Emile
Durkheim – "The Genesis of the Notion of the Totemic Principle or Mana"
– summary and review" - part 1 -2 -3
In The
Genesis of the Notion of the Totemic Principle or Mana" (in Elementary Forms of Religious Life) Emile Durkheim claims that religion does not serve to explain
external phenomena such as natural life, and that its actual role is in anchoring
social reality for individuals. Since, as Durkheim argues in The Elementary
Forms of Religious Life, divinity is in fact society itself, religion is a conceptual
system through which the individual is able to imagine himself and his
community. What you feel towards the totem (see Totemism) is in fact what you feel towards
your community.
Durkheim
maintains that religion in the driving force of human intellectual development,
be it religious or otherwise, and that it was religion that allowed man to look
beyond his sensual perception of himself and reality, and in fact attempt to explain
the world. Religion paved the way to philosophy and modern science which are
all dependant on social conditions.
One
critique of Durkheim's totemic principle idea is that he stresses mechanisms of
integration and solidarity in take on the relations between society and
religion, and he ignores power relations and interests which function within
society. Critical approaches (such as the Marxist tradition) feel that this
element is the one missing in Durkheim's otherwise brilliant analysis of the religious
sentiment and its societal origins.
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