In writing this book I have not always agreed with much of what Durkheim has to say on the subject of the common or collective consciousness of society or even with much of his sociology generally. However, in saying this, I do not mean to suggest that what Durkheim says is unimportant, but rather that what he says has only taken us so far and that what we have to do is to try to add to what he says, agree with him where we can, but also criticize him where he got things wrong. I would therefore describe myself as a constructive critic of Durkheim's work, and in fact I think there would be no point in looking at any classical sociologist – Marx, Weber, Durkheim or whoever – unless we can build upon what they have to say (Smith 2010, 483). For the most part however, and rather to my own surprise, I have agreed with Durkheim that all societies probably do have to have something very much like what might reasonably be called a ‘common or collective consciousness of society’ – and this name is probably as good as any other I think – if they are to continue to exist in their present form.

However, when I started to write this book this was not my view. In fact, it was my original intention to try (a) to refute Durkheim's claim that there was any such thing as the common or collective consciousness of society and, along with this claim, (b) to refute much of the rest of what he has to say.