Durkheim

Suicide

• Durkheim’s “Suicide” is a classical work in the sociological tradition.

• 1. identifies social factors involved in a very personal and intimate individual behavior.

• Helps define:– 1. the subject matter of sociology– 2. the relationship between the “private

troubles” and the public issues” (sociological imagination)

• 2. it is based on empirical and statistical data.

• Gives rise to an “objective” and quantitative research method in sociology

• Durkheim’s findings are based on old data (not always valid today)

• However, his analysis has not lost its relevance (one of the major theoretical sources on suicide)

Suicide in Canada:

• Suicide is the third cause of death in Canada (more than 4%).

• The following data on suicide in Canada confirm some of Durkheim’s conclusions.

• (Age, Gender, Profession, the Family, Ethnicity (Cohesion), Inequality)

Age groups:

• In Canada, suicide is the second highest cause of death for youth aged 10-24.

Gender

• In 1991 the rate of suicide for young men was six times greater than for young women.

Young girls are more likely to attempt suicide

• Considered suicide• (12 to 14 years of age)• 10% of girls and • 4% of boys

A Quebec survey.

• (Grade 8)• 20% of girls • 13% of boys

A survey in British Columbia

Aboriginals:

• The suicide rate among Indian youth was five times that of the total Canadian population.

Well integrated Aboriginal Communities

• Some had low or non-existent rates of suicide – self-government – settling land claims, – control over community social services– engaging in traditional cultural healing

practices.

Professional groups:

• Farm operators (lower rate)

• RCMP (half that of the comparable general population)

Youth in Canada

• Causes of suicide:

• Fewer important persons in the kinship network

• More conflicts with this network

• A strong experiences of being lonely and alone.

Depression and self-esteem

• (12 to 18 years of age)• feel really depressed once a month:• 43% percent of young women • 23% of young men• feel good about themselves:• 30%young women• 43%young men

Inequality

• Suicide risk among young males is increased when those around them are perceived to be more advantaged.

• Egoistic Suicide

Suicide and religion

• Protestants are found to kill themselves much more often than Catholics.

• How can we explain this fact?

Catholicism

• In Durkheim’s view, 1. is more hierarchical than Protestantism.

Protestantism:

• Protestantism concedes a greater freedom to individual because it has fewer:

2. common beliefs

3. Practices (rituals)

The three aspects of social Integration

• Rituals: such as baptism, communion, wedding, confession, etc..

• Beliefs: more religious beliefs regulate the individual's life.

• Organization: Catholicism is more hierarchical than Protestantism.

Happiness

• Results from the fulfilment of our needs

• Human needs are:

• 1. Physical (bodily/organic needs)

• 2. Transcendental (beyond our bodily needs – higher needs)

Physical [bodily] Needs

• Their source is our body (e.g. need for food, clothing, shelter)

• They are fixed and given by our physical constitution (not by our social conditions) .

• Their aim is our bodily existence (living)• Their deployment is individual (no need

for others or in Durkheim’s terms “we are self-sufficient”)

As limited to bodily needs:

• We can live happily with no other objective than living.” [i.e. without thought of any other ends in life].

• Yet, we have capacity to reflect, imagine and suggest to ourselves needs that go beyond what is merely indispensable for our survival (i.e. Transcendental ends).

Transcendental ends

• Examples: • the sentiments of sympathy and solidarity • art, morality, religion, political faith, science.• They are:• not an essential and fixed part of human nature, • acquired by people as they become adult and

socialized.

• “the child and the old”

• “are not so dependent on these (transcendental and “higher) needs.”

• “the civilized adult“

• “has many ideas, feelings and practices unrelated to organic (bodily) needs”

• Durkheim

The social origin of the “higher needs”

• Society:

• Creates “the sentiments of sympathy and solidarity drawing us toward others;

• Fills us with religious, political and moral beliefs

The social conditions of our higher needs

• Their satisfaction depends on the presence of others and on our interaction and relationship with others (i.e. Someone to love, to express our sympathy for, some one to play or listen to music with, etc.))

The social aims of our higher needs

• They are not just for us to enjoy them individually but rather their aims are to enhance our relationships, to enrich our common life, i.e., our social existence)

Social detachment and unhappiness

Detachment from society deprives us from:

1. the conditions required for the fulfilment of our

higher needs (i.e., our connection to and

interaction with others)

2. the aims and purposes of our higher ends.

Further evidence:

• The lower rates of suicide among:

• Children and the aged: “physical man, in both, tends to become the whole of man.”

• (no significant social needs) • Woman: Less social!• “can endure life in isolation more easily

than man”!

Durkheim’s bias against women

Woman’s “sensibility is rudimentary

rather than highly developed.”!

Man by contrast “is a more complex

social being,”!

• Is a reflection of the women’s condition in his time,

• He, incorrectly, generalizes it by assuming that it represents women’s nature in general!

Egoistic Suicide Defined:

• Egoism refers to a social condition which breeds egoism, leading to depression and suicide.

Egoism:

On the one hand refers to:

1. A wrong belief that our interests and purposes

are limited to our “ego, that we are always

motivated by self-interest and ought to do what

is in our self-interest

• This belief leads to a denial of the social origin of our human needs (such as the need for sympathy, cooperation, love, music, arts, etc..) and their purposes.

2. A belief that only one's self exists (an excessive or exaggerated sense of self-importance (egotism)

This belief leads to a scarce feeling of need for others or for social life in general.

• The egoistic suicide is caused by a gap between:

• our socially defined needs (an undeniable condition of human life) and

• our socially constructed egoistic value (a denial of our social needs and our need for others and social life in general)

Shortcomings of Durkheim’s analysis

• 1. Not all “higher ends” have a “positive” social aim (e.g. power)

• 2. lacks a clear analysis of the causes of social disintegration.

Anomic Suicide

Economic crisis and suicide

• The statistics show that when an economic crisis occurs the rate of suicide increases.

Economic prosperity and suicide

• But the statistics also show that economic prosperity leads to an increase in the suicide rate.

Poverty and suicide

• People in poor countries are not necessarily unhappy, nor they commit suicide more than in rich advanced countries.

Suicide Rates (per 100,000) —

• Country Males Females• Lithuania 73.7 13.7• Russian Federation 72.9 13.7• …..• Switzerland 30.9 12.2• France 30.4 10.8• Japan 24.3 11.5• Canada 21.5 5.4• Sweden 20.0 8.5• USA 19.3 4.4.    

Justice and suicide

• Our perception of an undeserved poverty which is at the basis of our disappointment, and maladjustment in life.

Justice and happiness

• Our bodily organic needs, same as animals’ needs, are regulated by nature; biologically.

Our infinite needs

• Yet our ends are not limited to our body• We aim at better conditions in life. • Left to ourselves to decide our ends in life they:• become “unlimited”, and “unrealistic”• “surpass the means”• become “insatiable and bottomless abyss.”

• If it is not restraint, our ends become a “source of torment”:

• “to pursue a goal which is by definition unattainable is to condemn oneself to a state of perpetual unhappiness.”

How to limit our needs?

Some force exterior to individual; a regulative force is required.

However, when individuals’ ends are "maintained by force or costume" it is superficially restrained and "peace and harmony is illusory".

The moral restraint

• Not physical restraint, only a moral restraint (conscience) can limit our desires.

• To be moral, regulations must be recognized as just and

• “must come from a power obeyed through respect."

Justice is historical

• at every moment of history there is a dim perception of the respective value of different social services, the relative reward due to each.

Equal opportunity

• “if the conditions (of social success) are the same for everyone”

• in the old times, it was based merely on "birth", but nonetheless considered as legitimate.

• Today only hereditary fortune and merit.

Justice is social

• “Society"

• 1. gives the individuals standards to judge “what is just and unjust.”

• (e.g. “birth” vs. “merit”, i.e. Ascription vs. Achievement)

• 2. stipulates law, and estimates the reward offered to functions (e.g., what a teacher, a working person, a Doctor should expect)

• 3. Gives the reasons for accepting the rules of justice.

• Justice requires sacrifices in the name of the public interest

When is justice disrupted?

• 1. when society is disturbed by some painful crisis or by beneficent but abrupt transitions.

Economic crises and justice

• Economic disasters:

• lead to the declassification of certain individuals (e.g. Unemployment and poverty)

• Abrupt growth:

• the social resources is changed and there is a need for a new adjustment.

2. Chronic and acute Anomy

• Lack of a framework of meaningful constraint, i.e., a “moral influence.”

• To teach:

• tolerance in the face of hardship

• contentment with one’s position in life”

“Occurs mostly in the sphere of trade and industry.”

Religion in the older Societies:

• justified social differences

• promised compensation in the next world

• taught that “worldly economic success – is not the primary goal of life – must be subordinated to intangible goals”

Modern Societies:

• Religion is replaced by economy as the dominant social institution.

• The government has become a servant of business and has no longer any moral function.

• Economy (as the dominant institution) is freed from moral regulation.

• Economic activity is regarded as the supreme end and not as a means to an end.

The end: Material Success

• Desires become material wants and the pursuit of private gains.

• All desires considered to be possible with sufficient effort.

• From top to bottom of the ladder, greed is aroused without knowing where to find ultimate foothold.

Market and Consumerism

• Industrial production (market) demands • an endless need for products • Market acts to extend and expand desires• A thirst arises for • novelties, • unfamiliar pleasures, • nameless sensations,

The anomic suicide defined

• Results from lack of regulation.

• Regulation is needed for:

• Regulating our ends and needs within the limits and boundaries of justice.

Anomie can result from:

1. A lack of norms in general (abrupt changes)

2. The unfairness of social norms (inequality)

3. Weakness or lack of individuals’ commitment to the social norms.

(The last one, as we shall see, is more important for Durkheim)

• Egoistic Suicide refers to the quality of our ends (Social Vs. Egoistic), anomic suicide to the quantity of our needs (our share in the social resources).

• The issue in egoistic suicide is our values, in anomic suicide our norms.

• One leads to depression the other to anger and frustration.

• One requires social integration, the other social regulation.

Shortcomings:

• Durkheim does not provide a systematic analysis of suicide.

• What is the relationship between egoistic and anomic suicide, between social (dis)integration and social (de)regulation?