Introduction
Emily Durkheim created a unique theory of suicide based on sociological explanations of human behavior and interaction patterns. In his theory, Durkheim claims that suicide could be explained by examining society and the control it exerts over its citizens (Skoll 11). The theory states that if a group is to encourage social progress, it must allow its members a certain amount of individual freedom. This independence, while it helps society to grow and prosper, can also have an unwholesome effect. It allows some of the social members of that community to break laws, to commit crimes. Durkheim extended this analysis to explain suicide, suggesting that when an individual is operating too independently of his social group, that is, in separation from the group, cut off emotionally from it, he is more apt to commit suicide.
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The cause of suicide could be found outside the individual, so in a social environment. In his famous work Suicide (Peebles 6), Durkheim dismisses the notion that suicide is a special form of madness, and that it never occurs when an individual is sane; Durkheim argues that although certain acts committed by an insane individual may be peculiar to them and characteristic of insanity, many others are common to normal individuals as well. “In short,” Durkheim wrote,
In the first place, crime is normal because a society exempt from it is utterly impossible. Crime, people have shown elsewhere, consists of an act that offends certain very strong collective sentiments. In a society in which criminal acts are no longer committed (Durkheim (a) 67).
Because so many suicides are not connected to what people commonly call insanity, Durkheim chose to focus on three categories of social conditions that he believed were behind suicidal behavior. Durkheim called these egoistic, anomic, and altruistic. The first of these, egoistic, seems to apply to the vast majority of suicides. Durkheim’s egoistic explanation for suicide is still valid today, perhaps more so than when he conceived it, given the egoistic nature of much of the environment (Skoll 33).
Two directions are important to suicide explanations. One direction deals with social psychology, which is interested in how the environment affects human behavior and how relationships with fathers and mothers, and friends shape people. The other, personal psychology is more interested in why people are different and why, for instance, people in similar situations respond differently. It should be obvious that these two approaches do mesh with one another quite often, given all of the environmental and genetic elements that motivate and blueprint people. It is the clues that emerge from these psychological studies that also help people to understand suicide in general, and also why people who don’t appear to be pressured, who are “happy” and “normal,” who do not indicate that life is too much for them, kill themselves (Bohm and Walker 59). All of these defenses can be helpful, and they allow people to keep their emotions balanced. Sometimes, the defenses get out of control and result in neuroses, forms of mental illness that may be either mild or severe. Neurotic depression is a mental illness that can start mildly and lead to clinical depression, a more serious type of depression that is often associated with suicide (Pickering 87).
The first of these, egoistic suicide, applies to the vast majority of suicides. Durkheim’s explanation for suicide is still valid today, perhaps more so than when he conceived it, given the egoistic nature of much of the natural and social environment (Pickering 38). There is ample statistical evidence to show how the egoistical environment perceived by Durkheim contributes to suicide (Bohm and Walker 67).
Nothing is good indefinitely and to an unlimited extent. The authority which the moral conscience enjoys must not be excessive; otherwise, no one would dare criticize it, and it would too easily congeal into an immutable form (Durkheim () 71).
Durkheim admits that it is success in prolonging human life that is often behind the problems faced by the elderly. New medicines and machines can keep many people alive for more years than ever before. As people live longer, they are more apt to develop other ills that may not shorten their lives but that may bring on discomfort and constant pain (Pickering 59). A number of those who do have their lives extended by modern medical techniques must also go through another sort of pain, the kind that comes when they lose close friends and relatives to death. “For years it was assumed that suicidal behavior was not common among blacks, that self-destruction was primarily a white phenomenon, a white individual’s way of dealing with “white only” difficulties” (Skoll 104). For Durkheim,
Social life comes from a double source, the likeness of consciences and the division of labor. The individual is socialized in the first case, because not having any real individuality, he becomes with those whom he resembles, part of the same collective (Durkheim (b) 226).
Durkheim’s third suicide driver is based on altruism, a practice that refers to the unselfish concern someone has for the welfare of others. Altruism is the direct opposite of egoism, and in Durkheim’s list, it refers to the feelings of an individual who is so much a part of the group, so beholden to society that he or she loses individual identity. Such an individual might consider suiciding a sacrifice for the good of the community. At other times, altruistic suicide may be dictated by the customs and rules of the group (Pickering 72). There was the Hindu custom of suttee, in which a widow supposedly went willingly to her death by lying on her husband’s funeral pyre. The Japanese, too, had an ancient, ritualized form of suicide, disembowelment known as hara-kiri or seppuku (Peebles 67). For many years, it was a badge of honor and courage reserved for the samurai, the hereditary warrior class of feudal Japan. During World War II, many Japanese officers committed hara-kiri in the face of defeat on the battlefields of the Pacific, and later, after the Japanese government surrendered to the United States and its allies, hundreds of patriotic men and women killed themselves on the grounds of the Imperial Palace as an apology to the emperor for having lost the war (Pickering 76).
Add to those pressures such sad facts of life as divorce, family breakup, and the fear of nuclear war, and it is no wonder that half of all teenagers experience suicidal fantasies. Many carry out those fantasies, successfully taking their own lives. While guns directly increase the risk of youthful suicide, Peebles (11) says funding cutbacks for family services, youth training programs, and mental health services indirectly drive up the suicide rate. With fewer and inadequately funded programs to help youths deal with stress, depression, or severe mental illness, more young people are likely to self-destruct. Suicide and attempted suicide having been removed from the list of criminal offenses, it is inevitable that those contemplating the deed may now feel free to seek assistance (Pickering 66). There could be occasions when the doctor who, believing in the quality of life doctrine, might feel that it was proper for him to help and, carried to its logical conclusion, this line of reasoning would allow the doctor to inject the lethal contents of a syringe into the vein of a patient who had asked him to do so. The law here is clear and rests on two principles. The first of these is intent. Motive is of no consequence if the intention to kill is there and the victim is killed. Secondly, consent cannot discriminate a crime and, except in the very circumscribed case of double suicide pacts, intentional killing carries the risk of a charge of manslaughter at least. This possibility is excessively rare in practice. It is far more likely that the doctor will be asked to provide the means of suicide without actually administering it and, at this point, the correct interpretation of the law seems rather less obvious (Skoll 105).
Some may try to kill themselves to rejoin a dead parent, brother, sister, or even a dead pet. Sadness, combined with the promise of happiness in another world, can play a part in this. People, on the other hand, are usually well aware of the finality of death (Peebles 23). That’s why so many warn of their intent to kill themselves by choosing methods that may not be all that lethal — a few aspirin tablets, for instance, or a small wound on the wrist with a knife — or by making the “attempt” when their parents are at home. People who do such things are crying out for help, and they must be taken seriously. They want to be discovered and saved, and they are telling their families, or their friends if they happen to be nearby, that they need their assistance in coping with some difficulty (Pickering 132).
In his theory, Durkheim underlines that socially troubled individuals try suicide when they have the most chance of success, so convinced are they that the best way is to put an end to themselves. If these individuals make such a drastic decision, knowing full well that it will be all over for them, how many of them could have been influenced by others who took the same step before they did? Neuroses stop an individual from acting and thinking in the usual way; they remove him or her from contact with the real world, and they force him or her to see things through a distorting mirror. People with psychosis like schizophrenia lose control of their impulses and may experience hallucinations and delusions; sometimes they kill themselves, so confused is their view of the world. When an individual is unable to deal with disturbances in that social status or deal with individual mistakes, suicide might well be his or her way out (Peebles 11). There is another psychological explanation for suicide in Japan that also involves the ego. It is believed that the Japanese have an innate desire for dependency. This desire is fed by the indulgent and consuming love of the mother and is strengthened by stories of cruelty in the outside world. The need for dependency, the theory goes, is further enhanced by the stern, group-oriented social structure that demands strict adherence to the rules and selflessness. Such dependency contributes to weak ego-structure in the individual, and this makes an individual give in to society’s demand for conformity and selflessness (Pickering 69).
In his theory, Durkheim discusses such problems as health and social consciousness. As public awareness of the effects of declining health and lingering death is increasing, people and professionals alike feel more freedom to talk openly about the subject. Because this is not easy to do, they seek help from the medical profession. Aid in suicide is considered illegal, and most physicians will decline to provide such aid, at least openly, in today’s climate (Skoll 152). As attitudes are gradually changing, a few physicians are beginning to publish accounts of such cases as the following accounts, which tell two unusual stories that illustrate tough decisions following hard choices for both the patient and the doctor. In an impersonal way, people tend to see death with a sense of distance, as something that people watch on television, for example. People see pictures of dead bodies in reports of war, accidents, and plane crashes. In them, people see the death of strangers, and people tend to disassociate it from their own lives (Peebles 23).
Following Durkheim, suicide is just another form of information on the daily news. In the interpersonal way of experiencing death, people are apt to feel a deep sense of loss, sometimes even to the point of intense pain, depending on how close the relationship was to the dead person. In a way, people experience the death of some part of themselves. The degree to which people experience this loss varies from moment to moment and according to the degree of intimacy, people had with the dead person. This is the experience of grief. In conclusion, the third way of thinking about death is intrapersonally (Skoll 156). This way is almost unthinkable because it is difficult to imagine ourselves as being nonexistent. It is easier to think about the little deaths that people encounter in daily living when people feel the loss of self-esteem, loss of health, loss of a job, loss of an organ or limbs, or even the loss of loved ones. This may be even more true today, as dying in the hospital has become such a complicated affair.
People must give some thought to the matter because so many people may be involved in changing the trajectory of the journey toward the end of life. Durkheim states that cultural and ethnic factors also influence individuals in their philosophy of death and living. In India, for example, there is a concerted effort to deal with death in the here and now. Eastern schools teach that all human beings go through a cycle of deaths and rebirths that will continue indefinitely until, in one of these lives, one gets in touch with the ultimate reality and merges with it. At that point, the person brings the series of cycles to an end. The underlying message is that rebirth is a greater evil than death and that the hope is not to avoid death, but to avoid rebirth, usually by hard and dedicated spiritual work Skoll 37). One answer offered is that the gift of life is not fully acknowledged in culture; therefore individuals do not find opportunities to achieve all they might. Indeed, most, healthy people are not interested in the existence of life after death. For someone in a crisis, such as at the critical time of a terminal illness, the concept of immortality may prove to be useful and effective (Peebles 85).
Conclusion
In sum, Durkheim’s explanations are certainly a major step toward understanding the occurrence of suicide. These theories think about suicide when they are angry and because they feel that by saying they will kill themselves they will get what they want. Any distinction is now more a point of academic debate than of practical importance the intention is to die. A person is entitled to refuse remedial treatment of a primary suicidal attempt. A person is in a moral dilemma of outstanding proportions. He may accept that he has a legal justification to ‘pass by on the other side. People do not understand the total meaning of their destiny. Yet people tend to equate long life with prospects of fulfilling destiny and reaching personal and social goals. What people refer to as destiny might well be fulfilled in a very short span of life. Another interesting finding is that, contrary to what was formerly believed, medicine as a career does not necessarily correlate with an increase in suicide anxiety. On the other hand, certain occupations with high death risks, such as firefighting and law enforcement, are more likely to be associated with death fears.
Works Cited
Bohm, Robert M., Walker. Jeffery T. Demystifying Crime and Criminal Justice. Roxbury Publishing Company; illustrated edition edition, 2005.
Durkheim, E. (a) The Division of Labor in Society. Extracts from Emile Durkheim. Translated into English by George Simpson, 1893.
Durkheim, E. (b) Rules of Sociological Method, 1985.
Pickering, W. Durkheim’s Suicide (Routledge Studies in Social and Political Thought. Routledge; 1 edition, 2000.
Peebles, K. The Other Side of Suicide. Ozark Mountain Publishing, Inc, 2009.
Skoll, G. R. Contemporary Criminology and criminal Justice Theory. Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.