Emile Durkheim was a French theorist who focused on different aspects of human beings including suicide. He came up with four different forms of suicide which are: egoistic, altruistic, anomic, and fatalistic. He states that suicide is always the act of a person who would much rather choose death over life, but what makes each form of suicide different is what leads the person to want to take their life (Applerouth 133). It does not seem plausible that a theory that was given in the late 1800’s can still apply to this day and age. Although there are several who believe that there is just one form of suicide, it is important not to overlook the relevance of the theories of altruistic and fatalistic suicide and how those theories still apply in the 21st century.
I. Four Forms of Suicide
Durkheim wrote a book called “Suicide: A Study in Sociology” where he discusses in detail his methodical thinking and approach to the four forms of suicide. Eugene Hynes summarizes the context of each form of suicide. He states:
“Fatalism is shown as the suicide of persons with “futures pitilessly blocked and passions violently choked by oppressive discipline”. Anomic suicides result from a failure to control the passions and are therefore angry and violent. Egoistic suicide results from too little direction toward social identity and is characterized by “dreamy melancholy” “self-complacence” and “indifference”. Altruistic suicides are committed with deliberate energy and a sense of duty, perhaps enthusiasm” (90).
The best way to think about each form of suicide is by creating a Cartesian Plane and to remember each quadrant as they will be labeled to clarify how each suicide fits into Durkheim’s theory of suicide. In Quadrant I, fatalism is assigned ...
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...he second is a more individualistic dimension and sees the suicidal act as an escape route from a situation of no hope. In both cases, as proposed by Durkheim, these feelings are a result of social regulations and integration, hence, social structure, together with an individual’s subjective point of view, both play a major role in the realm of suicidal terrorism”(420).
III. Conclusion
Emile Durkheim studied and wrote a book about the four forms of suicide in the late 1800’s and throughout this paper, it has become conclusive that the same theories that he wrote about years back still, in fact, relate to the 21st Century. An explanation was given of each different forms of suicide which were: anomic, egoistic, fatalism, and altruism. The two theories that were given in depth were altruism and fatalism and were applied and compared to the infamous suicide bombers.
Durkheim’s concept of social integration refers to social groups with well-defined values, traditions, norms, and goals. These groups will differ in the degree to which individuals are part of the collective body, also to the extent to which the group is emphasized over the individual, and lastly the level to which the group is unified versus fragmented. Durkheim believed that two types of suicide, Egoistic and Altruistic, could stem from social integration. Egoistic suicide resulted from too little social integration. Those people who were not sufficiently bound to a social group would be left with little or no social support in times of crisis. This caused them to commit suicide more often. An example Durkheim discovered was that of unmarried people, especially males, who, with less to connect them to stable social groups, committed suicide at higher rates than married people. Altruistic suicide is a result of too much integration. It occurs at the opposite end of the social integration scale as egoistic suicide. Self sacrifice appears to be the driving force, where people are so involved with a social group that they lose sight of themselves and become more willing to take one for the team, even if this causes them to die. The most common cases of altruistic suicide occur to soldiers during times of war. Religious cults have also been a major source of altruistic suicide.
Durkheim, Emile. Trans. John A. Spaulding and George Simpson. Suicide; A Study in Sociology. The Free Press, New York. 1987. Pgs. 297-325
According to Durkheim, two types of suicide arise from the different levels social integration. One cause of suicide is extremely low social integration, which is referred to as egoistic suicide. Durkheim argues that this is the case because others give the individual’s life meaning, so without this support from the group the person may feel hopeless (Conley 188). The other type of suicide, altruistic suicide, reflects the opposite situation: when an individual is too socially integrated (Conley 189). This type of suicide occurs when members of a group or community become so totally engrossed by the group tha...
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Emile Durkheim is a French sociologist who investigated suicide and the connection to society using the functionalist perspective. He talks about solidarity being a component of suicide. The less people that an individual has a connection to the more likely they are to consider taking their own life. Belonging to a social group can increase the sense of belonging that people have in their everyday life. Social stratification is a factor of whether someone feels like they belong in a group or not.
This paper is a critical review of the French sociologist Emil Durkheim and his writings on suicide from his book titled ‘Suicide’ written in 1897. Durkheim was seen as a positivist and functionalist. In his book, Durkheim’s goal was to study people’s tendencies towards suicide and to determine the social causes behind them. Suicide, which Durkheim defined as ‘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, 1987).
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Durkheim identified four causes of suicide: egoism, altruism, anomie and fatalism. Key to all of these was the focus on integration and regulation. Egoistic suicides occurred with low integration, altruistic with excessive; anomic suicides with low regulation, and fatalistic with excessive. He distinguishes between the ‘pre-modern’ suicides – altruism and fatalism, and the ‘modern’ suicides – egoism and anomie. The transition, he claims, from pre- to modern society has led to individualism, through greater social and economic mobility, and urbanisation. This personal autonomy has led to lesser...
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