In 1897, Durkheim published a book named Le Suicide in which he defined Suicide as any event of death caused by direct or indirect, positive or negative action of the person himself which he already knows will produce this outcome. Emile Durkheim Suicide
Reason for choosing suicide as a topic.
- During that period, suicide was considered a psychological fact.
- After going through the statistics from many European countries, Durkheim inferred that it was difficult to explain the patterns in suicide through countries if suicide was only perceived as a personal and individual act.
Earlier studies.
- According to Gabriel Tarde, suicide is transmittable. For instance- farmers commit suicide as one leads to another.
- Countering Tarde’s theory, Durkheim mentioned that in case a person commits suicide, his family doesn’t follow him and commit suicide. Rather, suicide acts as an integrating point for other family members as the grief holds them together.
Mitchell and Bravo gave ‘Behavioural theory of suicide’ which states that individuals suffering from high nervousness, despair, addiction, or regular aggression, commit suicide. But Durkheim criticized that this theory did not explain the rate of suicides across different religions, age groups, and countries.
How does Durkheim explain suicide?
- Suicide is a social fact and general phenomenon.
- It is driven by the suicidal current that is determined by the structural feature of society.
Emile Durkheim Suicide observations.
- Durkheim found that suicide rates are higher in mainly Protestant countries than in Catholic ones. For instance, Jews had low suicide rates than Catholics.
- He observed less suicide rate of married people in comparison to single ones. Childless mothers were found to have a higher suicidal rate.
The methodology used by Durkheim to study suicide.
- Durkheim started with consideration of social facts. He did not only observe but learned the social facts like positivists.
- Then he collected the statistical data related to suicide and studied it by studying the correlation in it.
- Finally, DK did the multivariate analysis to separate the most vital variables and to conclude whether there was an open causal association between the factors and suicide.
Related facts.
- Durkheim made use of the comparative method to define how a set of social facts explain the other facts.
- For instance, during his empirical investigation of suicide rates, Durkheim found the types of social groups in which these rates were high and low. Emile Durkheim Suicide
- After this, he compared these groups to identify their dissimilarities, and how these differences could explain the different suicide rates. Emile Durkheim Suicide
Different types of suicides.
Based on his observation, Durkheim defined four different types of suicides explained below:
- Anomic Suicide
- This type of suicide happens when society lacks regulation of a person suitably.
- It occurs as a result of the disruption of norms and values due to any rapid social change.
- Egoistic Suicide
- This form of suicide can be observed when an individual is unsatisfactorily united into society.
- Altruistic Suicide
- Occurs in highly unified societies where personal sacrifices are known as acts of responsibility towards others.
- For instance, the Sati system in ancient India.
- Fatalistic suicide
- This suicide comes into observation when the high grade of rule blocks the desires of people unkindly by unfair disciplines.
- For example, high rate of suicide among slaves. Emile Durkheim Suicide
Criticism.
- Gibbs and Martin believed that Durkheim had failed to make use of positivistic approaches as carefully as he supported them. Emile Durkheim Suicide
- According to Halbwachs, DK over-focused the religious role in defining the rate of suicide,
