If asked to describe today's western society, one might expect to hear the words “progressive,” “industrial,” and perhaps even “materialist.” Has the collective conscience of our society shifted to promote a lifestyle of materialism and selfishness? Durkheim would argue that as mechanical solidarity is replaced by organic solidarity, the collective conscience weakens: meaning that it is unlikely that a materialist collective conscience would motivate the majority of individuals to behave in this manner. Moreover, if the collective conscience is motivating people to act in a materialist manner, what does this mean for the collective survival of the group? If the general public is focusing on themselves, who is left to help the society survive and reproduce? Collective conscience is a premier player in supporting the growth and reproduction of a society, but maintaining a positive message within it becomes increasingly difficult as the masses begin to focus more on the individual then the group.
In Durkheim's view, the collective conscience of a group continues to decrease as the dynamic density (or population) of that group grew. Therefore, it seems likely that he would argue that western society has some issues when it comes to a strong collective conscience. Division of labour and increasing specialization are pushed by schools and other authority figures on the youth of today, and the careers available to the general public are becoming fewer and further between. With society emphasizing individual roles in career choice (and choosing a career one will enjoy instead of one that will benefit society) there also appears more focus on one's own life instead of the survival of the group they are a member of or even the society as a whole (Inglehart, 63). Not only that, but individualism is looked at as a wonderful trait, especially to the youth of today, and conformity is almost looked on as a dirty word.
Durkheim would disagree with these points of view, and would instead argue that conformity is necessary for the creation of a strong collective conscience and therefore a strong society. The reason this has begun to happen more and more lies in the cultural biases of an individual's group life. Morals and values become blurred when a society is made up of too many groups (Giddens, 103). Moreover, when a conflict of interest between these two groups arises, the interests of the society can be at stake. Durkheim introduced this idea in his discussion of morality in relation to the collective conscience. He said that the collective conscience produced morality in societies, and a weaker collective conscience would necessitate laws or punishments for strongly opposing the morals of the society. Durkheim suggests restitutive law as a solution for the breaking of formal rationalization or law in a modern organic society.
This form of law keeps the interests of the society intact, and decrees that the noncompliant parties be forced to work at something that will benefit society, in effect paying for their misdeeds by repairing the damage they have caused, or to help build something better. Durkeheim noted, “every strong state of conscience is a source of life [and] an essential factor of our general vitality” (Aubert, 22). Therefore, the nature of the collective conscience should account for the punishment of its criminals, as it is one of the driving forces of society. Moreover, it is important to note that it is an act of a sample of a society's collective conscience that applies judgement on its criminals in western societies (a jury, for example). Restitutive law is favoured today as a form of punishment because it generally observes modern ethical guidelines (Aubert, 57) and society benefits from the punishment of the convicted party, while under repressive law, the only benefit of the prisoner's suffering is the hope that they will not re-offend.
Today's societies face a huge problem in dealing with crime and punishment. Though Durkheim's notion of restitutive law is still alive and well, it is certainly proving to be a system with inherent problems. Arguably the biggest problem in Canada is the lack of definitive set of rules that make someone guilty, or what crimes are serious crimes and which are not.
The collective conscience of mechanical societies would be expecting to provide these kinds of answers: what a serious crime insinuates for example. However, under the Canadian system of organic solidarity leading to a weaker collective conscience, such issues are more up for debate. For example, with reference to the drug trade, it seems that traffickers are far more stringently punished than users. Even though using and possession are still crimes, more often then not the perpetrators go free (Hill, 2). A stronger collective conscience on the issues related to the drug crimes would most likely aid in ending the issues Canada (and especially Vancouver) has with drugs.
