The one main point of Emile Durkheim's seminal
"Suicide" (1987) is that suicide, or any other personal act for that
matter, is never a purely individual act bur rather one that incorporates
social conditions. Thus suicide for Durkheim is the result of a certain type of
relationship between an individual and society. "Suicide" is
Durkheim's attempt to create a model case study that deals with what he calls
"social fact" (see our summaries of Durkheim's What is Social Fact? or
"The Rules of Sociological Method" for more details). These social facts work to
determine an individual's life, and in some cases, his death by his own hands.
In "Suicide" Durkheim compares
suicide rates of Protestants and Catholics, holding that Catholics kill
themselves less. His explanation was that Catholicism offers its followers a stronger
sense of social cohesion and a feeling of belongingness when compares with the
more individualistic Protestants.
When studying the family Durkheim noted that men
commit more suicide than women and that singles kill themselves more than
people in relationships, people with children present even smaller rates of
suicide. Durkheim also found that soldiers kill themselves more than civilians
and that they do so more in peacetime than during war.
These findings lead Durkheim to argue that
suicide is prompted by social factors, and not only psychological ones. The
relationship one has with his social world is determinative of his inner
experience, and should these ties become problematic people might be driven to
suicide. Durkheim feels that social integration and cohesion are important
here, holding that the more you are comfortably bound with your social
surrounding the less you are likely to kill yourself. One the other hand, being
too close to society to the point of losing the self can also lead one to
commit suicide.
Durkheim lists four types of suicide (see link for a detailed
summary):
Anomic suicide (see Anomie) is the result of the destabilization and ultimate breakdown of ties
to social reality, like in times of rapid change.
Egoistic suicide happens due to the loss of
social ties and isolation from society, like in the case of old age.
Altruistic suicide is when someone willingly
gives his life to society with which he indentifies completely. Soldiers dying
for their country is an example.
Fatalist suicide for Durkheim is when someone
is erased by society, losing all sense of self and agency. A prisoner killing
himself is an example.
See also: Suicide as a Social Phenomenon
Additional article summaries by Emile Durkheim:
Suggested reading:
