Sumblog#3 Our week with Emile Durkheim

      Emile Durkheim's writing was lost on me. Without Professor Barry's translation (lecture), the ideas of integration, regulation, animoe, collective representation et.al would've flew over my head like a champagne cork seeking freedom. I knew Mr Durkheim was trying to relay something valuable and important, but I couldn't decipher what it was. Based on the struggles of group and classroom discussion, I'm pretty sure I wasn't alone. After lecture however, re-reading the material became nothing short of damn good education (feel free to quote me on that).
     That being said, I've selected  a nugget from Emile Durkheim's idea of collective representation for this blog.

     Durkheim alludes to Plato's cave allegory in support of the idea that "...we all use the same words without giving them the same meaning." (Lemert; p75). This is so true at every age/stage of life. It is the reason birds of a feather flock together, it's why teenagers hate their parents, and it's why the very young and very old tend to get along so well. Like minded individuals seek like minded individuals. When we talk about love, sacrifice, desire, wisdom, or any other collectively considered  attribute/idea can we ever reach final consensus? According to Durkheim, only when we reach the sacred. Absolute Truth is unchanging and impersonal (Lemer; p75).
     When the meaning of a word changes between enough individuals, then the collective meaning of a word eventually changes. Considering that words are nothing more than "condensed knowledge" (class discussion), knowledge itself then becomes mutable - in a social context.  Whether or not knowledge actually changes, or simply our collective level of knowledge changes remains up for debate.

     Autistic individuals think in pictures more so than the rest of society. Autism is only beginning to be understood in the last 20-30 years. Historically, people with autism were considered retarded/dumb and relegated to institutions - this was TRAGIC and untrue!
      http://www.grandin.com/inc/visual.thinking.html 
     Temple Grandin is perhaps America's most famous person with autism. She wrote a book called Thinking in Pictures that conveys how many people with autism see words.
     People with autism are very frequently word literalists. Sarcasm, euphemisms and allegory do not work well with autistic individuals. A helpful cultural reference may be Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory. He is a popular tv character that displays many traits associated with Asperger's Syndrome (a type of autism).  
     Autism is a very concrete example of how "...we all use the same words without giving them the same meaning." (Lemert; p75). While autism is an easy example to see this concept, it applies at every level of life, for every moment of life, for every person alive. Durkheim went a step further and applied this at a social level. I think he nailed it.