| Summary: | 碩士 === 東海大學 === 社會學系 === 94 === In The Division of Labor in Society Emile Durkheim uses “mechanical solidarity” to explain the highly similarities between the primitive tribal society and the contemporary small community in their cognitive arenas of emotions, values, religions. Durkheim indicates that due to the low-developed division of labor, any tribal individual could be arbitrarily replaced by the other members. To maintain their trial unity, these primitive people used common totems, emotions and values to create the strong collective consciousness through which they could eliminate the existence of any individual awareness and prevent the collapse of their own tribe. Nevertheless, when it comes to the contemporary society full of the highly division of labor, Durkheim highlights the importance of individual awareness, for all of its members should rely on one another so as to create the “organic solidarity.” It also means that all the members should try their best to fully develop their own society. As a result, the individual awareness becomes the basic value of the contemporary society.
Nowadays, it is obviously essential to practice Durkheim’s theory of organic solidarity system so that we can enhance our potentialities to encounter the intense competition resulting from the globalization mechanism. To meet such a trend, most countries adopt the classified technical disciplines to reform their education systems. Above all, they pay more attention to those industrial and commercial schools that possess the manufacturing abilities in marketing economy. Nevertheless, Karl Marx holds a totally different viewpoint. He asserts that the highly division of labor in the society is the major reason to alienate its diverse ethnic groups. It is because of the individual awareness and the dissimilated division of labor that gradually alienates an individual from his own ethnic group and thus gradually loses the common sense of values and emotions. Henceforth, when he feels frustrated, there are by no means the collective ethnic values and emotions supporting him to overcome the adversary. Accordingly, for any individual who wants to win the communal support, the “identity” becomes the primary issue in particular related to his ethic cultural identity.How can a specific ethnic group be solidified? Durkheim believes that “faith” and “worship” were the two basic elements solidifying a primitive tribal community. In contrast of the mandatory identity based on blood relationship in a primitive tribal community, what is the fundamental element cementing an individual and a community together especially after this individual joins the contemporary leisure group voluntarily? Are “discipline” and “pleasure” the basic elements that can solidify a voluntary leisure group? How do different communities transmit their culture to their own members? Especially, how do a community and its members mutually interact through discipline-solidity and pleasure-solidity so that they can pass on their culture heritage? And what can the community and this individual attain from their mutual interaction?
My research is focused on the fieldwork of investigating the formation of value of identity in a service club of institute of technology. For this group of young adult students, it is a key transit period to learn how to socialize with other people. That they interrogate and hold a rebellious attitude toward the tradition reflects the dynamic interactive relationship between the individual and the community. With this approach, my research is concerned with the formation of value of identity, so it is purely related to the culture issue irrelevant to any orientation of economic action. As the activity form of this school club is to reproduce social interaction, it can be incorporated into the grand cultural system. Through this research, I attempt to understand how the students utilize “play” with uncertainty to reinterpret the cultural meanings that have already existed.
In Chapter Two of my dissertation, to fully investigate how the students utilize “play” to reinterpret the already-existent cultural meanings, I, first of all, would like to deal with how a crisis happens during such a process of reinterpretation. In my findings, the dynamic interaction between the students and this school club takes place in the procedure of the symbolic activities through which all the participants can spontaneously empower themselves with the cultural knowledge concerning the club itself. Accordingly, the senior schoolmates can posses the power to interpret and transmit the disciplinary tradition to the new members. Yet, such discipline is also one of the sources of the conflicts among its members. The other conflict happens when its members who have their own specific cultural habitaus feel frustrated or disappointed at the results that are contrary to their original expectation or that they fail to conduct the dynamic interaction with the others. These conflicts lead to the crisis, hindering the club members who mentally undergo the self-reflective activities from cultivating their collective consciousness. Therefore, to prevent this crisis from happening, the collective community must provide every member the platform to achieve his self-fulfillment.
In Chapter Three, I would like to manifest how this platform must be constructed with various types of symbolic activities so that every club member can attain his self-realization. Noticeably, these specific activities cannot result in the pragmatic benefits but let every member conduct the emotional interaction instead. Consequently, with the collective taste formatted by the unique atmosphere supplied by silence, songs, noise, or excitement, a club office becomes the specific field, offering its members the specific location to undergo the emotional interaction. Along with the collective taste offered by such a specific field, the club members can create their own unique communal activity form that is something meaningful for them to take their emotional interactive action. Based on this theory, disciplinary identity is the fundamental element to transmit cultural heritage whereas pleasure identity is the essence of such a club. Nevertheless, Lanhui Club represents both kinds of identities through its unique communal activity form and creation. It is because of play that these two kinds of extreme identity are linked together and their former inconsistency is dissolved by the grotesque performance of discipline and pleasure.
Finally, in Chapter Four, I intend to probe how the club members perform the rite of transmission to achieve their quest for the disciplinary and pleasure identity. Through the practice of symbolic interaction, all the club members can construct their communal identity and solidify their spiritual faith by means of the ritual performance. By crossing the temporal boundary, those legends in relation to such a ritual performance can firmly bind the various generations of members together. It is through its sacred aura that this ritual performance can create the location for the members to conduct the emotional interaction. In other words, during their service journey, the communal cultural value of the club members is constantly awakened. In addition, they can transmit their conventional ideology and validate the interchange of the ritual performance. In a word, while playing, the club members not only perform the rite of transmission but also complete their dual-quest of disciplinary and pleasure identities.
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