Mechanical and Organic Solidarity in Durkheim

An adorable puppy.

Okay, so if I understand Durkheim correctly, the transition from mechanical solidarity to organic solidarity is basically a function of the division of labor.  You start out with an almost implausibly primitive subsistence society with no social differentiation from person to person.  Everybody does more or less the same jobs as everybody else, so they're interchangeable--hence, "mechanical".  In this case, solidarity derives from similarity in outlook and experience.

These two puppies are in a basket.

 But then, see, the population expands and becomes more complex and people start fulfilling a wider and wider ranger of social roles.  Basically, you get a division of labor; individuals are not longer functionally interchangeable.  Instead, they're like the organs of the body, performing vastly different, but mutually supportive, functions to insure the survival of the whole--hence, "organic".  In this case, solidarity derives from a sense of mutual interdependence.

He's probably all like: "Hey!  How do I get down from here?"

But here's the thing: whatever other objections you might have to all that, it seems like a really lazy analogy to me.  I mean, sure, mechanical parts are often interchangeable, but it's not like the various components of even a simple machine don't have differing and mutually supportive functions, right?  One D battery will work about as well as another, but you can't just go and substitute a wheel for an axle or use a lightbulb for a camera battery.  And the same goes in reverse for bodies: your lungs and your fingernails do different jobs, but if your dad gets sick you can still give him one of your kidneys.  Right?

Have a purr-fect Christmas!

Am I getting Durkheim all wrong here?  Am I just being unnecessarily literal-minded?  Maybe he was just being an intellectually lazy asshole?  Or--and this is what I think--maybe this is all just a measure of the century-or-so wide intellectual gap between him and us.  Maybe Durkheim was writing at a time when people just weren't willing to view the body as a big old machine.