1 00:00:09,190 --> 00:00:13,630 Emile Durkheim is the philosopher who can best help us to understand 2 00:00:13,630 --> 00:00:18,240 why capitalism makes us richer and yet frequently more miserable 3 00:00:18,240 --> 00:00:21,250 he was born in 1858 in the little frenchtown EP now 4 00:00:21,250 --> 00:00:25,320 near the German border before he was forty to climb was appointed to a 5 00:00:25,320 --> 00:00:27,200 powerful and prestigious position 6 00:00:27,200 --> 00:00:32,250 as a professor at the Sorbonne in Paris dot com live through the immense rapid 7 00:00:32,250 --> 00:00:33,690 transformation France 8 00:00:33,690 --> 00:00:36,760 from a largely traditional agricultural society 9 00:00:36,760 --> 00:00:41,519 to an up an industrial economy he could see that his country was getting richer 10 00:00:41,519 --> 00:00:45,690 that capitalism was extraordinarily productive and in certain ways that it 11 00:00:45,690 --> 00:00:46,269 was also 12 00:00:46,269 --> 00:00:50,780 liberating but what particularly struck him and became the focus for this entire 13 00:00:50,780 --> 00:00:52,180 scholarly Korea 14 00:00:52,180 --> 00:00:55,989 with the economic system was doing something very peculiar 15 00:00:55,989 --> 00:00:59,030 to people's minds it was quite literally 16 00:00:59,030 --> 00:01:02,710 driving them to suicide in ever-increasing numbers 17 00:01:02,710 --> 00:01:06,410 this was the immense insight unveiled intercoms 18 00:01:06,410 --> 00:01:10,940 most important work suicide published in 1897 19 00:01:10,940 --> 00:01:14,550 the book chronicles a remarkable and tragic discovery 20 00:01:14,550 --> 00:01:18,399 the suicide rates seem to shoot up once a nation has become 21 00:01:18,399 --> 00:01:22,070 industrialized and consumer capitalism takes hold 22 00:01:22,070 --> 00:01:26,180 to come observed that the suicide rate in the Britain have his day 23 00:01:26,180 --> 00:01:30,500 was double that of Italy but in even richer and more advanced Denmark 24 00:01:30,500 --> 00:01:35,549 it was four times higher than in the UK Telecom's focus on suicide 25 00:01:35,549 --> 00:01:39,750 was intended to shed light on a more general level of unhappiness and despair 26 00:01:39,750 --> 00:01:40,790 in society 27 00:01:40,790 --> 00:01:45,070 suicide with horrific tip of the iceberg mental distress 28 00:01:45,070 --> 00:01:49,030 created by modern capitalism across as Korea 29 00:01:49,030 --> 00:01:52,740 to come try to explain why people had become so unhappy 30 00:01:52,740 --> 00:02:01,350 in modern societies and isolated five crucial factors 31 00:02:01,350 --> 00:02:03,470 in traditional societies people's 32 00:02:03,470 --> 00:02:07,190 entities are closely tied to belonging to a clan or class 33 00:02:07,190 --> 00:02:10,869 few choices are involved a person might be a baker a 34 00:02:10,869 --> 00:02:15,080 Lutheran all married to the second cousin without ever having made any soft 35 00:02:15,080 --> 00:02:17,160 conscious decisions for themselves 36 00:02:17,160 --> 00:02:20,920 they can just step into a place created for them by their family 37 00:02:20,920 --> 00:02:25,390 and the existing fabric of society but under modern capitalism 38 00:02:25,390 --> 00:02:28,580 it's the individual that now begins to choose everything 39 00:02:28,580 --> 00:02:32,200 what drop to take what religion to follow who to marry 40 00:02:32,200 --> 00:02:35,230 and where to belong if things go well 41 00:02:35,230 --> 00:02:38,630 the individual takes all the credit but if things go badly 42 00:02:38,630 --> 00:02:41,820 the individual is in a cruel a place than ever before 43 00:02:41,820 --> 00:02:46,209 for its seemingly means that there's no one else to blame but they themselves 44 00:02:46,209 --> 00:02:49,790 failure becomes a terrible judgment upon the individual 45 00:02:49,790 --> 00:02:57,370 this is the particular Burton life in modern capitalism 46 00:02:57,370 --> 00:03:00,850 capitalism raises hopes everyone with effort 47 00:03:00,850 --> 00:03:04,590 can become the boss advertising stokes ambition 48 00:03:04,590 --> 00:03:08,680 by showing is limitless luxury that we could if we play our cards right 49 00:03:08,680 --> 00:03:11,880 secure very soon the opportunities are said to be 50 00:03:11,880 --> 00:03:15,400 enormous but so too all the possibilities 51 00:03:15,400 --> 00:03:19,810 for disappointment in modern capitalism NV gross rife 52 00:03:19,810 --> 00:03:22,880 its easy to become deeply dissatisfied with one slot 53 00:03:22,880 --> 00:03:27,110 not because it's objectively awful because have to minting thoughts about 54 00:03:27,110 --> 00:03:32,360 all that is almost but not quite within reach the cheery Bruce to recite of 55 00:03:32,360 --> 00:03:33,710 capitalism attracted to cum spurting cular annoyance in his view 56 00:03:36,850 --> 00:03:40,130 modern society struggle to admit life just is 57 00:03:40,130 --> 00:03:44,500 often quite painful and sad tendencies to grief and sorrow 58 00:03:44,500 --> 00:03:47,700 made to look like signs of failure rather than 59 00:03:47,700 --> 00:03:51,600 should be the case a fair response to the arduous fact that the human 60 00:03:51,600 --> 00:03:58,200 condition 61 00:03:58,200 --> 00:04:00,140 one of the complaints against 62 00:04:00,140 --> 00:04:04,390 societies strongly voiced in Romantic literature is that people need 63 00:04:04,390 --> 00:04:08,560 more freedom rebellious types used to complain that they were far too many 64 00:04:08,560 --> 00:04:09,980 social norms 65 00:04:09,980 --> 00:04:12,940 norms telling you what to wear what you're supposed to do on Sunday 66 00:04:12,940 --> 00:04:14,050 afternoons 67 00:04:14,050 --> 00:04:17,430 what part 7 arm its respectable for women to reveal 68 00:04:17,430 --> 00:04:20,810 capitalism following the earlier efforts have a romantic 69 00:04:20,810 --> 00:04:24,260 rebels has relentlessly undermine social norms 70 00:04:24,260 --> 00:04:28,520 countries have become more complex more anonymous and more diverse 71 00:04:28,520 --> 00:04:31,690 people don't have so much in common with one another anymore 72 00:04:31,690 --> 00:04:35,100 the collective answers to even very important questions like 73 00:04:35,100 --> 00:04:38,410 who should marry you how should bring up your children to become weaker and less 74 00:04:38,410 --> 00:04:39,390 specific 75 00:04:39,390 --> 00:04:43,010 there's a lot of reliance on the phrase whatever works for you 76 00:04:43,010 --> 00:04:47,310 which sounds friendly but it also means that society doesn't much care what you 77 00:04:47,310 --> 00:04:47,669 do and doesn't feel confident it has good answers to the big 78 00:04:47,669 --> 00:04:51,540 questions of your life 79 00:04:52,080 --> 00:04:56,820 in upbeat moments we like to think of ourselves as fully up to the task 80 00:04:56,820 --> 00:05:00,270 reinventing life and working everything out for ourselves 81 00:05:00,270 --> 00:05:03,600 but in reality is dark on you were often simply 82 00:05:03,600 --> 00:05:06,820 too tired too busy to run certain and then 83 00:05:06,820 --> 00:05:12,510 there's nowhere to turn 84 00:05:12,510 --> 00:05:16,220 took I'm with himself and atheist but he worried that religion has become 85 00:05:16,220 --> 00:05:17,340 implausible 86 00:05:17,340 --> 00:05:20,700 just at its best sides its communal side 87 00:05:20,700 --> 00:05:24,760 would be most useful to prepare the fraying social fabric 88 00:05:24,760 --> 00:05:28,740 despite its factual errors in its fantastical dimensions 89 00:05:28,740 --> 00:05:33,900 duck unappreciated religion he knew that the sense of community in consolation 90 00:05:33,900 --> 00:05:38,010 religion offer a highly important to people capitalism 91 00:05:38,010 --> 00:05:42,760 has as yet offered nothing to replace this with science certainly doesn't 92 00:05:42,760 --> 00:05:44,910 offer the same opportunities for powerful 93 00:05:44,910 --> 00:05:48,540 shared experiences the periodic table 94 00:05:48,540 --> 00:05:51,580 might well possess a transcendent beauty and be a marvelous 95 00:05:51,580 --> 00:06:04,010 intellectual elegance pecan drawer society together around it 96 00:06:04,010 --> 00:06:05,729 in the nineteenth century 97 00:06:05,729 --> 00:06:09,770 looks at certain moments as if the idea of the nation Mike Russow powerful and 98 00:06:09,770 --> 00:06:10,490 intense 99 00:06:10,490 --> 00:06:13,800 that it could take up the sense of belonging and share devotion 100 00:06:13,800 --> 00:06:18,509 that had once been supplied by religion admittedly there were some heroic 101 00:06:18,509 --> 00:06:19,229 moments 102 00:06:19,229 --> 00:06:24,460 but they generally didn't work out very well family to you seemed for a time to 103 00:06:24,460 --> 00:06:25,629 offer the experience 104 00:06:25,629 --> 00:06:29,309 belonging the people seem to need but today 105 00:06:29,309 --> 00:06:32,479 although we do indeed invest hugely in our families 106 00:06:32,479 --> 00:06:35,839 they're not as stable as we might hope and by adult would 107 00:06:35,839 --> 00:06:39,539 children a heartbeat I to their parents anymore they don't expect to work 108 00:06:39,539 --> 00:06:40,659 alongside them 109 00:06:40,659 --> 00:06:44,339 they don't expect a social circles to overlap and they do feel that their 110 00:06:44,339 --> 00:06:44,939 parents 111 00:06:44,939 --> 00:06:48,419 on a reason their hands today neither family 112 00:06:48,419 --> 00:06:51,529 nor the nation a well placed to take up the task 113 00:06:51,529 --> 00:06:55,699 giving us a larger sense of belonging giving us the feeling 114 00:06:55,699 --> 00:06:58,879 the with part of something more valuable than ourselves 115 00:06:58,879 --> 00:07:03,110 Emile Durkheim was a master diagnostician 116 00:07:03,110 --> 00:07:06,259 afar Hills he shows us that modern economies 117 00:07:06,259 --> 00:07:10,509 a tremendous pressures on individuals and leave them dangerously bereft 118 00:07:10,509 --> 00:07:13,599 authoritative guidance and communal solace 119 00:07:13,599 --> 00:07:16,819 we are all Telecom's has and so happy 120 00:07:16,819 --> 00:07:21,120 ahead of us the task that he grappled with how we can create new ways of 121 00:07:21,120 --> 00:07:21,770 belonging 122 00:07:21,770 --> 00:07:25,409 how we can take some of the pressure of individuals and find a more correct 123 00:07:25,409 --> 00:07:26,229 balance 124 00:07:26,229 --> 00:07:29,319 between freedom and solidarity and how to generate 125 00:07:29,319 --> 00:07:32,659 ideologies that will house not to be so tough on ourselves 126 00:07:32,659 --> 00:07:34,649 for of failures and I'll setbacks