Karl Marx
Marx enhanced his sociological ideas from Hegel and Feuerbach. Hegel argued that society would change towards excellence in Christianity, whilst Marx stated that society would develop.
Marx’s view of social stability stated that society may be divided into two groups – the working class or proletariat and the ruling class or bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie possesses the tools of industry and exploits the workers by paying them tiny salaries. Marx explained this as dehumanizing and argued that it leads to a feeling of disenfranchisement. This may be changed only by the means of a social revolution in which the thesis of capitalism is confronted by the anti-notion of anti-capitalism to create synthesis – socialism.
Marx clarified religion as the “opium of the people,” a shape of societal control that diminishes the pain of coercion for the workers whilst stopping them from realizing what is necessary to be done to prevent their exploitation. Religion uses its decent arrangements to govern the way individuals behave and then strengthens this performance with the threat/promise of the afterlife:
Marx had a utopian vision of the future in which there would be no need for religion because there would be no class system to exploit. His ability for ethics thus comes from the communist principle.
Critique of Marxist Theory
The critique of Marxist theory is that people have at least as much self-interest as they do altruism. Consequently, there is no incentive to work towards a utopian community that finally will only benefit potential manufactures. For most, the compulsion to work for the good of future civilization is not good enough to provide power to ethics.
Emil Durkheim
As for Emil Durkheim, he was a German sociologist who stated that religion was an instrument of society, which is claimed to stabilize it. Durkheim saw society as an organism of millions of individuals. Religion serves as one system that helps the organism regulate and change itself to survive. For example, religion can neutralize existentialist angst by providing comfort in times of suffering e.g. the motivation to persist during tests of faith and the assurance that God has it all worked out.
Durkheim stated that religion was something like social glue; Weber supported a more pro-active role for religion. For Weber, people’s ideas are the initiating factors in social change. Religion, therefore, offers ethical frames in which social transformation may occur.
In particular, Weber highlighted the interconnection of religion and Economics. He caused that the ‘spirit of capitalism‘ evolved from the Protestant work ethic. His sights fall under the premise of functionalism; the assertion that the purpose of religion is to support social constancy by eliminating tension that can disturb social order. Durkheim described religion as a “unified system of beliefs and practices related to sacred things.” He considered that religions and their rehearsals help to preserve and promote social stability and consistency.
The society of people that are set up inside a religion which call themselves a church set up a moral arrangement that supports relations within and away from the community’s important activities e.g. worship, Mass, and baptism.
Durkheim consequently viewed religion as having a purpose in society without any essential, sovereign realism. For Durkheim, a consistent society is of primary significance, and religion is just one instrument that helps to attain this.
Durkheim also grounded that religion, as a uniting agent, would steadily be restored by political and community principles such as human rights.
Critique of Durkheim’s Theory
The critique of Durkheim’s theory involves the notion that the verification today of a post-modern community made up of lots of sub-cultures does not hold up Durkheim’s analysis. Moreover, religion still subsists and is yet to be totally restored by supporting and district ideals, though it has in part.
Furthermore, ethics is viewed as no more than what has developed in society to an ensemble that society. It is opposed to absolute and righteousness is clarified as the manufacture of optimistic consequences for humanity rather than being righteous or God-like. In this esteem, ethics is teleological more than deontological and has no exterior authority outside the notion of society.
Conclusion
The social stability as the paradigm had been viewed by the lost of scientists, but Marx and Durkheim did the most essential contribution to the matters of this stability through the views of religion, and the division of the society. In spite of some reasonable critics of these theories and notions, these theories stay the grounding for further sociological considerations by lots of other sociologists.