Citation

Porterfield AL. Am. J. Sociol. 1952; 57(4): 331-338.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1952, University of Chicago Press)

DOI

10.1086/220968

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Some sociologists regard the secular society and the folk society as ideal polar types. The latter is hypothetically well integrated. The former is not. Hypothetically the former is more pathological in its manifestations of suicide and crime. In this study the theory of polar types is modified by the idea of a continuum, extending between the poles on both national and local levels, for which an index is provided. The comparison of indexes of suicide and crime along a continuum shows that suicide but not crime is an outstanding attribute of the secular society, crime being more characteristic of depressed folk groups.