The Sociology of Emotions and the History of Social Differentiation

The Sociology of Emotions and the History of Social DifferentiationAuthor(s): Michael HammondSource: Sociological Theory, Vol. 1 (1983), pp. 90-119Published by: WileyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/202048 .

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In Primitive Classification, Durkheim suggests using the notion of affectivity to explain the emergence of various social structures. This bold attempt to extend the role of affectivity in sociological thinking has been rejected by most social scientists. By greatly elaborating Durkheim's outline for a sociology of emotions, however, this essay suggests that there is a fruitful way to use affectivity in macrosociological theory. This model allows us to develop in a new way Durkheim's description of structural differentiation and stratification in The Division of Labor in Society.

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THE SOCIOLOGY OF EMOTIONS AND THE HISTORY OF SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION

Michael Hammond UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

In sociological theory, emotions have generally been thought to

result from specific social conditions and their importance has been

seen primarily as social glue to bind individuals together.1 In this

chapter I want to expand the theoretical scope of the sociology of emotions by demonstrating how affectivity-the physiological capacities to generate emotions-can shape the structure of human social

creations, especially in regard to differentiation and stratification. The

first part of this argument is cast in terms of an analysis of Durkheim's

Primitive Classification, because in this work he edged closest to such a

use of affectivity in sociological theory. Then I shall show that The

Division of Labor in Society implicitly uses the same affective model

and, when viewed from this perspective, contains insights pointing to

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new directions in theory. For reasons that go far beyond the scope of this essay, Durkheim never presented a formal sociology of emotions and thus I make no claim that my reconstruction is the "authentic" Durkheim, if such exists. Instead, it is my hope that a selective use of Durkheim will illuminate an undeveloped but fruitful aspect of his

heritage. The general model for the sociology of emotions in Durkheim's

writings comprises four general principles. First, the strongest and most meaningful social bonds are based on intense affective arousal, and people seek to construct social worlds facilitating this arousal.

Second, emotions have a potentially unlimited generality of object, such that virtually anything can become a focus for emotive

expression. Individual affective resources are limited, however, since

prolonged intense arousal is physiologically debilitating and eventu- ally destructive. Thus people can provide affective additions to only a small range of the possible objects for affective focusing.

Third, intense interaction with such affective tools creates reified hierarchical classifications with social distance between possible objects for affective focusing. This distance is a universal feature of human social structures.

Fourth, the nature of this distance varies according to social density. Given the limited affective capacity of individuals, the greater the density, the greater the likelihood that people will seek to differentiate themselves and stratify these differences. This creates a pattern in human history moving from the sacred/profane division of the natural world in hunting and gathering societies to the stratified division of the social world through economic differentiation in contemporary industrial cultures.

The outlines of this model are developed in greatest detail in Primitive Classification, a work best known for its overly ambitious contention that the logical systems in hunting and gathering cultures are direct reflections of their social context.2 The ethnographic and theoretical problems presented by this assertion have raised considerable interest, but they also have obscured another set of arguments in the sociology of emotions put forward by Durkheim and his coauthor Marcel Mauss.3 First, there is a claim that affectivity promotes the emergence of these classifications of nature. These affective forces "gave birth" to such classifications ([1903], 1963a, p. 85) and "induced

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men to divide things as they did between the classes" (pp. 84-85). Moreover, these emotive forces are presented as "the basis of domestic, social, and other kinds of organization" (p. 85). Furthermore, it is argued that affectivity, classifications of nature, and social density are related: As groups grow in size, differentiation occurs along the lines of these classifications (p. 32). Durkheim is therefore claiming that there is something about human affectivity that shapes the very structure of social constructions and the pattern in which these fabrications

change. Durkheim's tentative assertions have not been greeted warmly.

Rodney Needham for one finds it "difficult not to recoil in dismay from this unevidenced and unreasoned resort to sentiment as the ultimate explanation for the complexities of social and symbolic classification" (1963, p. xxiii). He clearly raises the key problem in regard to

emotions-namely, that Durkheim has reversed the conventional way in which affectivity is viewed in the social sciences. Referring to Levi- Strauss's parallel criticism, Needham suggests that affectivity should be seen as a consequence and not a cause (1963, p. xxiv).4 Since Durkheim does not explain in Primitive Classification precisely how affectivity might lead to social and logical classifications, we must look elsewhere in his writings for the answer to this crucial criticism.5

Affectivity and the Social Construction of Reality

Intense affective arousal is for Durkheim as much a part of the

human species as bipedal locomotion or language. As Randall Collins

has stressed (1975, pp. 42, 92, 95, 226), Durkheim consistently argues that such arousal is the basis of many social ties, for affective bonds are

crucial to a vast array of sustained social interaction. Led by Talcott

Parsons in particular, however, most theoretical interest in Durkheim

has focused instead on his functionalist macrosociology. Collins seeks

to redress this imbalance by emphasizing the importance of Durk-

heim's original insights, but I think he fails to recognize just how far

Durkheim goes in using affectivity for sociological theorizing. Durkheim does not only argue that social structures must find a

way to arouse the affective capacities of their members in order to

reinforce their commitment. Affectivity does act as social glue, but it

also shapes the scaffolding of these structures. For Durkheim, the most

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enduring social constructions are reified hierarchical classifications,6 and it is affectivity that constructs such creations.

The origin of this pattern is rooted in the evolution of Homo

sapiens. For Durkheim, the emergence of this most interesting species entailed a "recasting" with "losses as well as gains" in relation to the evolution of other species ([1912], 1976, p. 66). There was a significant decline in the degree of instinctually patterned behavior and a parallel expansion of cognitive capacities ([1893], 1964a, pp. 321-322; [1912], 1976, pp. 15, 367, 369). However, Durkheim does not believe that these

cognitive tools carry with them any significant innate rules to structure human social worlds ([1922], 1956, pp. 82-84; [1903], 1963a, pp. 85-87; [1912], 1976, p. 15). Indeed, with only a paucity of instincts and with such flexible cognitive capacities, human worlds have a potentially overwhelming array of structural alternatives possible for many aspects of social life ([1922], 1956, p. 64; [1895], 1964b, pp. 65-66; [1912], 1976, pp. 229, 323).

Since no group could embrace for any length of time all these possible variations ([1925], 1961, pp. 21, 42), all social structures entail a reduction of behavioral alternatives. Inevitably there is an arbitrary aspect in any such circumscription because there is rarely an extraso- cial, biological, or psychological basis that could justify the exclusion in terms other than itself ([1897], 1951, p. 247; [1922], 1956, p. 82; [1925], 1961, p. 140; [1912], 1976, pp. 15, 367, 369). In the social selection of alternatives, many other possibilities are passed by, even though these exclusions are potentially interchangeable and could also serve as the framework for a successful reality construction. Durkheim believes that no social group could ever fully recognize the necessary-but-arbitrary quality in such fabrications ([1893], 1964a, pp. 100, 101; [1924], 1965, pp. 71, 76-77). If this multiple contingency was openly faced by all individuals in a group, the fragile quality of noninstinctual and socially created meaning would be eroded or destroyed ([1925], 1961, pp. 37, 39, 42).

The reduction of behavioral alternatives is accomplished by the creation of social distance between alternatives. Durkheim does not argue that social structures themselves have the power to create this distance, though his phrasing sometimes suggests such a conclusion. Instead, it is affective interaction that is the initial basis for this distance so crucial to a species without innate guidelines to fabricate a

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social universe. From this perspective, there is an equation between social distance and meaning, for it is through the creation of distance that meaning enters the world.

This distancing is represented in the unequal distribution of social resources. In hunting and gathering cultures, certain totem fig- ures become the focus of elaborate and impassioned rituals while other objects are excluded. Since this sacred/profane spacing is tied to

distancing rankings among behavior, ideas, individuals, and places, the same classificatory principle structures other parts of the social universe. Classifications thereby take on extrinsic reality and become social facts. As we shall see, the social division of labor plays the same

distancing role in industrial cultures. Intense affective arousal creates a differential evaluation of

behavior, which is the cutting edge of many of the most basic divisions in human social worlds. For instance, Durkheim speculates that the

origin of the distinction between the sacred and the profane is a conse-

quence of such arousal ([1912], 1976, pp. 218-219). Emotional interaction can be so different from other actions that it appears there are two worlds of existence, which are commonly given the names of the sacred and profane. Durkheim believes that there is no sacredness intrinsic in

objects, ideas, or idols; it is the "intrinsic intensity" of affective interaction that becomes identified with such objects that is the true source of this sacredness ([1893], 1964a, p. 100; [1912], 1976, pp. 37, 87-88, 229, 323-324). There is an arbitrary element in this identification, but as

Barry Schwartz (1981) points out in analyzing the link between vertical

expression and stratification, such ties can have considerable authen-

ticity when rooted in affectively aroused social contexts. Thus it is these affective additions that magnify differences and create the sacred. Not to insist on such differences is to put an insupportable burden on human capacities.

If all behavior could be given these additions, affectivity would not result in a differential evaluation of behavior, but this possibility is

clearly excluded by Durkheim. Affective forces are physiological and hence limited. Durkheim has a somewhat quaint, turn-of-the-century vocabulary to describe this limitation, referring to a "limited reserve of vital energy," "violence to the organism" from prolonged arousal, and

"derangement" from attempts to provide too many affective additions

([1925], 1961, pp. 38-39, 43; [1912], 1976, pp. 216, 227). However, his

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language is backed by a large body of research that demonstrates how- for emotions as different as anger, fear, joy, and ecstasy-prolonged intense arousal leads to physiological breakdown.7 Since arousal is crucial to enduring social bonds, this finite quality is the basis of a vast array of social boundaries within which affective forces are focused. Measuring the range of behavior that can be affectively transformed without these pathological developments becomes important, and as we shall see later in the chapter, Durkheim's work suggests one such measurement.

This reconstruction of the general role of affectivity does not

represent of course how individuals themselves perceive the construction process. Durkheim's argument is not that people see themselves faced with the existential problems of reality fabrication and, realizing the necessity of affective focusing, select an appropriate range of behavior to transform. From the individual's point of view, the very intensity of affective interaction transcends these problems, for the special nature of social life laden with affectivity sets it apart naturally and qualita- tively. From the observer's point of view, affective limitations lead subconsciously to a focusing pattern with a restricted range that can sustain an intensive quality within its realm.

Affectivity and Reified Hierarchical Classifications

The differential evaluation of behavior rooted in the limitations of human affective capacity is hierarchical. Affective behavior is not only different from other actions; it is superior to them. The sacred/ profane distinction is archetypal of this ranking and illustrates how such a classification can disguise the contingent nature of social constructions. Differentiation alone does not produce the profound exclusions of essentially equivalent behavioral alternatives and does not obscure the arbitrary element in this selection. Horizontal segregation into different but equal categories cannot provide boundaries with sufficient social distance for affective focusing. A hierarchical rendering not only classifies alternatives; it does so in a significant manner by appending the weight of relative position that is part of a vertical ranking. The intrinsic intensity of affective arousal naturally creates this hierarchical distance. The scarcity of affective resources means that only a limited range of behavior can be given such additions, and these actions are given a superior ranking.

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The link between hierarchical classification and affectivity clari- fies Durkheim's equation between social structures and hierarchical classifications. Durkheim argues that these classifications are not inherent in nature, nor instinctual in humanity, yet this pattern always emerges in some form from social interaction ([1912], 1976, pp. 148, 443). Affectivity provides the missing link in his argument. If social structures are based on affective bonds, and if affective interaction creates a hierarchical classification of behavior, then social structures will be hierarchical classifications.8

Affective arousal also tends to reify the classification, thereby disguising further the contingent aspect of noninstinctual social constructions. All sustained social structures have a degree of reification. Otherwise these creations "can have only a precarious existence"

([1924], 1965, p. 94; [1912], 1976, pp. 231, 280, 296). Once again, affec-

tivity is the key to the universality of reification. For Durkheim, the emotional intensity among individuals is

generally greater than that possible for an isolated individual; hence individuals seek a collective context for affective expression. Durkheim

argues that the arousal possible in such a context is so great that it

appears to come from beyond the individual ([1893], 1964a, pp. 100- 101; [1912], 1976, pp. 211, 227). This argument lays the groundwork for a reified vision of the world. The emergence of the boundaries sepa- rating sacred and profane represent the classic example of this phenomenon, as individuals come to believe there is another level of reality that is the basis of their impassioned arousal.9

Since human social bonds are not instinctual imprints, they require regular reinforcement. The necessity of periodic affective arousal leads to a tendency to ritualize affective interaction. This in turn further limits the range of behavior that can be affectively trans-

formed, since precious affective resources must be applied again and

again to the same object or situation. Once again, rituals do not cause themselves to come into existence; they represent instead a formaliza- tion of the original affective bonds linking individuals together. Ritu- als embody a reified division of the world and, moreover, conceal the

origins of this division. It is now possible to see the logic behind Durkheim's claim that

affectivity gives rise to classifications of nature in hunting and gathering societies. According to him, these classifications link different species of plants and animals, as well as different divisions of the heavens,

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to human groups by attributing to the natural world various human characteristics and by ranking these attributions along a sacred/profane spectrum ([1903], 1963a, pp. 83-84, 86). That is, these are reified hierarchical classifications that transform the natural world. Like the

sacred/profane distinction, their origin cannot be nature itself, for there is nothing inherent in nature that calls for such a rendering ([1912], 1976, p. 148). Like other social creations, the distancing boundaries in these classifications have their origin in affectively aroused social interaction. As we have seen, affectivity determines the general form of such creations, giving them the shape of hierarchical classifications. Although critics like Needham argue that affectivity is more

plausibly seen as the result of this interaction (1963, p. xxiv), Durk- heim's causal claim seems to me at least as plausible as other attempts, such as those of Levi-Strauss, to explain the "remarkable disposition" ([1903], 1963a, p. 9) of these classifications.10

The Sociology of Emotions and Social Differentiation

Durkheim's speculations on the general linkage between affec-

tivity and reified hierarchical classification form only one part of his

sociology of emotions. Equally important in terms of its theoretical

consequences is the tie between affectivity, classification, and social density, for here is expressed a possible pattern in social change throughout human history. It is my belief that Durkheim's historical analysis of social differentiation can be restated in terms of the model I have outlined. If intense affective arousal is crucial to human social structures, and if there are physiological constraints on human affective capacities, then as social density increases, there is a greater likelihood that individuals will seek to differentiate themselves and stratify those differences.

The beginning of this argument can be found in Primitive Clas- sification. According to Durkheim, within a clan there are always secondary totems or subtotems to which some members come "to feel more specially related" ([1903], 1963a, p. 32). If a clan grows too large, differentiation occurs along the lines of these affective attachments in totem classification ([1903], 1963a, p. 32). In this process, the subtotem is transformed into a primary totem for the newly segmented group. The segmentation is crucial, and not only for hunting and gathering

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societies. Durkheim's chapters on the Zuni, Sioux, and Chinese classi-

ficatory systems seek to demonstrate that increasing social density is tied to increasing classificatory complexity. In the Zuni pueblo settlement, there is a sevenfold division in both logical and social organization; in the Chinese case, "the division and subdivisions of regions and things were ceaselessly multiplied" ([1903], 1963a, p. 70). The general rule is that the greater the social density, the greater the number of divisions in the classification of the natural and social worlds.

Once again, my concern here is not with the ethnographic accu-

racy of Durkheim's argument,1l but rather with the model being used, since it is remarkably similar to his epic The Division of Labor in

Society. There are two basic assertions that Durkheim is making. First, he says there is something about size that has an effect on emotive interaction-as size increases, individuals seek to differentiate themselves into subgroups within the increased population. Second, he

argues that primitive classifications have provided the vehicle for this differentiation throughout much of human history. Although Durk- heim does not inquire in Primitive Classification into the logic behind these assertions, the model can be given more depth by applying the full spectrum of his sociology of emotions.

The same physiological limitations in intense affective arousal that create a differential evaluation of behavior also can lead to social differentiation. If arousal is crucial to meaningful social bonds, then with increasing density, as more and more individuals interact, a problem emerges. As we have seen, affective resources are for Durkheim finite forces in individuals and are range-specific in the sense that these

capacities can transform through affective additions only a limited

range of social interaction. Beyond that range, it is impossible physiologically to sustain the intense affective bonds of the original smaller

group. Fissioning into two entirely separate groups can maintain this

range. If this does not, or cannot, occur, individuals might try to maintain the expanded group by using the pattern based on the bonds of the

original group. Since this pattern is only as strong as those bonds, however, and since the bonds cannot be reproduced among the larger group, this course will lead to increasing tension. Another possible response is to create more but less intense ties. According to Durkheim this response occurs to some extent ([1912], 1976, p. 219), but since these affective additions are so important to the fabrication of meaning, the

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diffusion will soon prove fatal. The other response is social differentiation, which divides the expanded group into subgroups within which affective forces are focused. Thus the prediction is that individuals will resort to differentiation when density changes begin to strain their limited affective capacity.

This differentiation has a problematical aspect, however. Since

biologically speaking there are no significant differences among human groups that could provide a natural basis for segmentation, another factor must be used for differentiation. That is, a social fabrication is necessary to frame these divisions. Durkheim contends that as

hunting and gathering societies slowly grow and have to differentiate themselves, it is primitive classification, a socially created system for

dividing up the natural world, that becomes the symbolic vehicle to

express these divisions. Such classifications provide a social counter- balance for the paucity of intrinsic differences among groups of individuals. As density increases and more differentiation is required, the classifications become increasingly complex in creating the distancing boundaries for intense affective focusing with range-specific tools.

The Sociology of Emotions and the Division of Labor

Durkheim's description of this pattern in clan segmentation and

logical classification is strikingly similar to his argument in The Di- vision of Labor in Society, first published in 1893, ten years before the

appearance of Primitive Classification. In both cases, as populations not only become larger in volume but, more important, become concentrated in larger settlements such as cities, individuals inexorably "lean towards distinguishing themselves from others" ([1893], 1964a, p. 265). In industrial societies, with their comparatively abundant

"dynamic density" of population concentration and interaction

([1893], 1964a, pp. 257-260),12 the ever more complex division of labor comes to play the same role as primitive classification in providing a framework for social differentiation. Just as nature is transformed in

primitive classification, in this process the economic division of labor is also transformed such that economic specializations become the focus for the social construction of reality ([1893], 1964a, p. 275).

As in Primitive Classification, Durkheim does not probe deeply into the formal underpinnings of his argument. He is content in "stat-

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ing this law of gravitation in the social world without going any farther" ([1893], 1964a, p. 339). He does not therefore ask whether den-

sity as a causal variable "explains itself automatically" or is related to other factors (p. 339). Since the effects of density are not, I believe, self-explanatory, the question of just what are the other factors linking density changes to the emergence of the social division of labor remains one of the crucial unresolved problems in Durkheim's work.

Durkheim has left a sketch for a possible resolution. His argument is based on a fascinating paradox. Under conditions of low social

density, it is similarities, or resemblances, in actions and beliefs that are the basis for a "mechanical" social world; but as density increases, these resemblances become a source of social tension rather than social cohesion ([1893], 1964a, pp. 106, 267). Durkheim uses a Darwinian meta-

phor to describe this process and its most likely solution. As complexity increases, the struggle for existence becomes more acute and, as with other species, differentiation and specialization occur, such that a va-

riety of groups can occupy the same social space (pp. 266-267). This

struggle for existence does not refer to a Malthusian or Darwinian material battle, however, for Durkheim believes that industrialization and increased material productivity go hand in hand (p. 275). Instead the struggle seems to be related to the existential problems of reality construction under these radical new conditions. Thus, for Durkheim, "If we specialize, it is not to produce more, but it is to enable us to live in new conditions of existence that have been made for us" (p. 275).

Yet the paradox remains. What precisely is there about increas-

ing social density that makes Durkheim's resemblances problematical and presses individuals "to lean towards distinguishing themselves from others"? This is much the same question as in Primitive Classifi- cation, where Durkheim asks "what the forces were which induced men to divide things as they did between the classes" ([1903], 1963a, pp. 84-85). If affectivity provides an answer to the latter question, might it also make a contribution to unraveling the first?

Since Durkheim repeatedly stresses the affective affinities possible among those who share common occupational roles, it is clear that

affectivity plays a crucial part in the solution to this "struggle for existence" ([1893], 1964a, pp. 14-15, 17). Indeed, it is the affective bonds focused on the occupational groups that, according to Durkheim, can lead to a new body of moral rules to give meaning to social life ([1897],

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1951, pp. 378, 381; [1893], 1964a, pp. 10, 13, 31). But the question remains as to why in the first place such new profound differentiation is necessary. In the tradition of most of human history in hunting and

gathering cultures, why not simply fabricate a new conscience collective based on resemblances in beliefs and actions to embrace the

expanded social world of industrial societies? Durkheim insists that a dominant collective reference in these

new historical conditions can lead only to social infirmity or disinte-

gration; it is the emergence of small, secondary groups that should form the pillars for reality construction ([1893], 1964a, p. 28). For Durkheim the occupational group is crucial in this regard. The economic division of labor is an ideal vehicle for an affectively based social transformation because it groups individuals together on a regular basis doing much the same task. Potentially these groups have the

intimacy, familiarity, and continuity within which close affective bonds can be created, reinforced, and sustained ([1897], 1951, p. 379; [1893], 1964a, pp. 14, 31). Durkheim's position is not of course that there can be no collective reference in high-density industrialization or that affectivity cannot be expressed directly upon occasion in immense-

ly large conglomerations. He contends rather that a collective reference and collective affective expression cannot be the primary bases for the social fabrication of meaning. For instance, such "powerful and awkward" leviathans as the modern state are too remote to substitute directly as the embodiment of a new conscience collective or to awaken in us continually the intense sentiments of a social life filled with

significance ([1897], 1951, p. 389; [1893], 1964a, p. 28). From this perspective, it is not impossible for the state to become the predominant institution in a society, but this could only occur when the state itself became a vast hierarchical division of labor and thereby ceased to be a

possible focal point for a new solidarity. What does such an analysis of social differentiation imply about

human affectivity? Strikingly, it uses the same implicit assumptions as Primitive Classification. Affective forces are crucial tools in reality construction, but they are limited resources. Since they can consistently provide intense affective additions to only a limited range of social interaction, growth in social complexity will lead to social differentiation through which more imaginary walls for affective focusing are fabricated. Durkheim's wager is that in the dense societies of the indus-

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trial world, it is the economic division of labor that provides the most likely framework for social partitioning and affective concentration. Just as under one set of demographic conditions, range-specific affective tools induce individuals to "feel more specially related to certain

things" and "divide things as they do between the classes," so too can these tools suggest the other factor that might explain why individuals tend "to lean towards distinguishing themselves from others" in the face of changing demographic conditions.

This affective perspective can also explain why for Durkheim resemblances become a source of social tension rather than cohesion with increasing density. Such similarities undermine the allocation of scarce affective resources. They do not provide a framework for differential evaluations that limit interaction and focus affective tools. Such similarities threaten to expose the multiple contingency in construct-

ing a social world and can easily become a source of social tension. The

prediction is that the greater the social density, the greater the likelihood that individuals will differentiate themselves and diminish the resemblances that were a source of social cohesion under less dense conditions. There can indeed be common beliefs, but many should

support differentiation and not try to reproduce a mechanical solidar-

ity of shared actions and attitudes.'3 The decline of the collective conscience implies essentially a reduction of social interaction based on these resemblances. This decline is gradual but inexorable, for in the face of increasing density, with range-specific affective tools, individuals will seek to manufacture or magnify differences because the affective bonds within differentiated groups will be more intense than those in the larger population.

This perspective on the emergence of differentiation casts new

light on Durkheim's claim that social phenonema have a unique existence. Because of the problems created for individuals with limited affective capacity, different social densities (or social masses) predispose individuals to construct social worlds with certain forms. Social mass is a force that constrains individuals to act in certain ways. Of course I am speaking somewhat metaphorically, since the ultimate

origin of the constraint is located in the qualities of human affective tools. Still, in Durkheim's phrase, the metaphor is not without truth. In terms of social density, it can be said that certain social phenomena have an existence of their own.

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The Sociology of Emotions and Stratification

The sociology of emotions also sheds more light on another

striking feature in Durkheim's depiction of the emergence of the social division of labor. Most of the analysis of Durkheim and stratification has focused on his concern with social mobility and equality of oppor- tunity. It must be noted, however, that his work carries a second argument that there is a linear relationship between stratification and social

density such that "the progress of the division of labor implies an ever

growing inequality" ([1893], 1964a, p. 379). Once again this assertion is left undeveloped, but its logic is consistent with Durkheim's general view of the role of hierarchical classification in social life and in accord with his vision of the development of stratification.

Durkheim does not embrace the functionalist argument that economic roles are somehow intrinsically meaningful and differen-

tially important in terms of the distribution of social resources such as income ([1893], 1964a, pp. 196, 275, 276, 378). This is no more the case than arguing that the totem species of Primitive Classification have the intrinsic qualities attributed to them. Human social life has therefore much the same contingent aspect in both hunting and gathering or industrial cultures. Moreover, the social density associated with a great deal of economic specialization means that individuals are increasingly likely to interact with individuals in other occupational roles and from other walks of life. This is why Durkheim labels the interpenetration of a "condensed" population as "dynamic density" (p. 257).

Reality construction with physiologically constrained tools could be most difficult in the face of such a vast spectrum of behavioral alternatives with no instrinsic basis for discriminating among them. The arbitrary element in social differentiation could easily become manifest unless disguised in a new, reified, hierarchical classification such as stratification, which has the vertical social distance to make differentiation meaningful. In smaller populations, the intensity of the

affectively based conscience collective creates socially an effective bar- rier to handle these existential problems, but as these walls erode, new ranked divisions loom larger in classifying different roles.

Durkheim recognizes that there are such divisions even in the least dense of hunting and gathering groups. Those based upon age and sex are very evident ([1893], 1964a, p. 380; [1912], 1976, pp. 138-139,

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240);14 but for Durkheim these are only of secondary importance com-

pared to the bonds forged by the shared division of the world in the sacred totem. These shared bonds are generally reflected in the roughly equalitarian distribution of resources often noted in these groups ([1893], 1964a, p. 179). There is never perfect equality, but neither are differences within the culture magnified greatly. This is because the social density does not tax affective capacities and predispose individuals to manufacture differences through magnification. Moreover, the

physical distance between populations in hunting and gathering worlds provides a day-to-day basis that reinforces the social distance in the religious classification system.

In the face of increasing density without the differentiation and

fissioning of Primitive Classification, it is these intrasocial divisions that fabricate increasing social distance as the boundaries provided by primitive classification and physical distance erode. Presumably this distance might be created by simple differentiation into physically copresent and separate but equal divisions. Such differentiation does occur, but the vertical dimension becomes increasingly important, just as in the case of the emergence of vertical distance in the sacred/profane spectrum. Thus Durkheim's invocation of an "ever growing inequality" in contemporary societies is similar to his analysis of the emer-

gence of the sacred in hunting and gathering cultures. In the industrial case, the differential evaluation rooted in affective arousal is concentrated upon fabricating and maintaining the intrasocial divisions of economic differentiation. Durkheim predicts that the greater the social

density, the greater the likelihood that individuals will seek to differentiate themselves vertically and embody these rankings in the unequal distribution of social resources.

Durkheim's postulation of a linear, ever growing inequality differs in emphasis from the curvilinear description of changes in

inequality that Gerhard Lenski among others presents (1966, pp. 228, 308-311). Both are concerned with cultures in which income differences are important elements, but in Durkheim's case the concern is not so much with the percentage of income controlled by the uppermost elite as with the percentage of a population that occupies a position in which they receive an income significantly greater than they would with an equal distribution. This viewpoint could describe both the shift from a hunting and gathering to an agricultural economy, in

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which a few people come to occupy such positions, and also the development of industrialization, in which this percentage has slowly increased over the centuries.15 Similarly, the changing distribution of prestige could be analyzed in this manner.

The perspective suggested here differs also from measures often used to express inequality-such as the relationship of average income to average income difference. Instead the concern is with the total social distance created by unequal distributions as individuals struggle to create and embody social boundaries. If we take a measure of vertical social distance, say in terms of income differences, an ever growing inequality could be taken to mean that as social density increases, not only should the total of such differences be greater but also the distance per person should be greater. That is, beginning from the uppermost incomes and moving downwards, if we add all income differences and divide by the number of individuals, the result should increase as social density increases.16 Moreover, there should be a correlation throughout history between such a measure of social distance and a measure of population concentration.

Affectivity and Surplus Production

Affectivity can also help explain Durkheim's postulation that as density increases there emerges a need for more goods and services, a need reflected in increased productivity. Durkheim rejects the idea that humanity has some type of innate and insatiable appetite for such goods. Instead the "need" for more must itself be explained ([1893], 1964a, pp. 272-275). It is not inherent in human nature, any more than stratification is innate, but its emergence can be seen in terms of the effects of changing social density.

A subsistence level of production is perfectly feasible socially, but only under one set of conditions-namely, an extremely low social density in which affective capacities can embrace virtually the entire social world. This world needs few material embodiments of its boundaries, for the crucial magnified differences are largely symbolic, such as the sacred/profane classification. In these conditions, pressure to increase production much beyond basic material needs is generally lacking ([1928], 1962, p. 72, 79; [1893], 1964a, p. 179). If density increases, making affectively based symbolic walls more difficult to

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maintain without a physical expression, there does indeed emerge a need for more material embodiments of the new social boundaries. This need is rooted in the existential problems outlined here, for such

goods give the new social walls visible form and buttress them by magnifying differences between individuals and groups of individuals.

Surplus production provides the bricks and mortar for a new set of

solidifying embodiments for intrasocial divisions. Thus Durkheim rejects the possibility of a tie between increas-

ing density and a continuing satisfaction with basic goods and services for all members of a population. But just as for Durkheim increased

population concentration makes possible a social division of labor but does not explain why such a division emerges, so too does the density change make possible increased productivity but does not explain why the productivity occurs. The sociology of emotions provides one

explanation for this association between social density and intensified

production. This analysis avoids having to resort to the argument that the hunting and gathering condition represents an unfortunately long and brutal historical period that humans with their insatiable appetite for more goods could not wait to leave behind in their struggle toward

agricultural and industrial societies. From this perspective, increased productivity and material

affluence do not spell doom for inequality ([1893], 1964a, pp. 272-275). Since Durkheim does not claim that material insecurity causes stratification, reducing the problems of material provision can hardly be

expected to erode stratification. If anything, just the opposite should be the case as the problems of creating social distance with limited affective tools predispose individuals to need increasing goods and services and to struggle for a special share that will give their distancing walls

special meaning.17 As in Primitive Classification, the distribution of these resources

is based on the social magnification of differences. The creation of the sacred and the profane is, as we have seen, the exemplar of this magnification. Similarly, according to Durkheim, social punishment is often all out of proportion to the harm done by deviant acts ([1893], 1964a,

pp. 100-101; [1895], 1964b, pp. 67-71), but this enlargement gives a

heightened quality to the behavioral walls that are violated. Although Durkheim holds out the hope that, sometime in the future, social

inequalities in industrial societies might be only as great as the natural

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differences among individuals, he recognizes that all known complex stratification patterns have been based on the social inflation and dis- tortion of these differences in talent ([1893], 1964a, p. 378).

For Durkheim these differences do exist, but they are in most cases only a matter of degree and cannot explain why some individuals come to occupy positions of vast power and prestige ([1925], 1961, p. 91). This "prestige that elevates the persons possessing it beyond themselves" is a social product, and personal superiority can play "only a secondary role in this process" ([1925], 1961, pp. 90-91; [1893], 1964a, p. 196). The increasing spread of unequal positions may be filled on the basis of talent, but it is not simply differences in talent that produce this stratification. Just as the natural world does not provide a classification scheme with the profound differentiation needed for reality construction, thereby necessitating the transformation of the natural world in primitive classification, so too are natural differences among people insufficient to provide criteria by which individuals can profoundly differentiate among themselves in the social division of labor. Social magnification compensates for the paucity of these innate differences, and this inflation indelibly marks humanity's second great division of the world.18

As is generally the case in Durkheim's work, he looks on the positive side of historical change and virtually ignores the suffering upon which complex social structures are so often built. There is a deeply tragic element in humanity's exodus from the hunting and gathering context. Although the heavens above are presumably unmoved if they are profoundly differentiated by individuals here on earth, this is not the case when individuals are so divided by the unequal distribution of social resources. The transformed contingency that is so moving in the creation of a sacred totem can become brutal repression in the creation of new social distance and in the struggle to control what Collins has called "the means of emotional production" (1975, p. 58). Similarly, social changes do not simply fall into place painlessly, for what Durk- heim would call pathological attempts to limit change in the face of increasing social density are far more common than Durkheim wishes to see.19

The naivete in Durkheim's vision of the unfolding relationship between social density and reified hierarchical classification should not blind us, however, to the potential fruitfulness of certain aspects of this

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model. An unavoidable concern with trying to minimize the negative effects of the creation and recreation of magnified social distance should not obscure the possibility that the seemingly endless reappear- ance of such distancing outside of hunting and gathering cultures

might be rooted in the existential dilemmas discussed here. The failure of even the most revolutionary regimes supposedly devoted to exorciz-

ing stratification does seem to suggest an underlying structuralist process that sociologists can analyze without having to resort to a functionalist explanation of this continual emergence.

The Sociology of Emotions and Evolution

Clearly it becomes important to find a measure of the range- specific quality of human affective tools, since it is this principle of limitation that illuminates many of the theoretical consequences in Durkheim's sociology of emotions. There is no way to measure this

quality directly, for to induce experimentally the physiological pathologies of prolonged intense affective arousal would be no less than diabolical. There are, however, two ways to approach an indirect measurement of these affective capacities. Durkheim takes a practical approach based on the assumption that contemporary hunting and

gathering cultures represent human societies with the least social den-

sity. Since he believes that such worlds can be forged together with a minimum of intrasocial differentiation and stratification, this density

represents roughly the range of bonds possible without the emergence and magnification of these other social boundaries. Beyond that den-

sity, the iron law of gravitation in the social world begins to operate. A theoretical justification for such an approach is provided by

evolutionary biology. If human affective tools evolved over the eons in

humanity's context of origin, they must have offered a selective advan-

tage and would therefore have been subjected to selective pressures like

any other system of the human body. If contemporary hunting and

gathering societies have a density approximately equal to that of pre- historic societies, and if these earlier societies did not have a degree of stratification greater than that of contemporary cultures, then it is

possible to argue that these tools were shaped through evolution to bind a group of approximately this density. These tools do not pre- clude social groupings larger than this original density, of course. But

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if we make the further assumption that there were no significant genetic changes in regard to these tools during the rapid shift, evolu- tionarily speaking, to agriculture and industrialization, then such tools can lead to a patterned scale of social adaptations as humans struggle to create new social structures to deal with old problems under new conditions.20

From this perspective, human social evolution appears as the unintended consequence of the biological evolution of the species. The

dynamics of human history come not as the inevitable outcome of

biological evolution or of any other "inherent tendency which impels humanity ceaselessly to exceed its achievements" ([1895], 1964b, p. 117). Instead the shape of history emerges as the unforeseen consequence of Homo sapiens' exodus from the hunting and gathering context with bodily tools forged in that original world. This vision of human social evolution requires neither a functional teleology nor a yardstick of social advancement such as adaptive upgrading or effi- ciency.21 With increasing density, humanity has to fabricate new social structures with the social distance necessary for affective focusing. This is not an impossible task, but it is an unceasing struggle that gives a pattern to social change.

More Than Dark Forces

Although at first glance there might appear to be a large gap between the concerns of Primitive Classification and The Division of Labor in Society, both works deal with the crucial issue of social structures as classifications through which individuals frame their social universes. By postulating a causal role for affectivity in evaluative differentiation and the historical evolution of these hierarchical transfor- mations, Primitive Classification breaks new ground in the sociology of emotions. From this perspective, the unique qualities of human affective resources not only produce a structural similarity in social constructions but also the effects of these tools vary in a lawlike manner in relation to certain demographic characteristics of the social context in which individuals set about fabricating meaning. Since affectivity is the ghost in the theoretical machine of The Division of Labor in Society, this epic work can be reinterpreted and given new value in studying the history of social differentiation and stratification. Thus

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affectivity does not simply involve dark forces beyond the reach of sociological analysis. Instead the sociology of emotions represents a largely unexplored but beckoning frontier in sociological theory.

Notes

1. For a summary of this history, see Kemper (1978, pp. 32-33). 2. This chapter does not deal with the ethnographic accuracy of

Durkheim's claims. For a critical discussion of this problem, see Need- ham (1963) and Worsley (1956). Durkheim is certainly too cavalier in

dismissing other factors that might shape these classifications, such as the practical concerns of day-to-day life and the technological aspect in relation to interacting with the natural world. Much of this criticism does not directly relate to Durkheim's assertions in the sociology of emotions, however. In this regard, Durkheim is dealing only with the

problem of why these classifications anthropomorphize nature by attributing to it all kinds of human social characteristics and by rank-

ing these attributions. Explaining this "remarkable disposition" ([1903], 1963a, p. 9) is the issue here, and the debate continues today. Levi-Strauss, for instance, accepts Durkheim's argument that these classifications cannot be simply explained in terms of themselves; he

provides an alternative explanation by invoking innate mental categories for such a disposition. Durkheim of course rejected such a possibility (pp. 7-9). Since Durkheim does not claim that affectivity can

explain variation in specific aspects of different primitive classifications, but only that all such classifications will have a similar form, Needham errs somewhat (1963, p. xxiv) in criticizing Durkheim for

suggesting the first claim. 3. Since the theoretical perspective in Primitive Classification is

clearly Durkheim's (Mauss contributed primarily ethnographic mate-

rial), it is common to refer to Durkheim alone when discussing the theoretical implications of this work. (See, for instance, Lukes, 1975, pp. 31, 33, 440-442, 448.) After Durkheim's death, Mauss himself was to make important theoretical contributions to the social sciences, among them his Essai sur le Don (1925).

4. Similarly, Levi-Strauss argues that Durkheim's recourse to sentiment in analyzing totemism badly confuses cause and effect, for emotions explain nothing (1963, p. 71). Steven Lukes argues that affec-

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tivity is "not sufficient to establish a causal connection" (1975, p. 448); George Badcock sums up Durkheim's use of emotions as a "solution of despair" and an admission of defeat in sociological explanation (1975, p. 27).

5. Needham is certainly correct in calling Durkheim's invocation of emotions unreasoned in the sense that Durkheim does not

develop the reasoning behind his assertion while discussing affectivity in Primitive Classification. I contend that elsewhere in Durkheim's

writings these reasons can be extracted. 6. My earlier article (Hammond, 1978) gives a detailed exegesis

of Durkheim's reality-construction model. 7. From the epic work of Hans Selye onward, for example, most

of the literature on stress is related to this problem. Stress arises from too many objects or situations becoming the basis of affective arousal and creating the many negative physiological effects so often noted. This debilitation arises from too much negative arousal, as with fear or

anger, or too much positive arousal, as with joy or ecstasy. This is how

today we would interpret Durkheim's many references to the "strain upon the nervous system" ([1893], 1964a, p. 370) that can arise from social interaction. Durkheim was always ambivalent toward what he called organico-psychic factors, or what we would today call biosocio- logical factors. As Lukes (1975, p. 18) points out, these factors play a crucial role in Durkheim's explanation of anomie, the distribution of talents, and the status of women. Given Durkheim's overriding commitment to establish sociology as a discipline independent from psy- chology and biology, however, such factors would never be developed fully in his writings.

The argument used here is somewhat similar to that of Mayhew and Levinger (1976), in which they try to use Miller's (1956) research on the short-term memory to construct a theory of inequality in the distribution of power. Unfortunately, the tie between limitations in short- term memory and political inequality is tenuous. They should have begun their argument by explaining how this principle of limitation is crucial to this category of social interaction and thereby leads to the unequal distribution of a social resource.

8. In his sociology of emotions, Durkheim rejects the position that emotions are quasi instincts that lead to certain social creations. From such a position, "a certain religious sentiment has been consid-

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ered innate in man, a certain minimum of sexual jealousy, filial piety, paternal love, etc. And it is by these that religion, marriage, and the

family have been explained" ([1895], 1964b, p. 107). For Durkheim there is no specific sentiment for religion or for any other social structure inherent in the species. Instead, in the terms of his statement in The Rules of the Sociological Method, such feelings "result from the collective organization and are not its basis" (p. 107). Hence a religious sentiment represents a specification of the general affective capacities of individuals.

At first glance it might appear that Durkheim's position in The Rules of the Sociological Method contradicts his causal vocabulary for

affectivity in Primitive Classification. In these two cases, however, he is

working at two different levels of analysis. In the first he is discussing specific emotions, which can indeed be seen as the result of social

situations; but in Primitive Classification he is arguing that affectivity itself can produce various social constructions. From this general perspective, affectivity is the basis of hierarchical classifications, which

express human affective forces in terms of specific emotions. In outlining the general structural effects of affectivity, I must

forgo discussion of the specific ways in which affective resources are

shaped in social interaction. As Collins has demonstrated (1975, pp. 42-

43, 58-59, 226), Durkheim's writings offer many insights into the

processes by which affective capacities are channeled. Hochschild in her study of emotion work (1979, p. 566) and Shott in her work on the fabrication of meaning in religious ritual (1979) have both noted the

importance of Durkheim in studying the processes of generating emo-

tions; but a complete analysis of Durkheim's views on this aspect of the

sociology of emotions is of course impossible here. 9. Durkheim clearly sees that much of this social reality is an

illusory representation ([1893], 1964a, p. 100), but this does not mean that affectively based structures are irrational. The illusion of seeing divine powers as the origin of sacred things, rather than seeing them as a self-creation by individuals, is only a partial error (p. 101). The meta-

phor is not without truth, Durkheim argues, since it is not an individual construction but a collective product representing more than an individual is capable of constructing (p. 101). Just as Durkheim rejects social contract theory-since a metaphorical agreement could only be based on a preexisting affective solidarity-so too does he reject the

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possibility that the individual is the basis for the fabrication of crucial social boundaries such as the sacred and profane. An individual construct of this sort would collapse under its own frailty. It is instead a social world that provides meaning without instincts, in the same way that only collective economic life provides subsistence for the human species. The reality of this collective quality is shown in the universality of reification. For Durkheim, even if we are aware of this process at work, we cannot fully eliminate its effects, nor should we try to eradi- cate such reification (pp. 100-101). This course can only lead to social bonds too incorporeal to frame a human world. A similar argument is found in Bourdieu's (1977) analysis of the role of misrecognition (meconnaissance) in the construction of social reality.

The argument is twofold-that affective arousal tends to be per- ceived as having an extraindividual origin and that reified creations are generally more affectively moving than nonreified ones. Thus, given the crucial role of intense arousal in reality construction, some element of reification is inevitable if social life is not to disintegrate. Not to reify is to face continually the multiple contingency in human life, and most social interaction is built upon a retreat from such a problem.

Durkheim paints in vivid detail just how intense and embracing such a reified system can be for its creators ([1912], 1976, pp. 214-219). The ecstasy in religious ritual transfigures these actions. Anger renders a violation of arbitrary behavioral boundaries into a sacrilege ([1925], 1961, p. 49; [1893], 1964a, pp. 98, 101). The passions in the social punishment of deviance give meaning to these boundaries even though there is nothing inherent in the deviant act that merits this response ([1893], 1964a, pp. 100-101; [1895], 1964b, pp. 67-71). In the face of the intense power of such additions, it is not surprising to see Durkheim arguing that utilitarian rationalizations will never be sufficient to shape a human world ([1893], 1964a, p. 100; [1924], 1965, pp. 71, 76-77). Human creations are always somewhat delirious in the sense that the human mind consistently "adds to the immediate data given by the senses and projects its own sentiments and feelings into things" ([1912], 1976, p. 227) and "in the end men find themselves the prisoners of this imaginary world of which they are, however, the authors and models" (p. 52).

10. Of course Levi-Strauss has his own candidate for the sub- conscious aspect of l'esprit humain that gives birth to such classifica-

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tions. He invokes an innate cognitive structure for the human mind and clearly differentiates himself from Durkheim in giving affectivity a noncausal, subsidiary role in primitive classifications to fill in the gaps in these constructions (1963, p. 104). This distinction follows from his

argument that emotions are simply the result of either "the power of the body or of the impotence of the mind" (p. 71).

Steven Lukes (1975, p. 448) differs somewhat from Levi-Strauss and attributes to Durkheim only an intervening variable role for emotions as a causal connection between social and logical organizations. From this point of view, emotions can be seen as the result of social structures, and these affective states in turn contagiously infect logical organizations and shape them into a form roughly parallel to the social structure itself. As Lukes notes, this use of affectivity is insufficient to establish a causal link between social and logical organization (p. 448); but I believe that Levi-Strauss, and Needham also (1963, p. xxiii), are correct in arguing that Durkheim is in fact claiming something more for affectivity-namely, that there is something about affective interaction that gave birth to certain structural forms, both in terms of social

groups and ideas. As for sociological explanation, Durkheim's sociology of emo-

tions is not, in Badcock's phrase, an admission of defeat (1975, p. 27). It is an admission only that the problematic quality of meaningful reality construction without instincts limits the possible variations in human social creations, such that these constructions have a structurally similar framework of hierarchical differentiation. It is also an assertion that human affective forces are not dark, uncontrollable urges or disor-

ganizing impulses ultimately beyond sociological analysis. The trans- formative potential of emotions does make them in Durkheim's words

"refractory to analysis" ([1903], 1963a, p. 88), but this in no way stops him from undertaking the analysis. Badcock misinterprets Durkheim's statement (p. 88) that "when [emotion] has a collective origin, it defies critical and rational examination." As Durkheim's succeeding sentences make clear, this statement refers not to the impossibility of studying social creations with affective additions but to the likelihood that a member of a social group forged by such additions will be able to judge these fabrications freely (p. 88). Of course this argument leads Durk- heim to predict that social creations will involve some degree of reification that inhibits individuals from reflecting too deeply on the fragile

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origins of their division of the social world [1893], 1964a, pp. 100-101; [1912], 1976, p. 52). Badcock can certainly disagree with Durkheim about the inevitability of this phenomenon, but once again it seems to me that Durkheim's position has much evidence in its favor and is

hardly a solution of despair. 11. Needham (1963) provides an excellent summary of the criti-

cisms made in this regard. Chagnon's (1977) description of fissioning as a response to increasing density in the Yanomamo could be taken as a contemporary example of the process Durkheim had in mind.

12. Unfortunately Durkheim did not try to construct any measure of this social density. Total population or volume is the simplest measure, but it is also the least informative ([1893], 1964a, p. 261). Since urbanization is for Durkheim the most evident aspect of changes in

dynamic density (p. 258), we can construct a measure to compare populations by calculating the percentage of a population that inhabits settlements of different sizes and then summing these percentages. The result would represent the multiplication of social links that Durkheim sees as part of more concentrated populations. Moreover, since there is

normally a high degree of association between increasing settlement size and technological expertise, this measure would also indirectly represent another factor in Durkheim's dynamic density: "the number and rapidity of ways of communication and transportation" (p. 259).

With such a measure it would be necessary to reanalyze the literature on convergence. The prediction would be that the greater the social density, the greater the constraining effect on range-specific tools and the greater the similarity of structures for social interaction. The issue of convergence usually focuses on such superpowers as the United States and the Soviet Union. The results are ambiguous at best. In terms of Durkheim's social density, however, such countries are not alike, for although the volume of population is roughly equal, the concentration of population is very different. Thus it may well be that most discussions of convergence have been trying to compare countries that are really quite dissimilar in these terms of social density.

13. For instance, the democratic ideology could be seen in this way. Democracy presupposes differences among groups, and the legal protection it offers can be seen as a mechanism to maintain social distance between them. This is why Durkheim regards property rights in terms of social exclusion, and the family boundaries provide dis-

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tance in much the same manner. If we broaden the notion of property to include control over any resource for social distancing, there is an

equation between increasing social density and increasing property rights.

14. Since age and sex are two problematic aspects of human relations, it is not surprising that these existential difficulties are dealt with so often in human history by a reified hierarchical classification.

15. This proportion grew to 3 or 4 percent in agricultural societies and has expanded to at least the top quintile in contemporary liberal capitalist cultures. The distribution of wealth has undergone a smaller change, but in the same direction. Socialist data add further

complexities since, in Durkheimian terms, industrial socialist countries such as the Soviet Union and the Eastern European nations have a lower social density, lower per capita income, greater political inequality, and a more egalitarian (but still unequal) distribution of income than liberal capitalist countries. In terms of the perspective presented here, this distribution should generate pressure for the production of more goods and services and the maintenance, if not the expansion, of relative income differences, even if the political role in the manufacture of these differences decreases.

16. For example, this could easily be done by dividing a population into income quintiles and summing the differences among this

grouped data. To deal with both absolute and relative inequality, I would suggest a new measure constructed in the following way: Con- vert the mean of each quintile by dividing by the mean of the lowest

quintile, which becomes 1. Then divide the sum of the converted means of the middle three quintiles by the mean of the uppermost quintile minus 1. Such a measure would move in a manner much different than the Gini coefficient, or other standard measures of

inequality, which mask many aspects in the evolution of social distance.

17. Similarly, insofar as technological innovation promises more goods and services, there should be a high correlation between social density and receptivity to new technologies.

18. We would roughly calculate the degree of magnification in the following way. If we assume that there are natural differences

among individuals (and a genetic basis for these differences), then they should be distributed in a normal distribution curve. As in the case of

IQ, if we take 100 as the midpoint, then a certain percentage of the

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population should be within one standard deviation of + 10, a larger percentage within two standard deviations, and so on. If social resources such as income were distributed according to the natural distribution of talents, then the same percentage of the population should fall in income terms within the same standard deviation. To the extent that this is not true, and that income differences are greater, we have a measure of the social magnification of differences beyond that which could be based upon natural differences.

19. For an interesting analysis of how pathological divisions of labor might result in differential rates of intrasocial violence and insta-

bility, see Sinden (1979). 20. Indeed, it is possible to construct an argument that Durk-

heim was a closet biosociologist whose theoretical edifice was built

upon the effects of biological constraints such as range-specific affective capacity.

21. For a discussion of the difficulties of theories with such perspectives, see Granovetter (1979).

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MAYHEW, BRUCE H., AND LEVINGER, ROGER L.

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Documents

The Sociology of Emotions and the History of Social Differentiation