Durkheim pointed out from his statistical research around Europe, that the strength of conscience collective is one of the keys affecting the rate of suicide (Durkheim, E. 1952). Conscience collective is ‘the shared beliefs and associated moral attitudes which operate as a unifying force within a society’ (Jary, D & Jary, J. 2005, p.89). So the strength of conscience collective in mechanical solidarity is higher than it in the society with organic solidarity. Durkheim claimed that the rate of suicide increases when the strength of conscience collective decreases (Lukes, J. 1973). This is because, in a society with mechanical solidarity, level of dependency increase, people are attached to larger groups with similar morality, for example shared the same religion, when things go wrong or if there is any problem, people are more likely to share with each other and solve the problem together. Hence, stronger conscience collective correlated with lower rate of suicide. In other words, in a society with organic solidarity, individualism leads to weaker conscience collective and there is much interdependency, people have their own beliefs and not sharing much with other. So whenever a problem came up, and if they could not solve it on their own, suicide is then likely to happen. Hence, weaker conscience collective correlated with higher suicide rate.
Durkheim started his work by providing a definition for suicide that ‘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, E. 1952, p.14). Durkheim did a research on analyzing the statistics of rate of suicide in most of the countries in Europe, for example France, Prussia, the United Kingdom and Denmark, over thirty years starting from 1841 (Durkheim, E. 1952). By taking the rate of suicide, the rate of death and the background history of the particular societies of a certain period of times into account that he was examined, Durkheim found that with relevant to his earlier work, ‘Division of Labour in Society’, the number of suicides increases in societies with organic solidarity where there were low conscience collective (Durkheim, E. 1952). He pointed out that there are two characteristics in the nature of society and they are social integration and social regulation (Gibbs, J.P. 1968). By considered the two conditions separately and in combination, Durkhiem concluded with four types of suicide, egoistic, altruistic, anomic and fatalistic (Gibbs, J.P. 1968). He also stated a general proposition that ‘Suicide varies inversely with the degree of integration of the social groups of which the individual forms a part’ (Gibbs, J.P. 1968, p.77) where the social groups refer to the religious society, the domestic society and the political society (Durkheim, E. 1952), which means lower degree of integration correlate with higher rate of suicide (Gibbs, J.P. 1968).
An egoistic type of suicide could be triggered from excessive individualism (Durkheim, E. 1952) and with low integration, ‘as individual became alienated from religion, family and community’ (Lukes, S. 1973, p.209). When the group or the society is highly integrated, individuals would be under controlled, thus suicide is not likely to happen. Alternatively, in a weakly integrated society, individuals could not gain sufficient mutual support from each other, thus suicide might relatively likely to happen when there is any serious personal problem (Gibbs, J.P. 1968). The second type of suicide, altruistic suicide, is just opposite to the egoistic suicide in conditions, where it could be happened in the situation with too strong social integration, i.e., insufficient individualism or in other words, excessive integration (Gibbs, J.P. 1968), where with a low division of labour. Altruistic suicide could be associated with passionate and deliberate determination, like in a sense of duty or sacrifice for religious or military. This is often due to escape from stigma and/or for prestige (Gibbs, J.P. 1968), where suicide is a preferred choice in response to a certain situation.
The third type of suicide suggested by Durkheim is anomic suicide, which usually occurs when there is a low regulation in the society (Gibbs, J.P. 1968). This means that individuals might commit suicide when there is a sudden social breakdown in their lives which they could not find a way to cope with and feeling uncertain about their identity and could not recognize themselves in the society. For example, during economic crisis or something have never happened before, in case of decline in these situations, the failure or the sudden change of the status might lead to suicide (Gibbs, J.P. 1968). By using the same example, if it is in case of a rise in status, the individual might not be sure where his/her aspirations should stop. Hence, caused frustrations which might lead to suicide as well. And this type of suicide is suggested by Durkheim as fatalistic suicide. It would be more likely to happen when there is intense or high regulation in the society (Gibbs, J.P. 1968). Dukheim also recognized that there are mixed types of suicides. For example, in a situation with both low integration and regulation, ego-anomic suicide is likely; and in a high integration but low regulation’s situation, anomic-altruistic suicide is more likely (Gibbs, J.P. 1968).
To answer the question, in what sense does Durkheim’s work distinctively sociological, we could look at the methodology used in the research. Durkheim’s theory of suicide did not just come from his head but been through research and analysis before he actually come with an idea. From an epistemological point of view, Durkheim’s work on suicide was approached by positivism. This is due to the use of natural sciences, not only conducted through observation, he also collected data, statistics of suicide rate through out Europe. From this data and facts, he could then establish cause and effect relationship about suicide. From an ontological point of view, Durkheim’s approach was rather close to the principle of objectivism as he believes that suicide exists independently. And he used quantitative approach to collect information on suicide. Although, he could not provide a specific measurement to account for the social integration and ‘no evidences that social isolation and economic failure lead to suicide for the reasons given’ (Gibbs, J.P. 1968, p.114), after all, he recognized there are a few social factors affecting the rate of suicide; which has strong face validity. All these above could prove that his work is distinctively sociological.
Durkheim’s work is always debatable, for example there seems like lack of temporary validity. Researchers nowadays, fail to replicate Durkheim’s analysis by using the modern data. This may due to the ‘lacking the sense of history that should have told them that the meaning or importance of…modern’ (Bille-Brahe, U. 2002, p.195). Besides this, the social facts that Durkheim pointed out might not be the only thing causing suicide. There are still different kinds of problems or factors within the individuals, for example dramatic life experiences, diseases, traumas, abuse, or mental illness, etc, that may obviously cause the individual to commit suicide. Perhaps everyone has a predisposition to commit suicide, but whether or not an individual really decided to end up life may depend on if there is something to trigger it happen. The social factors that Durkheim pointed out, for example, conscience collective, social integration and social regulation, are the situation may make the predisposition to commit suicide more vulnerable. Nevertheless, Durkheim’s work had an importance in contributing to sociology.
Reference:
Bille-Brahe, U. 2002, ‘Sociology and Suicidal Behaviour’, in Hawton and Van Heeringen, 2002, Suicide and Attemped Suicide, Wiley. Pp.193-207.
Durkheim, E. 1952, ‘Egoistic Suicide’, in Suicide: A Study in Sociology, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Pp.171-216.
Durkheim, E. 1952, ‘How to Determine Social Causes and Social Types’, in Suicide: A Study in Sociology, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Pp.297-325.
Gibbs, J.P. 1968, ‘Durkheim’s Theory’, in Suicide. Pp.113-115.
Gibbs, J.P. 1968, ‘Durkheim’s Theory of Suicide’, in Suicide. Pp.76-80.
Jary, S and Jary, J. 2005. Collins Dictionary of Sociology, Glasgow: HarpercCollins.
Lukes, S. 1973, ‘Social Solidarity and the Division of Labour’, in Emile Durkheim: His Life and Work, London: Allen Lane. Pp.137-178.
Lukes, S. 1973, ‘Suicide: The explanation Offered’, in Emile Durkheim: His Life and Work, London: Allen Lane. Pp.204-212.
