Book Critique on ‘Suicide’ Essay

Book Critique on self-destruction by Emile Durkheim Nearly a century ago, the French sociologist Emile Durkheim became interested in the phenomenon of self-destruction. Why, he asked, do bulk kill themselves? In his day, the common solving to such a question is the suicidal person is depressed or mentally ill or has suffered an unbearable loss. An alternative philosophical coif is also presented an individual affords felo-de-se because it is part of his nature. But Durkheim was not at rest with these explanations.He thought it promising that forces deep down society influenced peoples decision to kill integrityself was neer simply personal. Durkheim wanted to provide a sociological answer to the phenomenon of self-annihilation. To arrest out whether his ideas were correct, Durkheim considered the explanations for self-annihilation that were common in his day and systematically assembled the evidence for each. As his sources, Durkheim used government records that listed add up of self-annihilations and gave information about the people involved their age, sex, race, religion, marital status.Upon analyzing this material, Durkheim saw that the usual explanations for felo-de-se were contradicted by the evidence. There was a general variance of felo-de-se rate across countries and time. Durkheim argued, If suicide is considered a personal issue, why is on that point so much variation? (Durkheim, 1897/195117). If suicide were related to mental illness, Durkheim would do found relatively abiding proportions of suicide and mental illness within cordial groups. Durkheim found the other nearly groups sh atomic number 18d out high rates of mental illness but little suicide other groups sh atomic number 18d high rates of both.Durkheim found that women were more likely to be diagnosed a mentally ill, but had less chances of committing suicide. Other contradictory information surfaced Durkheim spy that most people committed suicide during warmer periods of the year, not, as capability be expected, during the cold days of winter. These initial findings forced Durkheim to conclude that suicide is determined by social forces that is, forces external to the individual. Durkheim said, suicide is based on social causes and is itself a collective phenomenon (Durkheim, 1897/1951145).Characteristics of the social group in which people find themselves make suicide more or less likely self-destruction is not simply a private act. In analyzing his information, Durkheim looked for circumstantial social conditions under which suicide occurred the most and least often. Here were some of his findings 1) Protestants committed suicide three times more than Catholics and Catholics more than Jews 2) iodin people committed suicide more often than hook up with people, and married people with children least often of all 3) And, suicide rates are higher when people feel hardly a(prenominal) or weak ties to a social group or community.The Jewi sh community was more tightly knit than the Catholic, the Catholic more tightly knit than the Protestant. Married individuals, specially those with children, had stronger social bonds than single people. After identifying the general cause of high suicide rates, Durkheim classified suicide into three types 1) egoistic suicide, 2) altruistic suicide, and 3) anomic suicide. Individuals with few or weak ties to a community are likely to commit egoistic suicide, or suicide related to social isolation and individualism.The opposite of egoistic suicide is called altruistic suicide. Here individuals whose ties to their particular groups are so strong that their commit suicide for the good of the group. Durkheim also saw that suicide rates increased when at that place were sharp economic upturns, and decrease when there was economic stability. When times are stable, people feel better coordinated into the social fabric and committed to social norms. When times are stressful, the resultin g give in of anomie leads people to commit anomic suicide.At the end of his research, Durkheim argued that sociology is a legitimate issue of study (Durkheim, 1897/1951). This statement is founded on two tangency facts. First, he showed that suicide tendencies foundation be explained by social facts that is, verifiable statements with no psychological or philosophical implications. In essence, sociology is a field of study independent from psychology and philosophy. And second, social explanations about specific phenomenon are never inferior from other types of explanations.In essence, social explanations are sufficient to explain contradictory social facts, since the latter depends on the former for existential validity. General Critique There are several criticisms on Durkheims research on suicide. Here are some of the criticisms 1) Durkheim defined suicide as referring to all cases of death resulting directly or indirectly from a positive or interdict act of the victim hi mself, which he knows lead produce this result (Durkheim, 1897/195144). By positive act, Durkheim meant such things as parachuting off a bridge or shooting oneself.By negative act, he meant such things such as not taking unavoidable medicine or not getting out of the way of a moving vehicle. When Durkheim developed the concept of altruistic suicide, he himself committed a violation of his own operational description. This violation constituted a reproach in his research. Given his data, it is almost impossible or difficult to find instances of altruistic suicide. One can infer that the inclusion of this type of suicide was the result of overzealous inference from data2) Some sociologists argued that Durkheim was able to take in the difference between personal issues and public problems. This is not entirely true. Durkheim never gave operational definitions to both personal issue and public problem. Durkheim only delusive that personal issues are issues peculiar to personal ev ents public issues are issues great to the interests of a given social group. In a sense, it was Mills, not Durkheim, who adjudge the distinction between personal issues and public problems3) Durkheim also ignored one important factor in his analysis of suicide the political consideration of the late1890s. Durkheim argued that economic upheavals increased suicide rates, economic stability decreased suicide rate. If one closely analyzed the context of the late 1890s, one can perceive that it was not economic crisis (ups and downs of the economy) that determined suicide rates sort of it was the stability of political structures. The more stable the political structure, the more stable is the market. Hence, there are fewer tendencies for individuals to commit suicide. ConclusionAlthough these criticisms were significant in many respects, they are insufficient to demolish Durkheims theory of social facts. For one, Durkheim successfully defended the integrity of sociology as a field of study. And second, his analysis of suicide rates cannot be proved to be incomplete or faulty. His definition of suicide may be shaky, but the implication of such is of no theoretical importance. Hence, Durkheims study on suicide rates is sociologically acceptable. Reference Durkheim, Emile. 1897/1951. Suicide A Study of Sociology. J. A. Spaulding and G. Simpson. New York Free Press.