Breaking down the question

The question is thinker-specific and text-specific. It asks you to elaborate Durkheim's views as developed in his last major work, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. The examiner wants the core argument of that book — Durkheim's definition of religion, the sacred-profane distinction, his study of totemism, and his sociological conclusion that the true object of religious worship is society itself.

At ten marks the answer must be compact and focused. Do not drift into a general survey of the sociology of religion or into Marx and Weber. The task is to reconstruct Durkheim's specific thesis: that by studying the simplest, most elementary religion — totemism among the Australian Aborigines — one can uncover the essential nature and social function of all religion.

For elaboration, use the notes on sociological theories of religion and on Emile Durkheim.

How to approach it

Open with the aim of the book — to discover the essence of religion by examining its most elementary form. Give Durkheim's definition of religion and the foundational division of the world into the sacred and the profane. Then set out totemism as the elementary form, and his key inference from it.

  • The definition — a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, uniting adherents into a moral community.
  • The sacred and the profane — the fundamental classification underlying all religion.
  • Totemism — the totem as the sacred emblem of the clan, and Durkheim's demonstration that god and clan are one.
  • Collective effervescence — ritual gatherings as the source of religious sentiment and social solidarity.
  • The conclusion — in worshipping the sacred, society worships itself; religion sustains the collective consciousness and social order.

Model answer

In The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1912), Emile Durkheim set out to uncover the essential nature and social origins of religion by studying its simplest, most elementary form. He reasoned that the fundamental features of religion would be most visible where religion was least elaborate, and so turned to the totemism of the Australian Aborigines, which he took to be the most primitive religion known. His method was thus to explain the complex by the simple, and the modern by the elementary.

Durkheim defined religion as a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things — things set apart and forbidden — beliefs and practices which unite all who adhere to them into a single moral community he called a church. Two elements of this definition are decisive. Religion is inseparable from a community of believers, and it rests upon the fundamental classification of the world into the sacred and the profane. The profane is the ordinary, everyday domain of work and utility; the sacred is the extraordinary, set apart, surrounded by prohibition and treated with awe and reverence. This division, Durkheim held, is universal to religion and is society's most basic act of classification.

In totemism, the totem — usually a plant or animal — is the sacred emblem of the clan. It is at once the symbol of the totemic god and the symbol of the clan itself. From this coincidence Durkheim drew his celebrated inference: since the totem symbolises both the divine and the clan, the god and the society must be one and the same. The force that believers experience as sacred and divine is, in reality, the force of society acting upon them. Religion is therefore the way in which a society represents itself to itself in symbolic form.

Durkheim explained how this sacred force is generated through collective effervescence. When the dispersed members of the clan assemble for collective ritual, the intense shared emotion and heightened energy of the gathering lift them out of their profane, individual existence into a state of exaltation. This effervescence is experienced as a sacred power external to the individual, and it is projected onto the totem. Ritual thus periodically recreates the sense of the sacred and renews the bonds of the group.

From this analysis Durkheim drew his central sociological conclusions about the functions of religion. Religion reinforces the collective consciousness — the shared beliefs and sentiments that constitute the moral unity of society; it generates and renews social solidarity through collective worship; and it strengthens social control by investing shared norms with sacred authority. The essence of religion is therefore social, and its true object is the social bond itself.

Durkheim's account has been criticised for generalising from a single, simple case, for neglecting religion's role in conflict and division, and for reducing religion to society. Nonetheless, The Elementary Forms remains a foundational text, establishing the sociological claim that religion is, at bottom, the worship of society and the source of its moral cohesion.

Examiner's perspective

The examiner expects a focused reconstruction of Durkheim's argument in this specific text, not a general essay on religion. The pivotal elements are the definition of religion, the sacred-profane distinction, the study of totemism, and the conclusion that in worshipping the totem the clan worships society. Collective effervescence and the functions of religion — reinforcing collective consciousness and solidarity — complete the account.

The strongest short answers name Durkheim's concepts precisely and clinch the argument with his signature claim that the god and the society are one. A brief critical note — the narrow empirical base, or the neglect of conflict — signals balance within the ten-mark limit. Disciplined focus on Durkheim's own text outperforms a padded answer that strays into comparison with Marx or Weber.