DURKHEIM AND RELIGION

Durkheim's later work concerned religion. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life was published in 1912. Two important things come out from this:
 1. Culture has a social origin.
 2. The world is divided into the "sacred" and the "profane"
  (a division between the religious and the secular)

By sacred things one must not simply understand those personal things which are called gods or spirits: a rock, a tree, a spring, a piece of wood, a house, in a word, anything can be sacred.
(E. Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of Religious Live, 1912, cited Haralambos, Sociology: Themes and Perspectives, 5th edn., 2000, page 432; 6th edn., 2004, page 406.)

In simple societies, the collective conscience is strong, with shared moral beliefs and values for society. But Durkheim does not use culture (in the sense of the behaviour and material artifacts of a society)  with reference to what he called the collective conscience.

The totality of beliefs and sentiments common to average citizens of the same society forms a determinate system which has its own life; one may call it the "collective conscience".
(Durkheim, The Division of Labour in Society, [originally published 1893] quoted from 1947 edition, Haralambros, Sociology Themes and Perspectives, 2000 edn., page 887).

In societies characterised by what Durkheim called "mechanical solidarity", those with little division of labour, there is a relatively uniform culture.

In more complex societies, with greater division of labour where the social process evolves into the more sophisticated mechanical solidarity, a shared culture is still necessary but is less strong. These societies have two distinct defects:
 1. individualism  leading to egotism
 2. meaninglessness leading to  "anomie"
Anomie results from changes which disrupt relationships; and produce social problems such as high rate of suicide.
Durkheim thought that in a shared culture, the collective conscience exists above individuals and shapes their choices. In a society based on likeness (as in mechanical solidarity) the collective conscience does not change from generation to generation.. It is completely different to a particular consciousness of a single individual. In such as society people must conform to the culture of their society to avoid the risk of punishment, usually harsh punishment.
 Examples of this include
 1. The stoning of women found to have committed adultery.
 2. The forcible drowning of witches (women who cast spells - at least how male courts have so interpreted the sayings of these women).

Durkheim's views have been questioned.
1. The work on the Port MacKay aboriginal ignored the fact that this society was based on marriage clans. The work is based on published literature, not original fieldwork.
2. Durkheim exaggerates how much social structure influences culture or is the determining factor.
3. Little room for human creativity.
Many pastoral societies and those based subsistence agriculture nevertheless have the ability to produce complex works of art: e.g. the Benin bronzes from Nigeria or the grave goods of Anglo-Saxon chiefs in sixth- and seventh-century England.
4. Durkheim does not address the problem of cultural differences between groups.   

Durkheim was the pioneer of the social theory of culture.

FUNCTIONALISM AND CULTURE

Durkheim influenced Talcott Parsons. One of Parsons' books is The Social System, published in 1951. Parsons sees cultural objects as symbols of cultural tradition. For Parsons, amongst much else, culture includes
 1. Language