Why Did Durkheim argue that suicide was inversely related to the degree of integration in society? Durkheim believed that the reason things like suicide happens is because of his famous phrase

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Simon Kirwan                1st Year Sociology Essay 2                04387716

Emergence Of Sociological Perspectives

Why Did Durkheim argue that suicide was inversely related to the degree of integration in society?

Durkheim believed that the reason things like suicide happens is because of his famous phrase ‘the society in the individual, not the individual in society’. He looked at statistics to come up with what was later known as ‘multivariate analysis’. Durkheim felt that the moral constitution of a society established the rate of suicides. (Degree of integration) He used the terms ‘collective tendencies’ and ‘collective passions’ in his argument. These are ‘things’ as he put it, forces that dominate the minds of individuals. He believed that there was no other explanation.

He thought that under these causes lay three types of influence. They were Egoistic, Altruistic and Anomic. I will discuss these three categories in more detail later on but I will briefly try to define them.

Egoistic suicide

Durkheim believed that the more strong bonds that there were in society would increase the rate of suicide. This lead him to believe that in turn Catholics would have lower levels of suicide than Protestants because Protestantism has more of a focus on individuality. Another part of Egotistic suicide is that single people have a higher rate of suicide than those in families.

Altrustic suicide

The example Durkheim uses for this type of suicide is the societies that stress the responsibility of the individual to society. He talks about the Hindu widow of a deceased man who killed herself according to customs in her religion.

Anomic suicide

This type of suicide deals with how the suicide rates rose in times of prosperity and in times of poverty. It was the change in economy that led to more suicide. Things like industrial conflict and divorce affect what is called anomie.

So basically in answering the question, the more integrated domestic and religious society is, the lower the rates of suicide are. Too much suicide in society shows that it is a pathological society, however a small amount is healthy.

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These three currents of opinion- that an individual has a certain personality (egoism), that this personality would be sacrificed if the community needed it (altruism) and that the individual is aware of the ideas of social progress (anomie) exist in all societies. This pushes individuals into three different directions. When one of these factors becomes a lot stronger in the individual than the others- that’s when there’s a problem. This is a cause of self-inflicted death. This strength is also affected by a further three causes, the nature of individuals which make up the society, the way they associate ...

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