Durkheim on Suicide - Essay Example

Durkheim on Suicide: Suicide is nothing but one’s act to terminate his life intentionally. Normally a person commits suicide when he does not desire to live any more. Conventionally suicide was thought to be a phenomenon belonging to the analytical psychology as it follows the desire of a person to terminate his life. The famous German philosopher and sociologist Emile Durkheim’s first introduced the conceptualization of the sociological perspective of suicide. He became interested to the using of scientific methods, which was properly modified in study of human behaviour. His work emphasized on the methods of sociological studies, division of labour, scientific studies of religion and the analysis of suicide due to imbalance between self and the society. (“Durkheim, Émile”, 2007) Durkheim’s made his most influential work on the detailed study of suicide in his famous book ‘Le Suicide’ which was published on 1897. This book, not only broke the conventional analyses of suicide, but it was successful in giving sociological studies a new momentum from the long celebrated ones. The modern standard structure of sociological research and analysis was originated from Durkheim. Durkheim, in his book framed a new definition of suicide as “the term suicide is applied to all cases of death resulting directly or indirectly from a positive or negative act of the victim himself, which he knows will produce this result”. Through this definition Durkheim distinguished suicide from accidental death. He was very much interrogative regarding the analysis of suicide in a social perspective. The essence of his analysis lies in discovering the actual correspondence, if exists, among the different socioeconomic and psychological factors that may inculcate the desire inside a person to terminate his life intentionally. According to this great sociologist there could be many factors generated from the social and economic structures that would lead to the desire to kill oneself. In his book Le Suicide, Emile Durkheim not only changed the way of understanding suicide but also he was successful in cultivating a new way of conducting sociological researches. Hence he was successful in conceptualization of a new structure of sociological research. From the very beginning of the book he started to define the pivot term under discussion and advanced towards sketching out the promotional outlines of a pedagogical explanation of suicide, which would be informed by social science. In this way he used the tables of suicide statistics. He collected the suicide rate statistics of several European Nations. Those were proved to be relatively constant among those nations and among the smaller domains of those nations. Therefore in Durkheim’s theory a collective tendency towards suicide is discovered. Durkheim, through his critical scrutiny of the existing theories that conceptualized the act of self-destruction having physiological and psychological origin, became skeptic about the acceptability of those theories as he revealed that the people of similar genetic origins were not subject to similar suicide rates. Then the question emerged why such rate should vary within the same region over time? If suicide is related to the lack of strength in character why should it not be related to alcoholism? By thorough study of logic and statistics Durkheim threw a challenge towards the then popular and academic explanations of suicide. In this way he gave more stress on the tentative approach of sociological explanation of suicide in an analytical way, which was based on strong logic and statistics. Suicide is an extreme state of mental alienation. (“Durkheim, Émile”, 2007) Durkheim made an effort of classification of suicides. He classified suicide in the following way: 1. Egoistic Suicide: According to Durkheim this type of suicide happens to those who have a little connection with the group or society. The best example is that the loosely bound Protestants have higher suicide rate than the Catholics and the Jews. Married people have lower suicide rate than singles. The nation, which undergo crisis the rate of suicide, is low as the collective struggle against odds keep the bond tight. 2. Altruistic Suicide: This is one of the most controversial theories of Durkheim. According to Durkheim this type of suicide is found in the group of people, which is characterized by tight, knit of bondage among the members and the group is endangered. This time the members willingly sacrifice life for the defense of the group. As suicide was traditionally known as the act of sick or mentally disturbed individuals, the argument, which concludes that soldiers’ sacrifice of own life, is committing suicide makes the glory of their self-sacrifice for nation lighter. Durkheim defined three types of altruistic suicide. 3. Anomic Suicide: This type of suicide takes place in case of abrupt shift in the circumstances of an individual; it’s a type of shift for which he becomes detracted of any integrated group. The anomic suicide was a case of special interest for Durkheim. He classified the anomic into four sub categories: 4. Acute Economic Anomie: This takes place when sporadic decreases in the ability of traditional institutions (such as religion, social institutions, etc) are found to regulate social needs. 5. Chronic Economic Anomie: This is subject to long-term social diminution. Durkheim identified this type with the then ongoing industrial revolution in which traditional social regulators were eroded without any replacement. The industrial goals of wealth and property couldn’t suffice for their desire for happiness. That was resembled in higher suicide rates. 6. Acute Domestic Anomie: This takes place due to a sudden change in micro social level or domestic level, which is hard to accept. That causes higher suicide rate. Suicide among widows is a primal example of it. 7. Chronic Domestic Anomie: This is referred to the way marriage as an institution regulates the sexual and behavioural means-needs balance among men and women. Marriage provides different regulations for each. As a married man has more regulations and established goals and expectation than a bachelor the bachelors have a higher tendency to commit suicide. On the other hand a marriage endows a woman with overregulation by farther restricting their constrained lives. Hence unmarried women have fewer tendencies to commit suicide than bachelors. 8. Fatalistic Suicide: Last, but not the least is the fatalistic suicide. Durkheim described is a rare case in the real world. This takes place due to overregulation on a person. This is found in cases of childless married woman, young husbands etc. in Durkheim’s study this gains least importance for any unknown cause. (“Emily Durkheim”, 2003) Durkheim’s analysis that is based on statistics has framed a structural and institutional analysis and the effect of egoism and anomie. The divisions of labour and social patterns play an equal role. The Durkheim’s discovery includes the social clauses also. These structural and institutional phenomena are the root of human society. Durkheim was the first one judge the phenomenon of suicide in this perspective. In the ancient time the primitive man got united to struggle against the odds they faced from the nature. They started to form a cluster and live together because that was the first step of them to fight against the nature and the other creatures. So the struggle for existence gave the most primitive form of society. So we can say that formation of society was a very crucial and pivot step towards civilization. To fulfill the basic need i.e. food the primitive man had to depend on hunting. That was the only option left in his hand. The structure of the society was very simple one. But over time with the manifestation and advancement of human civilization the activities of man expanded. The works were diversified and hence the division of labour was started according to the capability for the sake of production and distribution. The man had to adopt the exchange system and the pattern of division of labour was made on social aspects. Since then the man has been performing his role as a part of the society. Because society is a place where we get shelter and we belong to the society because we need it. First of all it’s not possible for a person to produce and supply all the goods he wants. Society holds us and we get support from the society when it is required by us. This is a concept of a mutual beneficial formation of a cluster. Hence none of us can avoid the society and neither can we go against it. Moreover, society always brings about the circumstances, which we need to face. For example, in the system of monarchy people had to be under the rule of an autocrat and during the feudalism, the feudal lords ruled them. On the other hand man has its impact on the surrounding society. That’s why the monarchy converted into democracy in which people are ruled by their elected representatives. (Flannery, 1972) One thing should be remembered that in a society we have less identity as a person or separate entity rather we all are the parts of the society and we have to play our respective roles. One has to abide by some rules and regulations of the society that always change over time. This is the unique characteristic of society. You like it or not you are bound to some rules or regulations. That’s why according to the great philosophers the main objective of education is the socialization of a child. A successful life is that which has a good tuning with it. Whenever we are in some group we have to adjust with it. Whenever we are separated from the group we can feel the solitude and that could lead to despair which could be followed by suicidal end. The social pressure, overregulation, social constraints could also make a person feel the desire to terminate own life. One thing that plays in human minds many time about his position and image in the society which maximum of us care for. One thing we have to remember that the society is not only a cluster of people staying together. A society must possess some institutions or a set of laws. There will be some conditions that are known as socioeconomic ones. There are some modes of production and some pattern of distribution. Society is nothing but a sum totals all the aforesaid factors and each and every human being is a cell of it. So whenever we have to analyze the human lives in social perspective all the social institutions, customs, economic conditions and technology of production should be considered, as each one is the indispensable part of the society. These are the ways through which the society controls our lives. For example, we can say that after the industrial revolution in Britain the social change also took place. Whenever the main source of income shifted from agriculture to industry and trade the major part of the working population shifted from former to the latter. So, the occupation no longer remained in the choice of the people. They had to respond the social change. In the famous movie modern times Charlie Chaplin showed how a man becomes mechanical due to this change. The man had to adopt the change willingly or unwillingly. This is not our concern to judge whether the change is good or bad but the fact is that our lives are controlled by the society surrounding us. Society has a significant role to play over a man. For example we can see now in India the most of the students choose to study the courses of medical and engineering or technical education. As the doctors and engineers are heavily paid and possess the glamour in society the students choose those lines. So it’s not the willingness from inside to study these rather it’s the social circumstances or social structure that divert their attention towards these courses. The maximum of the students don’t try to find out their own aptitude or choices, which are inside them. This is a very nice example of the loss of control over oneself in a social framework. The more prominent example of such social effect is that many students who fail to get a chance to pursue such courses commit suicide. Sometimes failure in other examination among the students causes suicide. Such type of suicide rate is gradually growing in India. Studies by the psychologists have proved that parents of the students are very much responsible for such mishaps. The parents, from the childhood cultivate the thought in the mind of the students that success in examination is a very necessary thing for attainment of a position in the society. When a student can’t succeed well he is bound to think that he is not fit for the society and then the tendency to destroy him starts to grow. So in the society our life loses the intrinsic value of it and baffled by the face value in society. On the other hand higher demand for these courses among the students in the society has expanded the scope for them. Now the students have more access to information. More institutes are being formed. So we can say that the social structure in one hand controls the lives on the other hand society and its evolution makes a person have more command on the surroundings. This is a type of circular causation in the society and its belongings i.e. men. Social System in India: Far from America In the perspective of socioeconomic factors we can compare India with USA. India is a country famous for its diversity and multifaceted society. The extent of diversity is not comparable to any other civilization in the world. Virtually no generalization can be made to explain India. If we want to consider the social structure of any country we have to consider the history and geography of the country. If the geography of India along with its climatic condition is analyzed we see that it’s a land having great Himalayas at its North and Indian Ocean at the South. In this country there is a vast plain land, which is nourished by the water carried by the different rivers. So the land is very fertile. The plateau of India contains sufficient minerals. So India is rich of resources, which have always been a cause of foreign invasion. In different time period different foreign forces occupied India that is the cause of this huge diversity in the sphere of culture religion and society. But America was colonized only once and the alien government arranged the country in their pattern as they planned to stay here. But in India the same aliens just adopted policies to drain out surplus. What development they made that were only to serve the colonial purpose. So in Indian society the benefits of the foreign rule were not equally distributed. The ethnic and linguistic diversity that prevails in India is more likely the diversity of a large area more variable as Europe than any single country. In the territory of India there are large variations of economic, social, religious and cultural groups. This type of diversity is not found even in America. The difference between the social structures of North and South India is unfathomable. Especially we can mention the religious difference between the Hindu majority and large Muslim minority. Moreover there are people of different religious beliefs such as Jews, Christians (both Catholic and Protestant), Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, and Parsis and there are different tribal religions. All of them are proud of own faiths. Indian socioeconomic system has always been a challenge for the scholars to explain. There remains a huge and unfathomable difference between the rural and urban sector. Statistics show that more or less 74% of the total population dwells in rural area. But misfortunately the rural area lags far behind than urban ones in perspective of socioeconomic conditions. The rural area is backward, where agriculture is the major occupation. In rural area the agriculture is mostly based on traditional labour intensive technique of production having the problem of seasonal and disguised unemployment. There remains the problem of landless labourers what is responsible for acute exploitation and their low position in the society. That also leads to suicide by the small and marginal farmers, tenants etc. The rural society of India suffers from institutional backwardness, orthodox social customs and superstitions, negative attitude to modernization. Democracy is a goal yet to be achieved in rural areas. There are kingships or lordships in disguised form. The rural kings in disguise violate the rules and regulation of the government. The position of female is backward. The behaviors expected from male and female in the society are different. The gender discrimination problem is acute in India, especially in rural areas. In the same work a female labour is paid a lower wage than a men worker. The social institutions are subject to rigid customs and that’s why we find the oppressed position of the females in India. The females are subject to more social and religious overregulation by the society than their male counterpart. Even in this 21st century a girl child is supposed to be a caste. Dowry system still exists in India, especially in the backward states. (Flannery, 1972) The rural area is also backward than urban counterpart in other contexts. Still now many of the villages are not properly connected to the nearest city through proper communication: transport or telecommunication. The roads are not well enough for the carriage. The electronic communication system is not good enough. Moreover in rural area the scope of education is very limited. There are many villages in which no secondary school exists. The lack of education generates lack of consciousness, which leads to superstitious and backward nature of people and social customs, which leads to negative approach towards education. Hence the rural society is trapped in a vicious circle of underdevelopment. (“Indian Society”, 2000) The health facility and quality of life in rural area is quite miserable. Maximum of the villages have not a health centre. The quality of drinking water is very poor. Sanitation system is very bad in the rural areas especially due to the lack of consciousness. That’s why the rural area is prone to epidemics and perils. Contrary to the social system of rural area we can find that the picture is quite different in the urban areas. The cities of India are well industrialized. We can find ample facilities of life such as drinking water, health, sanitation system, electricity, well-built roadways and railways, telecommunication system etc. The health and education systems are well enough. But the fact is that all the facilities accrue to the rich persons. Along with the high rise buildings, multistoried flats, marketing complex and shopping malls we can witness the slum areas where the people live in absolute poverty. Like rural area there is a problem of exploitation of labour in the urban area in different forms. In slum many people live in absolute poverty. The poor population in the urban areas also lacks the access towards health and education facilities, information system. The problem of gender discrimination is also prominent in India. One more thing is to remember the work culture is very poor in India. (“India Social Systems”, 2004) On the other hand America has never faced such problems like rigid social and institutional customs. In America the problem of such colossal difference between rural and urban areas does not exist. The problem of gender discrimination and oppression of females by social customs and religions are not found in America. The citizens can enjoy the better quality of life due to sufficient purchasing power. In India the social system is based on family. The families are tied here with an invisible feeling of love and discipline. Marriage is an origin of this family and family is the origin of this clan. This clannish attachment is a vital characteristic of Indian society. But in America this type of society with the tie-ups are not found. Rather the Americans stress on individuality more rather than family. So the social systems of America and India are largely different. (“India – Society”, 2006) Karl Marx’s Theory on Social change: Karl Heinrich Marx is famous as a 19th century philosopher, political economist and revolutionary philanthropist. He was a strong proponent of socialism and the father of communism. In his great works, which are nothing but masterpieces, Marx threw light on many political as well as social issues. But it is best to rank him as an analyst of the history and evolution of the society. Marx analyzed history on the perspective of the respective classes and class struggles or conflicts. We can quote the opening line of his famous book ‘Communist Manifesto’, “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” (“Class struggle, ancient and modern”, 2008) Marx argued that the social transformation is a result of the tensions, which had been generated inside the social system among different classes. The conflicts and contradictions within the feudal system gave birth to a capitalistic society. Similarly he thought that capitalism would end itself through a conflict between the classes. The tensions within a capitalist system would bring about a revolution as a result of which the socialism, characterized by classless society will emerge. Whenever there would be no class the society would reach a steady state in which no class struggle would take place. This type of society would be under the dictatorship of the proletariat. According to Marx, class struggles in inevitable in a system in which the classes belong. Marx, in his theory stressed his attention on the economic class rather than social classification such as upper class or lower class etc. Marxian theory defines a class according to its relationship to the means of production i.e. a person’s position in a social structure that characterizes the socialism. Marx talks mainly about two major classes including the vast majority of population, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Labor or the proletariat class earns their livelihood by selling their labour power in production process. The labourers have no other option than working for wage. On the other hand the bourgeoisie class owns the means of production. They extract surplus from the workers who actually creates wealth. (“Conflict Theory(ies) of Deviance”. 2008) In his theory Marx tried to form a materialistic model of society towards capitalism and transformation of the system through dialectical method. The capitalism was a major thing in the history of 19th century. Marx saw the stage of evolutions in his viewpoint. In this system capital was controlled and owned by a minority while the majority had nothing option but to work for creating wealth through the process of production. The owners or capital or the bourgeoisie enjoyed the power over the production process, as they owned the scarce resources of production. That’s why they employ labourers for wages to be given against work. The objective of the producer capitalists was to extract surplus value from the production process. That’s why they used to exploit the labourers. When labourers are paid below the level they produce by their effort, they are supposedly exploited. In the production relation whom we mention as the division of labour we can find the existence of exploitation by the capitalists, as they own the scarce resources of production. The interest of the proletariat class is often hampered. (“Conflict Theory (ies) of Deviance”, 2008) The economic exploitation is often followed by political oppression. The owners of capital or the bourgeoisie often try to gain the political control over the state for the sake of farther exploitation to extract more and more surplus. Thus, over time the state and government become the servants of bourgeois to help their exploitative measures. Police power and law, for instance, are utilized to guarantee the property rights and the unfair and exploitative contracts between the capitalist and worker. Oppression is also carried out in other forms. The religious and institutional constraints also serve the capitalist interest by pacifying the intellectual people who could raise the voice against the existing system. The capitalists pay the money for such activities directly or indirectly, to spend their activities for justification of the capitalist pattern of the system, existing social and economic arrangements. Finally, the economic structure of society shapes out the superstructure that includes ideas such as morality, ideology, art, literature etc and the social institutions (such as the state, the educational system, the family and the religious institutions) that support that provides support for the class structure of the society. As the bourgeoisie is the dominant ruling class of the society, the dominant ideology of the society represents the ideology of the capitalist class. The ideology and the institutional basis of the society in term serve and perpetuate the economic class structure. In this way Marx analyzed the exploitative economic arrangements of capitalism as the real foundation on which the superstructure of the social, political and intellectual consciousness stand. (“Conflict Theory”, 2000) The Marxian dialectic method is based on Hegel’s earliest dialectic method. It focuses the attention towards how an existing social arrangement or thesis can generate its social opposite or antithesis. Moreover he tried to analyze how a qualitatively different form of society could emerge from an existing system. Marx was optimistic. He believed that any stage of history, which was characterized by exploitative nature, carried the embryo of its own destruction in the womb. For example Feudalism, which was based on exploitation of peasants by landlords, was destroyed by the dialect with the merchant class and hence there was the emergence of capitalistic society through bourgeoisie revolution by them. Similarly, the relations within a capitalist system would cause unrest among the proletariats and there would be social revolution and conflict. After the blood bath there would be the supremacy of the proletariats would be established. No social change has yet been achieved without conflict that history also says. 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India – Society, Global Security, 2006, retrieved on 26 January, 2008 from: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/india/society.htm 7. “Indian Society”, Indian child, 2000, retrieved on 26 January 2008: http://www.indianchild.com/indian_society.htm 8. “India Social Systems”, 2004, retrieved on 26 January 2008 from: http://www.photius.com/countries/india/society/india_society_social_systems.html 9. Flannery, Kent V. “The Cultural Evolution of Civilizations”, Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, University of Michigan. 1972 Read More