One of the central concerns of classical social theory is what it means to be a person living in modern society. W.E.B. DuBois, Alexis de Tocqueville, and Emile Durkheim recognize the necessity for people to meet their material needs, and how key aspects of economic organization shape life for all. Yet they also note that pursuing material gain is only part of what it means to live in society and to be fully human. There is something beyond material pursuits that each theorist highlights as especially significant, and people in modern society need the space or the opportunity to pursue it, to experience it, or to live in that condition. Furthermore, there is frequently a tension between material life and that ‘something more’ identified by the theorist, leaving open to question whether all of us living in modern society can expect to experience or enjoy the ‘something more’. To get at the puzzle of material pursuits as opposed to something more, we’d like you to analyze W.E.B. DuBois, Alexis de Tocqueville, and Emile Durkheim, and please answer the following questions:
(i.) How do W.E.B. DuBois, Alexis de Tocqueville, and Emile Durkheim specify the distinction between material life and pursuit of gain, on the one hand, and that something more the theorist believes is especially important for people in modern society? Be explicit in terms of how each thinker talks about the pursuit of material gain, what exactly that something more is, and why the theorist contends the something more is so important. In offering your specification, be sure to note how this distinction may be linked to the way the theorist talks about the interests people pursue.
(ii.) How do W.E.B. DuBois, Alexis de Tocqueville, and Emile Durkheim characterize the tension between material pursuits and that something more they believe is so important? For each thinker, be sure to specify the source and the nature of the challenge to ‘that something more’, how it bears differently on different groups of people in modern society (if it does), and how each theorist argues the challenge may be overcome.
(iii.) Insofar as this tension between material pursuits and the something more is overcome, what kind of situation or circumstance does that produce for the person living in modern society? How is this related to the theorist’s overall project?
Then, in a single concluding paragraph, please tell us which version of the relationship between material pursuits and something more you find most compelling or insightful, and very briefly, why.
