Dr. V.K.Maheshwari, M.A. (Socio, Phil) B.Sc. M. Ed, Ph.D.
Former Principal, K.L.D.A.V.(P.G) College, Roorkee, India
Mrs Sudha Rani Maheshwari, M.Sc (Zoology), B.Ed.
Former Principal,A.K.P.I.College, Roorkee, India
There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest — whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories — comes afterward. These are games; one must first answer.
ALBERT CAMUS, An Absurd Reasoning
Something as severe, basic and fundamentally human as suicide probably results from a number of things. Because psychological, sociological and biochemical factors make up people and their subjective, individual realities, all these factors should be considered when theorizing on the causes of suicide.
The manner in which social integration and regulation work can be better seen by examining the four fold classification of suicides that Durkheim developed. Durkheim ends has discussion of the organic-psychic and physical environmental factors by concluding that they can not explain “each social group [s] …. Specific tendency to suicide”. (Suicide, p-145). By eliminating other explanations, Durkheim claims that these tendencies must depend on social causes and must be collective phenomena. The key to each four type is a social factor, with the degrees of integration and regulation into society being either too high or too low.
Almost all sociologists will agree destruction of a relationship, or two- person group, is often a cause for suicide. Relationship are characteristically fragile, though strongly emotional and personal in nature, Edwin Schneidman, in as essay concerning suicide, described the intense frustration felt when people invest so much of themselves in others, who are also human and trusty flawed, only to be disappointed by destruction of the relationship . Many times a person is so devastated there seems to be no point in living. Aggression is thought to be internalized when people commit suicide, even if it is a result of external forces, such as failed interrelation with others or lack of them all together. Sociologists blame the low number of close, meaningful relationships on the growing depersonalization of society. Krauss states “cultures which provide {close, meaningful and relatively conflict-free interactions among their members} have ….low rates of suicide”. Therefore, from the sociological viewpoint, most relationships fail because society poses threats which destroy these relationships.
Benjamin Wolman, a sociologist who theorized on the “anti-culture” of suicide, blamed estrangement and contemporary societal mechanization and alienation for growing suicide rates. Wolman sums up the sociological standpoint in his statement.The estrangement inherent in our way of life; the decline of family ties; the depersonalization in human relations; and the loss of individual in a mass society are probably the main, or at least the important, reasons why so many people now tend to hurt one another and to hurt themselves .
The ability of people to internalize such aggression and turn it into self-criticism and self-hate is one of the most prominent ties between sociology and psychology. While most psychologists do not hold that society is so exceedingly influential I human development and personal motives, the connection is obviously there. The internalization of society, as it relates to the developing, unique individual, is also an interesting view of reality which Douglas states exceptionally well. He explains society exists within the minds of the individuals who exist within society, and when individuals interact the idea of society becomes an ever-changing “whole” product of this interaction.It exists only in the mind of individuals, but, being more than the mind of any individual or even the mind of all individuals taken together, it exists almost entirely outside the individual and acts upon him as an external force would-even though this force can only exist internally.
This helps relate sociology and psychology and also gives insight into the cause of suicide which is often termed “tunnel vision”. Because people internalize all thoughts, emotions, interpretations of society etc. and because these forces, external and internal, strongly act upon them, they feel there is no way to escape in a conscious or even semi-conscious state. The problem is perpetual.
David Malan, a psychologist, suggests that suicide is the cause of accumulated trauma. Though it sounds extremely simplistic, most psychologists, to a certain degree, concur with this theory. As Dublin explains, many psychiatrists feel suicide is a result of mental and emotional disturbances that are already present and which external circumstances worsen. He details how psychological frameworks are thought to exist and develop as people age, determining how they will react to life’s ups and downs. Rather than outside forces, personality, character, temperament (which is often thought to be inherited and thus biochemical) and emotional stability are all psychological factors. This shows suicide as being a personal reaction, with external forces merely contributing to the final outcomes.
Some views stress personality far more than others, however and the psychological school that seems to have developed the dominant position on suicide is the psychodynamic approach.
Durkheim proposed this definition of suicide: “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”. It has long been seen as deviant and so has been studied by sociologists. For example, Durkheim did a study of suicide.
In Durkheim’s study, the dependent variable was the suicide rate. Durkheim believed that social forces would affect the overall suicide rate – these forces became his independent variables. Durkheim’s major independent variables were religious affiliation, marital status, military/civilian status, and economic conditions. Durkheim’s data came from government statistics (secondary data). When Durkheim collected his data he found that suicide was higher among Protestants than Catholics, and lowest among Jews. It was higher among single people than married people and lowest among married people with children. The rate of suicide declined with each additional child a parent had. Suicide was higher among soldiers than among civilians. It was higher for officers than enlisted men, and among enlisted men, it was higher for volunteers than draftees. The suicide rate was higher in times of economic depression and economic booms than during more stable periods.
Durkheim’s main argument was that suicide is not an individual act, as was previously thought by leading scientists of his time. Accordingly, his theory was that suicide was a social fact that was tied to social structures. He defined suicide as a social fact because it was something that happened driven by social causes, however hidden they were.
Durkheim’s analysis led him to identify four distinct patterns of suicide; the three patterns most commonly referred to are egoistic suicide, altruistic suicide and anomic suicide. Thus, Durkheim concluded that the force that determines the rate of suicide is social and related to the amount of integration or regulation in society – too much or too little regulation and too much or too little integration lead to suicide – and as such he rejected both biological (hereditary) and psychological explanations of suicide.
Durkheim then proceeded to theorize three different types of suicide that are found in all societies. These include:
1) “Egoistic suicide, which results from lack of integration of the individual into society.” (Page 14):
According to Durkheim, when a man becomes socially isolated or feels that he has no place in the society he destroys himself. This is the suicide of self-centred person who lacks altruistic feelings and is usually cut off from main stream of the society. : Egoistic suicide happens when people feel totally detached from society. Ordinarily, people are integrated into society by work roles, ties to family and community, and other social bonds. When these bonds are weakened through retirement or loss of family and friends, the likelihood of egoistic suicide increases. Elderly people who lose these ties are the most susceptible to egoistic suicide.
Egoistic suicide is committed by people who aren’t strongly supported by membership in a cohesive social group. As outsiders, they depend more on themselves than on group goals and rules of conduct to sustain them in their lives and, in times of stress, they feel isolated and helpless.
This means that a person is not included in many things that happen in society, they feel unattached, helpless and useless. Due to these feelings of inadequacy, the person takes his of her own life.
2) Altruistic suicide . . . it results from the individual’s taking his own life because of higher commandments.” (Page 15) This type of suicide occurs when individuals and the group are too close and intimate. This kind of suicide results from the over integration of the individual into social proof..
Altruistic suicide is committed by people who are deeply committed to group norms and goals and who see their own lives as unimportant; basically these suicides involved dying for a cause
Altruistic suicide happens when there is excessive regulation of individuals by social forces. An example is someone who commits suicide for the sake of a religious or political cause .People who commit altruistic suicide subordinate themselves to collective expectations, even when death is the result.
Just as “excessive individualism” leads to suicide, “insufficient individualism” also does.Durkheim says that among “primitive” (tribal and non-western) people, suicide is common. In this case, a man or a woman might see it as his/her “duty” to commit suicide. (Such as a wife killing herself when her husband is dead; a man killing himself in old age, etc.) He calls this “altruistic suicide” for the following reason:
“Having designated as ‘egoism’ the condition in which the ego pursues its own life and is obedient only to itself, the designation ‘altruism’ adequately expresses the opposite condition, where the ego is not its own property.”
Durkheim observes that altruistic suicide is unlikely to occur much in modern western society where “individual personality is increasingly freed from the collective personality.”
This means that the individual feels that something larger than himself is causing him to take his own life, such as religious Martyrs or suicide bombers.
3) Anomic suicide : which results from lack of regulation of the individual by society.” (Page 15) Anomic suicide happens when the disintegrating forces in the society make individuals feel lost or alone. Teenage suicide is usually cited as an example of this type of suicide, as is suicide committed by those who have been sexually abused as children or whose parents are alcoholics.
Anomic suicide is committed by people when society is in crisis or rapid change – in such times customary norms may weaken or break down and, with no clear standards of behaviour to guide them, many people become confused, their usual goals lose meaning, and life seems aimless.
This means that the society is going through some sort of change, where the rules of the society are not as clear as they were. The individual feels confused and does not know how to handle the major changes occurring around him/herself, and thus commits suicide.Suicides increase during times of industrial and financial crises. However, the reason for increased suicide is not poverty.
For Durkheim, “crises of prosperity” (periods of economic growth and prosperity) also lead to increased rate of suicide.This is “because they are [both] crises, in other words, disturbances of the collective order.
Every disturbance of equilibrium, even though it may involve greater comfort and a raising of the general pace of life, provides an impulse to voluntary death.”Society, which exerts a moral power over the individual, has the ability of regulating human needs and desires. But in times of crises (abrupt change of a positive or negative kind), the society becomes incapable of exercising regulation over individuals. It is then that suicides increase. Because when abrupt social change occurs, values and needs change. And it takes time for the reshaping, or regulation of different groups’ needs. Durkheim calls this state anomie.
He argues that in the world of industry and trade, there is a constant state of crisis and anomie. On the one hand religion has lost most of its power, on the other hand, nations have become preoccupied with industrial growth. Industry has become an end in itself, rather than a means to achieve an end. Therefore, he says, the rate of suicide in industrial and trade occupations is high.
Anomie is a regular and specific factor in causing suicide in our modern societies. Anomic suicide is different from the previous two types in that “it does not depend on the way in which individuals are attached to society, but on the way in which they are regulated by society.
Anomie can also be seen in marital relations. Divorce is an expression of this type of anomie, which consists of a weakening of “matrimonial regulation.”
(4) Fatalistic suicide:
This is the opposite of anomic suicide. It results from excessive regulation. Examples are suicides by very young husbands, childless married women, slaves, etc. These suicides are all attributable to excesses of physical or moral despotism. They are people whose futures are blocked and whose passions are suppressed by an oppressive discipline. But Durkheim thinks that this type of suicide is unimportant in modern society.
This type of suicide is due to overregulation in society. Under the overregulation of a society, when a servant or slave commits suicide, when a barren woman commits suicide, it is the example of fatalistic suicide.
Fatalistic suicide, identified by Emile Durkheim (1858-1917), occurring in social conditions where the individual experiences pervasive oppression. Durkheim has defined fatalistic suicide as resulting “from excessive regulation.” Suicide by individuals whose passions are choked by oppressive discipline.
The condition of slavery may make an individual feel that the only way to find escape is suicide. We would call it fatalistic suicide because the individual considers himself condemned by fate or doomed to be a slave. Here, is a fatalistic situation calling for a fatalistic suicide as a solution or escape.
The category of fatalistic suicide was constructed mainly for purposes of symmetry (as contrasted with egoistic suicide) and because it would undercut his central claims about the role of modern urban life as increasing the incidence of suicide, Durkheim could never seriously examine the possibility that social integration could result in suicide.
Fatalistic suicide served as a descriptor for suicides in traditional societies, because Durkheim was faced with the issue that even in societies with abundant social capital, individuals nevertheless killed themselves.
“Fatalistic suicide arises from “excessive regulation” that pitilessly blocks the possibilities of future. Individuals do not want their lives due to the extremely suppressing environment. The suicides of those suffering from mental and physical oppression are closer to fatalistic suicide”.
According to Durkheim, suicide is not an individual act nor a personal action. It is caused by some power which is over and above the individual or super individual. He viewed “all classes of deaths resulting directly or indirectly from the positive or negative acts of the victim itself who knows the result they produce” Having defined the phenomenon Durkheim dismisses the psychological explanation. Many doctors and psychologists develop the theory that majority of people who take their own life are in a pathological state, but Durkheim emphasises that the force, which determines the suicide, is not psychological but social. He concludes that suicide is the result of social disorganisation or lack of social integration or social solidarity.
Critical evaluation of Durkheim’s theory:
Although Durkheim’s theory of suicide has contributed much about the understanding of the phenomenon because of his stress on social rather than on biological or personal factors, the main drawback of the theory is that he has laid too much stress only on one factor, namely social factor and has forgotten or undermined other factors, thereby making his theory defective and only one sided.
Durkheim’s study was useful because it established a specifically sociological view of the individual and it explains different suicide rates in different countries by reference to their fundamental social characteristics. It also emphasises the power of social forces in shaping individual lives. However, it denies the importance of individual choice in the act of suicide and it doesn’t explain why suicidogenic impulses are translated into suicide in some predisposed individuals and not others thus the study may not be that useful. Nonetheless, Durkheim’s starting point was the ‘problem of order’, that is, how do individuals – with all their selfishness – manage to live in
Durkheim’s analysis of suicide shows the manner in which the social as opposed to the psychological and biological can be emphasized and how it results in some useful ways of analyzing the actions of individuals. Suicide rates as expressions of social currents are social facts that affect societies and individuals within those societies. The study of psychology and biology is also useful in attempting to determine individual motives and the manner in which the specific circumstances can lead to an individual deciding to voluntarily end their life. Thus, an analysis of these circumstances should be set within the context of the social currents to which that individual is subject.