Why People Commit Suicide? Discuss in Relation to Durkheim’s Work.
Title: Why people commit suicide? Discuss in relation to Durkheim’s work.
Suicide is conscious termination of life. It is death that occurs after intentionally injuring yourself. 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 (Durkheim, 1970:44). The famous French sociologist Emile Durkheim (1858 - 1917) provided a sociological explanation of that what usually is considered most individual of acts - suicide. We live now in a period of socio - economic change, value change and a more rapid scientific and technical progress. Many people have difficulty in adapting to the high requirements of today. However, suicide is not just a modern society "disease." It has existed for centuries, but the passing of time had changed societies attitudes to suicide. However, suicide has always been and remains a shocking, controversial phenomenon and raises a lot of discussions. I would argue that causes of suicide are social, rather than individual.
It has long been observed that the social relationship has influence on suicide. Comparative statistics for countries and categories of people within each country showed that suicide rates were relatively constant; therefore it must be a social fact that a collective tendency towards suicide existed (Thompson, 1989:110). Durkheim examined suicide statistics and found that no matter how diverse and unique the motives of suicide would be, the suicide general trend of the numbers of growth and decline is repeated in each country and changing because of social factors. He considered suicide rates as a social fact and social disintegration as a major reason of the suicide. It was an effect of imbalance of social structural forces. As Thompson wrote, that “it was suicide rates, as disclosed by statistics, that constituted the social fact to be explained as an effect of an imbalance of social structural
Suicide is conscious termination of life. It is death that occurs after intentionally injuring yourself. 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 (Durkheim, 1970:44). The famous French sociologist Emile Durkheim (1858 - 1917) provided a sociological explanation of that what usually is considered most individual of acts - suicide. We live now in a period of socio - economic change, value change and a more rapid scientific and technical progress. Many people have difficulty in adapting to the high requirements of today. However, suicide is not just a modern society "disease." It has existed for centuries, but the passing of time had changed societies attitudes to suicide. However, suicide has always been and remains a shocking, controversial phenomenon and raises a lot of discussions. I would argue that causes of suicide are social, rather than individual.
It has long been observed that the social relationship has influence on suicide. Comparative statistics for countries and categories of people within each country showed that suicide rates were relatively constant; therefore it must be a social fact that a collective tendency towards suicide existed (Thompson, 1989:110). Durkheim examined suicide statistics and found that no matter how diverse and unique the motives of suicide would be, the suicide general trend of the numbers of growth and decline is repeated in each country and changing because of social factors. He considered suicide rates as a social fact and social disintegration as a major reason of the suicide. It was an effect of imbalance of social structural forces. As Thompson wrote, that “it was suicide rates, as disclosed by statistics, that constituted the social fact to be explained as an effect of an imbalance of social structural
References: Books: Durkheim, E. (1970) Suicide: A Study in Sociology London: Routledge. Durkheim, E. (1963) Emile Durkheim : selections from his work / edited by G. Simpson, Cromwell Durkheim, E. (1972) Emile Durkheim : selected writings / edited, translated, and with an introduction by Anthony Giddens Thompson, K. (1989) Emile Durkheim, London: Routledge