2: Adaptation and Change

• For Durkheim, all change starts with an act of deviance. Individuals with new ideas, values and ways of living must not be completely stifled by the weight of social control. There must be some scope for them to challenge and change existing norms and values, and in the first instance this will inevitably appear as deviance.
• For example, the authorities often persecute religious visionaries who espouse a new 'message' or value-system. However, in the long run their values may give rise to a new culture and morality. If those with new ideas are suppressed, society will stagnate and be unable to make necessary adaptive changes.
• Thus, for Durkheim, neither a very high nor a very low level of crime is desirable. Each of these signals some malfunctioning of the social system:

  • Too much crime threatens to tear the bonds of society apart.
  • Too little means that society is repressing and controlling its members too much, stifling individual freedom and preventing change.