What did Durkheim mean by ‘collective conscience’?

 Collective Conscience: ‘Common Conscience’ or ‘Collective Conscience’ is another basic concept that was focused by Durkheim on the Division of Labour.

He believed that conscience is the body of beliefs, practises and common sentiment held throughout society and it gives social purpose and structures social life. The collective conscience is described by a likeness of moral and mental sentiments. The collective conscience is different from individual conscience and is diffused throughout society. 

The collective conscience helps in maintaining social solidarity and also connecting different generations to each other. When the collective conscience is uniform, the better will be the individual attachment to collective beliefs and sentiments (Morrison 1995). The box below will help us learn more about collective conscience and society.

Box: Collective Conscience and Society “Durkheim explained the collective consciousness as the body of beliefs and sentiments common to the average of the members of a society’. The system of these beliefs and sentiments has a life of its own.

It is assigned throughout the whole of the society and has specific features, which make it a distinct reality. Collective consciousness is independent of the particular conditions in which individuals are placed and is distributed over the whole of the territory of a society – to large and small towns and villages.

Individuals come in and go out of society, however collective conscience remains. The collective conscience can only be understood through individuals; it has a form beyond a particular person, and operates at a level higher than him/her. There is a variation in collective conscience in the extent and force from one society to another. 

The collective conscience embraces the greater part of individual consciousness in less advanced societies. In such societies the extent of collective conscience is stronger and greater.

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