Durkheim\'s Anomic and Egoistic Suicide

Durkheim's Anomic And Egoistic Suicide

Flawed Masterpiece

Durkheim's Explanations

A, if not "The" Central Theme

In Light of Suicide's Darkness

Durkheim's Anomic and Egoistic Suicide

One hundred and nine years ago, the first edition of Le Suicide, Emile Durkheim's reportedly "flawed masterpiece" (Pickering and Walford 182) on suicide was published in 1897.

Durkheim most likely wrote this manuscript, currently considered a classic and the most popular of his books, after Victor Hommay, one of his close friends, committed suicide while still young. (Ibid 1)

Durkheim's Explanations In Le Suicide, Durkheim purported that anomic suicide transpires when a person's existence is destitute of restrictions and recognition and by other individuals in society. "Anomic suicides, as Durkheim described them, destroy themselves in remorse over their abandonment by society, for they cannot support the loneliness of anonymity." (Siebers) Durkheim contended that egoistic suicide evolves from a person no longer being able to conclude he/she has a reason for living. Egoistic suicides radically reject society, as they are dramatically removed from the "normal social justifications of existence." Egoistic, as well as, anomic suicides reportedly stem from society's inadequate presence in a person or their larger persona. "Egoistic suicide,'" Durkheim concludes, "results from man's no longer finding a basis for existence in life'." (Ibid)

A, if not "The" Central Theme

As marriage's effect on suicide's frequency was studied, Durkheim compared the relation to anomic and egoistic suicides. This came to be.".. considered a central - if not the central - point of his book." (Pickering and Walford 133). In regard to egoistic suicide, Durkheim attempted to illustrate that family life, not merely being married, protects a person from suicide. Some of Durkheim's other central experiential conclusions were presented as a sequence of greater' and 'lesser' statements such as: peacetime suicide rates > wartime suicide rates among Protestants > Roman Catholics > Jews." (Ibid 180)

Transcends Common Sense Pickering and Walford (181) contend that contemporary data regarding psychiatric and psychological states (i.e. depression) confirm the validity and value of Durkheim's development of the related theory touted to transcend.".. common sense... any attempt to extend otherwise valid work by psychiatrists and psychologists to explain relative suicide rates." (Ibid) When Durkheim's related theory has been evaluated alongside psychiatric and psychological data, the comparison's results confirm the soundness of Durkheim stressing that suicide rates constitute social facts, to be elucidated with regard to supplementary social factors. Both Durhheim and psychologists correctly stress the intimate links connecting depression, and suicide. Nevertheless, the majority of depressed individual refrain from committing suicide. Social reasons, not depression itself, Durkheim determined, lend to a depressed individuals (and other people) in one country being more likely to kill him/her self than a depressed person in another country. Another compelling component that confirms Dukheim's consensus is the fact that despite more women than men experiencing depression, the number of male suicides is consistently larger. (Ibid)

In Light of Suicide's Darkness In light of suicide's darkness, along with the contention that Durham's explanation of anomic and egoistic suicides is a valid reflection of social reality, several patterns of suicide that might be observed in contemporary American social life include:

Greater incidents of suicide may be probable in individuals who have experienced the loss of their family, as Durkheim noted that family life protects an individual from suicide.

Less incidents of suicide are anticipated overall (and among Jews in the U.S.) as the U.S. is currently engaged in war and Durkheim contended that:.".. peacetime suicide rates > wartime suicide rates among Protestants > Roman Catholics > Jews." (Pickering and Walford 180).

Greater incidents of suicide may occur in work environments where individuals, albeit they may be working "with" other individuals, are in a sense isolated from other members of society, due to job constraints which could contribute to society's insufficient presence in a person or their persona.