the occupational group and
so on.' They were all "societies", but they were not all of
equal importance. He recognized the " political society" and
la patrie as the most powerful social units in existence.2 By
the " political society" Durkheim seems to have meant the
state with particular relation to its governmentalframework.
He visualized la patrie as the spiritual incarnation of the
French people.3 Both were differentpoints of view on the
same reality-the nation. As the following statementclearly
indicates, he believed the principle of nationality to be the
only satisfactoryfoundationof the state:
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No. i] DURKIHEIM AND NATIONALISM 97
" social facts" which he stressed most in the compositionof a
society,we findthat those collective habits which had crystal-
lized in the form of political, moral, legal or religious insti-
tutions,and collective sentimentsin the form of the precepts,
maxims, laws and language of the group seemed to predomi-
nate.' The constituentelements of his national society were
therefore cultural, and his nation was largely the product
of customs, traditions and beliefs derived from a common
historicpast.
It followednaturallyfromthis,that each " collectivebeing"
had its own temperament,its soul and its own characteristics,
which could not be found again in exactly the same form in
the whole universe. In each nation the law, the economic
organization, the literature,the language, the monumentsand
the moral philosophy were in consonance with the character
of the people.2 This characterwas not subject to change from
day to day. Indeed, climate,temperatureand geological con-
ditions varied more easily from year to year than did the
temperof nations.3 Durkheim had very definiteideas about
the preservationof the national identitythroughoutthe whole
course of its existence,despite the forces of change and evolu-
tion. He found in France an excellent example of unity in
the developmentof a national society.4
Durkheim believed that the Frenchman, consciously or un-
consciously, was a " true Cartesian ".5 The French genius
was characterizedby a need for clarity,simplicity,and a thirst
for rationalism. Even the language was not made to translate
obscure ideas. French poets, novelists and artists depicted
man in general, instead of presenting characters as complex
as Faust or Hamlet.6 Cosmopolitanism was a trait of the
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98 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VOL. XLVI
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No. i] DURKHEIM AND NATIONALISM 99
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I00 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VOL.XLVI
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No. i] DURKHEIM AND NATIONALISM IOI
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102 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VOL. XLVI
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No. i] DURKIZEZM AIND NATIONALISM 103
But there did not exist any real society of humanity,with its
own organization, its own conscience-in a word, its own
individuality. The national state was the most highly organ-
ized human group that existed. Although he realized that
internationalties were already weakening the national, and
although he expected the dissolution of the present states to
be followed by the erection of others more vast than those of
today, he scarcely expected that there would ever be con-
stitutedone which comprised all humanity.' Instead of sub-
ordinating and sacrificinga group which actually existed to
an ideal which might never be more than " a being of the
reason", Durkheim proposed to realize human ideals within
the national group.2 Instead of striving for material expan-
sion at the expense of its neighbors, each state should focus
its attentionupon the improvementof social conditionswithin
its own frontiers. If thiswere done all rivalrybetweennations
would disappear, and therewould no longer be any antagonism
between the human and the national ideals, for they would be
one and the same thing. Each national state would become
a special point of view on humanity2'.3 Positivistthough he
was, Durkheim, because of his insistence on realities, could
not bring himselfto place the dream-stateof humanityabove
a national state in actual operation.
Durkheim was a Jew,but despite the anti-Semiticcampaign
that was waged in France at the close of the nineteenth
century,he was a soulful French patriot. He believed that
man could be complete only if he belonged heart and soul to
the various societies in which he was engaged-to the family,
the corporation,the political association, la patrie and human-
ity-but above all to the political association and la patrie.4
It is significantthat Durkheim made no plea for provincial
patriotism. Not that he expected territorialdistrictsto dis-
appear, but he thought regional ties artificial,and the pro-
1 Ibid., La Divisionz du travail social, pp. I38,
401.
2 L7?duzcation morale,
pp. 86-7; "La Sociologie en France ", Revue blene,
May, I900, p. 612.
3 L'tdueation morale, pp. 87-88.
bil., pp. 83-84, 9I.
4
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104 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VOL. XLVI
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No. i] DURKHEIM AND NATIONALISM 105
writings,however, easily lend themselvesto a differentinter-
pretationfor any one who cares to appreciate it. Among the
Australian natives he found that the totem was at once the
symbol of God and the flag of the clan; that, in other words,
the group and the divinitywere one.' If the clan worshipped
itself, and if the reality back of all religion was the society,
could there not be a religion of nationalism with the flag as
the visible representationof the national god? If the in-
dividual bows before the collectivityas before God, does he
not bow before the nation as the highest collective unit in
actual existence? Other statementscorroboratethis point of
view. Durkheim saw no essential difference between an
assembly of Christians celebrating the principal dates in the
life of Christ,or of Jews rememberingthe exodus fromEgypt,
and a reunion of citizens commemoratingsome great event in
the national life.2 There were beliefs which he felt were to
a considerable extent indistinguishable from actual religious
beliefs: " La patrie, the French Revolution, Jeanne d'Arc, are
for us sacred things, which we do not permit any one to
defame."' Moreover, he recognized the propensity of any
society to set itselfup as a god and to create gods. This was
never more evident than in the French Revolution, when
Fatherland, Liberty and Reason were deifiedby public opinion
in a religion which had its own dogmas, symbols, altars and
feasts.4 This idea of the nation-god is an obvious conclusion
to draw from Durkheim's writings,but I repeat that it con-
stitutedthe highest ideal of Durkheim, himself,only in so far
as la patrie spiritualized was a partial incarnationof humanity.
Not all sociologists who submerge the individual in the
personalityof the group, and who subject him to social laws
as invariable as those which govern the physical world, are
necessarily nationalists. Nor do all realists inevitably rush
to the conclusionthat the nation is the highest existing reality.
It must be acknowledged, however, that Durkheim's phi-
l Cf. supra, p. 92.
2 The ElementaryFormzsof Religious Life, p. 427.
"De"finition
3 des phen.omenesreligieux",Anneiesociologique, Vol. II, p. 20.
4 The ElementaryForms of Religious Life, p. 2I4.
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io6 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VOL. XLVI
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