Suicide:

A Study of Societal Integration

Ranju Upadhyaya 7640010 SOC 2220- A02 Charles D. Axelrod November 14, 2011

One cannot possibly discuss suicide without bringing up Durkheim who revolutionized sociology as an academic discipline. Throughout Suicide Durkheim establishes two main social facts. First, suicide rate is fixed in each society. However, this fixed rate varies from society to society. Durkheim utilizes these two facts to distinguish between sociological and psychological explanation of suicide. Furthermore, he shows the inadequacies in the various psychological explanations for the two social facts mentioned above and explanations dealing with race, hereditary and climate. Durkheim defines suicide as is the death resulting directly or indirectly from a positive or negative act of the victim himself, which he knows will produce this result. He then categorizes suicide into four subtypes: egoistic, altruistic, anomic and fatalistic suicides. Of these four types of suicides, egoistic suicide is the most important for his analysis of suicide. Durkheim found popular psychological explanation of suicide (race, hereditary and climate) inadequate explanations of suicide. First using Morsellis definition of race, he looks into the higher rates of Germanic people in comparison of other three groups. But, in his findings with mixed ethnicities he found that despite the nationality thought to commit the most suicide, the suicide rate in many countries (example of Swiss cantons) were higher even with the Germanic influence was low. In the case of the Swiss cantons, the French Protestant suicide is higher. Thus, Durkheim argues that it is not something inherent in the blood of Germans which predisposes them towards suicide but rather the civilization in which

they are reared (p89). He uses this to prove that it is the result of the environment (sociological) rather than race (psychological). Second, Durkheim attempts to prove hereditary as an insufficient explanation for suicidal rate. While Durkheim agrees that the recurring suicidal tendencies in generation of one family is alarming, many of the families under investigation have insanity and thus offers another explanation which is that suicide might by transmitted through insanity. However, if insanity (psychological explanation) was the sufficient cause for suicide, then Durkheim questions the fact that though women were more likely through records to be locked up asylums, the suicide rate does not follow these numbers with the differences among sexes and hereditary doesnt account for difference in suicide rate among sexes. He also argues, that if hereditary causes were enough, suicidal characteristics should appear at the same time as the parent but this is not true. Another likely cause of the difference in suicide rate Durkheim proves as inadequate are climate and season which Durkheim refers to as cosmos factors. By looking at the regional distribution of suicide in Italy, he points out that the difference in North and Center suicide rate has greatly diminished but the climate had remained the same although he does point out that the geographical location of the capital changed. This sets up his argument that seasonal change should have some credence as a factor in suicide rate because daylight may be e linked to social life. Therefore, if cosmic factors can be given some credence if considered in sociological manner by linkage of societal changes and lives collectively. Durkheim through his analysis of the psychological explanations of suicide makes the argument that suicide is not inherent to an individual. It is rather the result of society.

As mentioned before, among the four subtypes of suicide he lists, egoistic suicide is the most important for his analysis of suicide as a sociological explanation (religious beliefs, family, political studies etc). In his delineation of four types of suicide, egoistic suicide is the type of suicide that occurs as a lack of integration or attachment with suicide. In his analysis of egoistic suicide, Durkheim examines types of societies (religion, family and politics). In his examination of Catholics and Protestants, Durkheim notes that the suicide rate between the two religious groups is different with the Catholics having lower suicide rate. He argues that while the temptation to give into the argument that minority status of the religious community establishes the degree of their control over members, this does not offer adequate explanation for the difference. Rather, it is the degree of the freedom of thought which is allowed in Protestantism in comparison to Judaism and Catholicism. To emphasize this he looks at literacy rates across religions. Suicide rate also increases with education (knowledge). Both Jews and Protestants are highly educated. However, Durkheim states that knowledge is not the cause of increase in suicide but rather it is the lack of degree of integration and the loosening of cohesion of the religious society, which causes an increase in society. Therefore, this is the crux of Durkheims argument. Because religion is something that constitutes as society, it has a great effect on suicide rate than psychological explanations. Durkheim shows that degree of societal integration is the root cause of suicide rate differences through his study of other types of society, family and political society. Through statistics, he disproves the common notion that domesticity increases suicidal tendencies with numbers showing that suicide rates are higher for those who are single in

comparison to those married or married people with children have lower suicide rate than unmarried. Durkheim also takes into consideration widowhood and argues that the difference in suicide rate between male widows and female widows can be attributed to the difference in the degree of integration to society. In his quest for sociological explanation as a better explanation for suicide, Durkheim points out that in when collective sentiments are strong (patriotism and faith in nation) suicide rates are lower. In fact, he argues that the wake of popular revolution beings reduction of suicide because there is a drive towards a stronger social integration as a means towards a collective single end. Thus, through his analysis of societal factors versus psychological explanations of suicide, Durkheim establishes suicide as a characteristic of society rather than inherent to individual.