Keywords: suicide essay bottom line, durkheim suicide summary
Suicide is a very complex subject triggered by various complex factors. The failure to meet ones objectives which might have been instilled as early as childhood may bring in regards to a wide selection of emotions leading to people committing suicide for various reasons. Depression, physical or intimate abuse, terrible disappointments, severe financial loss, mental or mental disorders, all cause feelings of emptiness and hopelessness and are just some of the few emotional factors which might influence an individuals last and distorted decision of committing suicide as a means to put a finish to these insufferable feelings. This, however, is just a superficial evaluation touching merely after the surface of the deep-seated source of suicide. This paper will thus attempt to provide a more comprehensive examination of why people commit suicide by looking mostly at the sociological factors and specifically with regards to Durkheim's work.
Durkheim defines suicide as a "basic talk about of extreme depression and exaggerated sadness, leading to the patient no more to understand sanely the bonds which connect him with people and reasons for having him -pleasures no longer appeal to" [Durkheim, 1951:63]. Durkheim further explained that "man cannot become attached to higher goals and submit to a rule if he recognizes nothing above him to which he belongs to free him from all cultural pressure is to reject him to himself and demoralize him" [Durkheim, 1951:110].
In Durkheim's "Interdiction to Suicide: A study in Sociology", Durkheim expresses his matter in producing the do of sociology. He considers the main problem to be that sociology is mainly designed on philosophical overviews, and will not answer the exact public questions. he suggests a methodology that will give the knowledge of sociology strong baselines and real results. In his book, Durkheim applies these propositions and shows how sociology should be conducted, and strongly attracts conclusions that expose to us the way in which we should be able to approach the down sides of society. This analysis has been provided so that it's probable to evaluate the relevance and accuracy and reliability of its meanings and deductions. Durkheim gives the value of sociology far more than being simply a tool to repair the earth, but it is just a lens, through which we see certainty as a shared truth, one included of those who are dependant on their realities. With this introductory chapter he investigates the work of suicide and explores it's social roots by evaluating suicide rates in different interpersonal classes and correlating that with the characteristics of the world. [Durkheim, 1970:41]
A differentiation is manufactured between two types of suicide, negative and positive. In Durkheim's words suicide is thus described as "all situations of death causing immediately or indirectly from a good or negative action of the victim himself, which he is aware will produce this end result" [Durkheim, 1986:64]. A good performance would be to discharge or even to suspend an action. In this case, death comes as a right product of the action. A negative act would be the scenario of staying in a burning house or to refuse eating to the idea of hunger. Death in this case is the indirect result of an individual's action.
Durkheim thought that the areas with the highest rates of mental ailments and alcoholism aren't actually the areas with the highest suicide rates, esquirol wrote that "suicide may be observed to be for all of us only a trend resulting from a number of causes and appearing under various forms ; which is clear that this sensation is not characteristic of a disease". [Esquirol, 1838:528]
Durkheim believed that suicide is no individual act nor an individual achievement. It really is made by some electricity which is over and above the average person.
Durkheim studied suicide vis a vis the partnership between individuals and world affirmed that suicide is a sociable trend as well as building that there are no societies in which suicide will not appear. He asserted that what most people consider as a person act is the truth is the consequence of the communal world. The data aiding this view are numerous. As well as the start differentiation made between positive and negative works of suicide, Durkheim's research concluded that the institution of marriage protects against suicide making the observation that suicide rates are higher among people which may have lost their partner and the ones whom are divorced. . In additional Durkheim observes that suicide rates are higher among lovers who've no children than couples who do, concluding a human being must be loved and also have an objective in life. People who will not experience this in their life will be the ones more vunerable to suicide. [Durkheim, 1951:175]. The organization of marriage may thus play a essential role in ones decision to commit suicide Whether marriage should be looked at positively with regards to suicide is however debatable. While on the main one hand matrimony may play a role in protecting against suicide by providing love, purpose and stableness in ones life it could on the other hands be considered a volatile establishment that once shattered may instead be an instigator of suicide
Durkheim oddly enough further witnessed that suicide rates are higher during times of calmness than times of conflict because during battle people need to be untied in defending their country [Durkheim, 1951:229] This observation may therefore suggest that thoughts of patriotism, honor as well as purpose have a tendency to distant a person from suicide. Suicide rates also tend to be higher during speedy monetary changes than in monetary crises as speedy financial changes are immediate and difficult to put up with. [Durkheim, 1951:241]This observation created by Durkheim may suggest that people must work harder in such economical times constantly being forced to their boundaries in order to keep up to such speedy changes bringing about feelings of despair, restlessness and being under valued.
According to Durkheim's research, faith may provide an impact on suicide rates. Durkheim's' accumulated data advised that Protestants will commit suicide than Catholics, due to the fact that Protestants tend to be idiosyncratic while Catholics tend to be communitarian. [Durkheim, 1951:153] In other words Catholics tend to have more cultural support. According to Durkheim people attaching and validating the other person in a community takes on an important role in protecting against suicide causeing this to be kind of social integration important. Without this kind of connection people may experience feelings of depression, isolation moving them towards suicide. Durkheim, however, seemed to identify two attributes a coin in relation to social integration directing out that where sociable integration is high, people will commit suicide to avoid becoming burdens to modern culture. Two different features are therefore recognized by Durkheim; namely, social legislation and cultural integration. Integration is described as the "degree to which collective sentiments are distributed" and regulation identifies "the degree of external constraint on people" [ Ritzer, 1992:90]. Based on these two public causes, four types of suicide have been proposed by Durkheim.
Durkheim differentiated between four types of suicide, the first being egoistic suicide. [Durkheim, 1951:152] Egoistic suicide is viewed as stemming from an absence of social integration which is committed by people who are outcast by population and are insufficiently integrated into social categories and societies, they hinge more on themselves than on a group of aims and instructions. They aren't socially merged or not socially tied to a community or group. These types of individuals find themselves powerless in finding their own specific place in population and experience problems changing to other groups and are given little or no social good care. Suicide is therefore perceived as a remedy to free themselves of the loneliness or excessive individuation, this brings Durkheim highlights that this type of suicide is mainly prevalent amongst those who are unmarried, widowed, divorced, have no children as well as those without the strong attachments to religious, public or community categories.
The second kind of suicide discovered by Durkheim is anomic suicide. Anomic suicide is viewed by Durkheim as disillusionment and disappointment occurring whenever a person undergoes extreme changes in riches and is finally caused from a lack of social regulation. This sort of suicide is perhaps most obviously sometimes when world is swiftly changing leading to uncertainty. It really is a type of suicide that is due to sudden and surprising changes which Durkheim found generally occurs during speedy financial changes than in economical crises. Durkheim's interestingly points out that suicide is more obvious in problems that brings about disturbances in one's life alternatively than being attributed to poverty. [Durkheim, 1951:245]
Altruistic suicide is the 3rd kind of suicide that is identified and corresponding to Durkheim this kind of suicide occurs when individuals or a group are too close and intimate, and is due to being overly built-into society. It is the other side of the spectrum in interpersonal integration when a person is so well integrated into population that they choose to sacrifice their own life to be able to fulfill some responsibility. Altruistic suicide, being truly a complex principle, can further be broken down into three types: optional, severe and obligatory altruistic suicide. Optional altruistic suicide is brought about by societal pressures which could in truth be well-intentioned. This is observed in Japan where there's a high level of suicide among students because of stress and high anticipations from others and the regular pressured to excel at school exams. Often the accompanying anxiety and stress pushes those to commit suicide; suicide in the victim's perspective becomes the answer to flexibility of oppression from what world expects individuals to be
Acute altruistic suicide occurs when a person kills himself in order to save another life. For example when a fire-fighter helps you to save a person from a getting rid of fire however the fire-fighter dies as a result. That is an take action of heroism and self-sacrifice. It could be argued that it may by flawed to categories this as a type of suicide which is principally associated with a problematic and stressful life when in truth such an act may be considered a form of righteous act
Obligatory altruistic suicidal refers to a type of suicidal where value and honor performs a key point. For example in hind women should destroy themselves in the funeral of their husbands after the death of these husbands they are not allowed to live ever again. If such a person insists on living he loses general public respect; in one case the most common funeral honors are rejected, in another a life of horror is supposed to await him beyond the grave. [Durkheim, 1951:219]
Durkheim points out that altruistic suicide is part of the "collective soul" [Durkheim, 1970] for example when the soul inquires anyone to take action you are obliged to do so and which we therefore see in conditions where society places a substantial amount of pressure and anticipations on individuals which might in turn force an individual towards suicide as a way of get away from.
The final kind of suicide is fatalistic suicide. Durkheim mentioned this kind briefly since it was regarded as a rare phenomenon in real life. Fatalistic suicide occurs in interpersonal conditions where an individual experiences general persecution caused by "excessive regulation" whose "passions [were] violently choked by oppressive willpower [Durkheim, 1970] Slavery and persecution are types of fatalistic suicide in which a person may believe that these are destined by destiny to be in such conditions and choose suicide as the one means to evade such conditions
These four types of suicide are categorized by the amount of integration and rules of individuals in their bordering society. Matching to Durkheim people commit suicide because of either too much or too low integration or regulation, Suicide is a communal fact and is due to social forces. Folks are more likely to commit suicide each time the condition of contemporary society leaves from circumstances of stability. World preserves balance by "integration" and "regulation"
Durkheim's work has been critiqued on many grounds for example his focus on consensus and morality, his positivist method and carelessness of the individual as an actor, his information of suicide rates. Durkheim's idea of suicide is thought to be more reinforced by discussion than by simple fact. However, he's added to the progress of sociology and over a hard theoretical framework
To conclude suicide is not an individual act this can be a social action. People commit suicide because they're not reinforced by world or they don't feel loved by their own family, if one has no support in his life and no person to value him than they can feel valueless which will lead to depression which might lead to suicide, Suicide rates are correlated with how well a person is integrated into world and the amount to which contemporary society regulates individual patterns. in general suicide has some connection with social rules or specifications and the individual
