Durkheim’s Suicide

Durkheim’s Suicide was the first methodological study of a social fact in the context of society. 

What does that mean?  Well, it means that Durkhiem wanted to look at suicide, a known occurrence in society, and do it scientifically.  He wanted to break the social causes of suicide, back them up with research, and present them to the greater world via this book.

He splits this book into three parts which are outlined below; the most important of which for our concerns is Book Two.  This book explains his theories of the social causes of suicide and the different types he defined. 

Durkheim’s main argument was that suicide is not an individual act, as was previously thought by leading scientists of his time.  Accordingly, his theory was that suicide was a social fact that was tied to social structures.  He defined suicide as a social fact because it was something that happened driven by social causes, however hidden they were. 

In order to test his theory he studied suicide rates across time and place (throughout Europe, spanning many years).  Once he had completed his preliminary research and analyses, he came to the conclusion that, despite major differences in suicide rates between individual societies, rates within a society remained stable over time.

Distribution of the Different Kinds of Death Among 1,000 Suicides (Both Sexes Combined)

By looking at thsi table from page 291 of "Suicide" we can see that over the years, each type of suicide has a relatively stable rate in each place.  The numbers may vary across the places, but for each locale, there is consistency.

Durkheim then proceeded to theorize three different types of suicide that are found in all societies.  These include:

1)      “Egoistic suicide, which results from lack of integration of the individual into society.” (Page 14)

~This means that a person is not included in many things that happen in society, they feel unattached, helpless and useless.  Due to these feelings of inadequacy, the person takes his of her own life.

2)      Altruistic suicide “. . . it results from the individual’s taking his own life because of higher commandments.” (Page 15)

~This means that the individual feels that something larger than himself is causing him to take his own life, such as religious Martyrs or suicide bombers.

3)      Anomic suicide “. . . which results from lack of regulation of the individual by society.” (Page 15)

~This means that the society is going through some sort of change, where the rules of the society are not as clear as they were.  The individual feels confused and does not know how to handle the major changes occuring around him/herself, and thus commits suicide.

The relevance of Durkheim’s Suicide Theory on sociology is seen very well through a series of quotes from the editor/translator:

“his work on suicide remains the prototype of systematic, rigorous and unrelenting attack on the subject with the data, techniques, and accumulated knowledge available at any given period.”  (Page 9, Editor's Preface of  "Suicide")

“Le Suicide is among the first modern examples of consistent and organized use of statistical method in social investigation.” (Page 9, Editor's Preface of  "Suicide")

“. . . Durkheim is seeking to establish that what looks like a highly individual and personal phenomenon is explicable through the social structure and its ramifying functions.” (Page 10, Editor's Preface of  "Suicide")