The French philosopher Émile Durkheim, known by some as the “father of sociology,” introduced the idea to the world that people’s norms, beliefs and values make up a shared way of understanding and behaving and that that collective consciousness binds individuals together to create social integration.
Durkheim died in 1917, ironically the same year the Russian Revolution that ultimately led to the forming of the Soviet Union began. More than 100 years later, George Washington University Law student Sonia Schmidt finds herself at that intersection...