The good, the bad, and the profane: Durkheim and the “strong program” in cultural sociology

In their highly influential push for a "strong program" in Cultural Sociology, Jeffrey Alexander and Philip Smith argue for deep cultural codes of "good" versus "evil," which they equate to the "sacred" versus the "profane," respectively. However, Dmitry Kurakin argued that, in equating the "good" with Durkheim's "sacred" and "evil" with the "profane," Alexander and Smith depart from Durkheim's original meaning where both good and evil are part of the sacred. While I agree with Kurakin on this, I critique his subsequent interpretation of Durkheim on the "ambiguity of the sacred" and hold he has not adequately addressed what difference this correction makes for the strong program. In contrast, I argue that the real problem of ambiguity, as well as for the strong program, lies with the profane rather than the sacred – it is what Durkheim saw as profane that gets omitted from the strong program's analyses via its conflation of the "profane" with "evil." I conclude with a discussion of how, by bringing the profane back in, we can expand and deepen the analysis of culture beyond "the times of tension, unease, and crisis" emphasized by Alexander and Smith.