CONCEPT
Society as Flow
Tarde's ontological alternative to Durkheimian structuralism — the proposition that social reality consists of continuous movement of imitative patterns between minds, not of structures standing above individuals.
Against Émile Durkheim's foundational claim that society is a reality sui generis — a structure that stands above individuals and constrains them — Tarde proposed that society is a flow. The flow is primary; the structure is secondary, an abstraction from continuous movement that sociologists mistake for fundamental reality. This is not a metaphor. It is an ontological claim with practical consequences: where Durkheimian frameworks identify disruption as a threat to structure requiring defensive protection, Tardean frameworks identify change as widening of an always-flowing current requiring directional stewardship. The AI transition makes the difference operational: regulation designed to protect existing institutional arrangements treats AI as an intruder; dam-building designed to redirect the flow treats AI as a new participant in a current that cannot be stopped.
In The You On AI Field Guide
Tarde's disagreement with Durkheim was not merely academic. It was systematic, sustained, and professionally costly. Durkheim commanded the Parisian academy, controlled L'Année sociologique, and placed his students in the chairs