Durkheim chose to study suicide in an attempt to prove an explanation for an act which seemed to be the very opposite of what could be considered as “social”.
By providing this it meant sociology had something constructive to say in explaining suicide. Durkheim hoped to secure the status of sociology amongst the newly rising sciences. This attempt to locate sociology as a science, with its loyalty to “positivistic” methods of research, is vital in understanding how Durkheim tackled the topic.
Durkheims chosen method was called “multivariate analysis” that consisted in comparing the incidence of various social factors in a particular event.
Thus he examined the statistics of suicide that he collected from death certificates and other official documents and found that there were a number of clear patterns.
What he realised was that over a time of twenty years, the suicide rate varied across countries and their regions, across different religions and the married and unmarried. These details supported Durkheims argument that there was a social explanation for suicide, that it was an individual matter, based on the individual decisions and that no new patterns should appear.
Durkheim believed that people are naturally selfish and don’t worry themselves with the problems faced by others unless society can force them to do so. This is achieved by society when finding new ways of making people aware of their social bonds to others. The greater level of social integration (the extent to which people fell they belong to a society or social group) the more enjoyable a society.
Furthermore society achieves this form of social control by drawing people together on the foundation of universal values taught by primarily through the family and reinforced by religion.
Durkheim suggested that the individuals who feel included to society are those more closely to their families and those without family closeness are the least bonded with society.
He’s hypothesis was that suicide is directly connected to the levels of social integration in a society or group within it. Then he placed societies into four categories depending upon their levels of social integration:
-
Egoistic: It is based upon the person committing suicide because of his individual rights; interests and welfare that are greatly stressed. It occurs in societies that lay heavy stress on the individual and his/her importance. Typical of Protestant societies. Durkheim discovered that people who were not members of a group (the single, widowed, divorced…) were likely to commit this form of suicide.
-
Altruistic: In this societies the welfare of individuals is seen as far less important than of another group. Individual happiness is simply not a high priority. Altruistic suicide occurs when the individual is expected to commit suicide on behalf of a wider society. An example of this is suicide bombers who are prepared to sacrifice themselves for their political or religious cause.
-
Anomic: Occurs when the normal rules and guidelines of society are weakening and so the constraints which guide people are lost. Social restraints on behaviour are most likely to weaken in periods of dramatic social change, and thus Durkheim linked increases in suicide levels to periods of rapid social change.
-
Fatalistic: Reflects the fact that in extremely oppressive society’s people may lose the will to live and prefer to die. Durkheim considered such fatalistic suicide a fairly uncommon occurrence, but it could be said that it accounts for very high levels of suicide in prisons.
Durkheim’s analysis of suicide was used for over twenty years as an exceptional example of how to undertake positivistic sociological analysis.
All the same his work was criticised by the interpretive sociologists that said his study was flawed and argued that his study rather than being an excellent example of sociological methodology argued it ought to be used as an example of why the use of traditional scientific methods in sociology is not good.
The interpretive sociologists believed that Durkheim’s analysis depends upon the concept of social cohesion and that suicide rates vary with it and that he never provides a clear, definition of it and there is no clear method of measuring it.
He relied mainly upon official statistics although official statistics are opened to dispute, for example, in catholic dominated countries and regions, suicide was regarded with great stigma and doctors were unwilling to confirm this as being the reason for death.
Interpretive sociologists, refuse the idea that society can be studied with methods borrowed by the physical sciences- the approach that Durkheim used.
Two writers, Douglas and Atkinson have criticised Durkheim’s explanation.
Douglas (1967) argued that by defining suicide by referring to the physical fact of killing oneself misses the point, which is that suicide has different meanings to those who take their own lives and their motives vary amongst them.
If this is the case, then the only way of understanding society is by exploring the meanings through which people understand and interpret the world, thus suicide would need greater exploration than what Durkheim has provided.
Douglas thought that people who commit suicide may define their actions in three ways:
-
As a mean of transforming the self: a person commits suicide as means of gaining release from the problems in the world and going to a better place.
-
As a mean of transforming oneself for others: In this case suicide is a means of telling other how deep one’s feelings are on a particular issue.
-
As a mean of achieving fellow feelings: The person is asking for help or sympathy; it includes suicide attempts in that the person hopes to be found.
-
As a mean of gaining revenge: the person believes they have been forced into a position where they have to commit suicide. The person wants to make someone else sorry for having hurt them.
So there is no single act that can be termed suicide. Since the meanings that people place upon their acts are very different, and cannot be categorised as the same thing. The only thing they have in common is death. The conclusion is that if this argument is accepted then Durkheim’s statistical comparisons are insignificant.
Atkinson (1971) argued that Durkheim failed to understand that categories such as suicide are really socially constructed. In UK, for example, before a death can be classified as suicide, a coroner has to carry out an inquest and then of the basis of this decide if it is in fact suicide or not.
Atkinson thus concluded that the official statistics only reflect coroners’ decisions rather than any truly reality.
In other to make his decision, the coroner must see a series of clues and whether it leads to suicide. Atkinson suggested that some clues are particularly important; such as suicide notes because 30% of suicides leave a note behind although more may have been written but the family have destroyed it because of the accusations contained in them. The second clue is the location and circumstances of death; coroners believe that suicide is committed in places and circumstances where they will not be found and where the person is sure that it will be successful.
The third important clue is the life history and mental condition; coroners believe that suicide is often related to depression caused by significant events.
Thus Atkinson’s conclusion is that the official statistics forming the basis of Durkheim’s work are themselves socially constructed by the evidence of what the coroners dig up.
The criticisms by both of these writers have been accepted by sociologist as useful to the more positivistic approach of Durkheims.
Nevertheless, Taylor (1990) suggested that they all missed out on the significance of parasuicides, as many people who attempt suicide do not die. He claims that the attempts of suicide are not always carried out. People leave the outcome in the hands of fate. If they don’t die it wasn’t meant to be if they do well then it was fate or god’s result.
Taylor suggests that parasuicide allows the matter of suicide into one of risk-taking. He suggests that successful parasuicides could be categorised into “ordeal” suicides, which can be related to a sense of anomie.
Taylor supports Durkheim’s belief that suicide is more likely in individuals too detached from others in society( egoistic suicides) and those over-attached ( altruistic suicide).
The point of Taylor’s argument is that it’s possible to pull together Durkheim’s emphasis of the wider social factors with the sense of meaning that Douglas suggests. Furthermore much of the contemporary sociology has been the way of combining these two theories.
In my view, I agree with Taylor‘s observation that all of these arguments if put together can in some way build a stronger argument.
However I believe the real reasons why people commit suicide will never be known. We can only imagine and understand to a certain point why people commit suicide but this doesn’t mean we know the real reason why they decided to commit suicide. We can only presume why they did it; we can’t plant ourselves into their minds, so this leaves us, with not a lot of certainty of the real reason for this act.