How Durkheim Makes A Very Accurate Argument About Suicide

Emile Durkheim was one of the most influential people to write about suicide and its causes. Suicide had previously been thought to be a moral and psychological problem whereas Durkheim related suicide to sociological problems in modern society. He believed and worked to prove that suicide was not related to individualism but linked to the effects of the external influences of modern society. External social influences upon an individual covered the broad and varied aspects such as culture, religion and family. Durkheim believed that suicide was directly related to the level of social integration and/or regulation of a person in society. He developed groups into which an individual was categorised according to their level of integration

Egoistic suicide which is when individuals are not integrated well enough into society for example people who live alone compared to those who live with family. Secondly Altruistic suicide which is when individuals are felt to be too integrated into society causing suicide, for example members of the armed forces were said to have greater suicide rates than civilian personnel as they were too strongly integrated into a united body. Durkheim also put forward the idea of Anomic suicide, this is when the norms and values in society become unclear or confused in times of great social change and an individual is not taught to adapt to changes well enough. For example an unexpected death of a family member is sudden social change which can cause Anomic suicide. Lastly, he suggested Fatalistic suicide. Fatalism is the excessive amount of regulation which leads to one committing suicide.

Suicide is the intentional taking of one's own life and sociologists over the years have tried to put forward various explanations for why someone may do this. Within sociology there are many different views on suicide on the causes and explanations for it, these come from two main methodologies which are Positivists who believe that sociology is a science and they should aim to make causal laws on suicide rates, compared to Interpretivists who believe that they should look for meaning behind occurrences and certain individuals experiences before the suicide. Other perspectives also put in their views on what they believe to explain

The first sociologist to theorize on suicide and its sociological interpretations was Emile Durkheim. Durkheim worked during the late 1800’s identifying social structures as the key determinant in self-destructive behaviour. In his work Suicide: A study in Sociology, Durkheim stated that “suicide rates increase when a society’s value system breaks down.”2 Durkheim believed that the shared values of a society and the mechanisms in place that ensure that its members adhere to these values, is interpreted as a person’s “social structure.” Durkheim suggested two basic factors in social structure that heavily influence the incidence of suicide. These are regulation and integration. He believed that an individual needs to become part of, and find direction in his own society. Without these factors in place, suicide becomes a common substitute. Teens are often anxious about fitting in to their society (especially among peer groups) so it is clear that integration is essential to adolescence. Durkheim also suggested that it is these two factors

Susanna Kaysen once said, “Suicide is a form of murder - premeditated murder…you need the means, the opportunity, the motive. A successful suicide demands good organization and a cool head, both of which are usually incompatible with the suicidal state of mind.” Being the 10th leading cause of death in the world, Suicide is a serious public health problem that many people know about but will never fully understand. The never-ending question tied to this phenomenon is what can cause a person to take his or her own lives. With the help of Emile Durkheim’s theory I can finally somewhat understand that it is not just an individual factor but also based on the society around the individual.

Durkheim does not see egoism, altruism, anomie and fatalism as types of suicide, but types of social structure that highlight the presence or lack of integration and regulation. It must be stressed that this excess/lack of integration and regulation are not seen as direct causes of suicide, rather Durkheim sees a number of voluntary deaths in society as inevitable; integration and regulation are merely prophylactic to suicidal impulses, which when taken to excess or dramatically reduced, fail to act as a preventative, and so suicides occur. This clarification is an important strength of Durkheim’s theory: it allows the biography of the individuals who kill themselves to vary, while still explaining underlying pressures/lack of to explain their deaths, and the varying suicide rates between groups.

Finally, we have Fatalistic suicide, which occurs in societies with high levels of social regulation. This is only briefly discussed in Durkheim’s work, as he saw Fatalistic suicide, “as a rare phenomena in the real world.� (I1) An example might be someone with an overregulated and difficult life, like a slave.

Furthermore, social scientists have not been too involved in the topic of suicide. Since 1990-2009 there have not been many article on the topic and the disinterest can derive from the presumption that suicide is a lonesome act. The article “Suicide and the Creative Class,” states that, “Durkheim ([1897] 2006) illustrated that suicide is a social phenomenon by stating that levels of integration and

Durkheim’s findings suggested that suicide rates vary between societies but do show regular patterns over time. He concluded that this was evidence that there are consistent social forces that influence the rate of suicide in society. In sum, Durkheim believed that for society to maintain a state of equilibrium there needs to be an appropriate degree of integration and regulation; a consequence of any imbalance is an increased rate of suicide. However, despite Durkheim’s study of society being viewed by many as a classic, it has been met

To break down why people commit suicide, in a social aspect, sociologist David Emile Durkheim, broke it into four different terms of situations that are called: egoistic, altruistic, anomic, and fatalistic. Durkheim says, “Egoistic suicide occurs in a society where there is excessive individualism, that is, low social interaction” (“Altruistic”). This means there is little interaction between the individual and a cohesive social group that could give the individual a feel of purpose in their life. People with more interaction create goals, values, and bonds with people around them in a social group that increases their

Durkheim went into detail about three-suicide types: anomic, altruistic, and egotistic. Anomic suicide makes individuals feel lost or alone in society. For example teen suicide, the teen cannot relate to another individual. Altruistic suicide is based on excessive regulations of individuals by social force. For example political or social pressure makes and individual feel disconnected with society or themselves. Egotistic suicide is a total detachment from society. He argues that suicide is a social factor. The social factors he argues are social surroundings and whether the individual is integrated in social structure. He does state as well does Mills that men have a higher rate of suicide than woman do. Mills believed that men were unable to make the connection between social and individual life. Durkheim and Mills both have different perspectives however they both believed that our society and individuals needed to make a connection in order to

As Durkheim says that suicide describes a purposeful act of death, which is the result of negative thoughts of a person. Suicide is a deviant act and causes panic in society. Durkheim claims that suicide is a social reality and it needs to be studied in order to understand suicidal behaviours, human motives, and social transformation towards minimizing this negative behaviours. Suicide is a reality in every society. Social forces will influence and impact the suicide data in each country. Independent variables are studied on religion, marital status, politics and economics. Durkheim's analysis data is extracted from secondary data according to investigator statistics. Through

Suicide, to Durkheim, is “an exaggerated form of ordinary practices,” and they arise from “comparable states of mind” in people, with the only difference between daily and suicidal behavior being the “chance of death” (Durkheim 20-21). Durkheim spends the majority of the work dissecting the “apparent motives” for suicide (Durkheim 151) and observing the varieties of suicide, a feat made difficult by the inaccurate reporting and misunderstandings of investigators. Thus, to understand the types of suicide, we must “reverse the order of our research” for “There can only be as many different types of suicide as there are differences in the causes from which they derive,” (Durkheim 149). He says “if they were all found to have the same essential characteristics, they would be grouped in one class” but “observations that we would need to have are more or less impossible obtain” (Durkheim

In this essay I will explain about Durkheim theory of suicide,which were categorize in three types.Firstly, I will include an introductory history of Emile Durkheim about his life and work throughout his life.Secondly,an elaboration on the theory of suicide followed the three types of suicide which are altruistic,egoistic and anomic (which I will be focus more in this essay) . Lastly, a relation of society in Brunei with one of Durkheim’s theory of suicide.

Each of Durkheim’s hypothesis involve some aspect of social state or social gender, age, occupation, religion, marital status etc. He wanted to show that suicide was to be thought of in social terms not individual terms which it had been thought as. Durkheim was seen as one of the “Fathers of sociology” and his work is greatly admired. Durkheim's research and hypotheses have helped my understanding of suicide in social terms and has helped me in seeing the different types of suicide and the different rates. His work has shown me not only look at suicide from an individual point of view but to look at the individuals social setting and social influences around them and see how those influences have impacted the