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Sociology Optional PYQ Solutions · Model answer

Describe the functional analysis of religion given by Durkheim. Is this analysis applicable to the modern industrialized societies?

  • UPSC 1993
  • Sociological Thinkers

Émile Durkheim, in The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912), asked not whether religion is true but what it does. From the totemism of the Australian Arunta, he concluded that religion is society worshipping itself. Whether that still holds in secular, plural industrial societies is the second part of the question.

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What the full answer covers

  • Durkheim's functional analysis
  • Is it applicable to modern industrial societies?
  • Arguments against
  • Arguments for
  • Conclusion

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