Within
the past few centuries we are able to see the staggering amount of change that
has taken place in a variety of different ethnicities, regions, and individual societies
themselves. Emile Durkheim was one of
the first sociologists to take a look a suicide with the idea that it just wasn’t
an individual’s choice, but rather their environment and social influence that helped
individuals solidify their choice in taking their lives. Even though Durkheim was the first to say
that it was a social influenced decision, there is still no doubt that
ultimately the choice has to be up to the individual. With this Durkheim came up with four types of
suicide that, I believe, have the ability to possible depict the feelings of
that individual comparable to their standing in society. There are two main sections of Integration,
that involve egoistic and altruistic, and regulation, that involves anomic and
fatalistic.
I had a
previous idea of people that committed suicide as depressed people, but I
believe this is just a stereotype and with a closer look we can see that this
isn't true. Durkheim’s category of integration
was one’s ability to be a part of society.
This can go further in saying one’s way to feel as if they are part of
something. If a person felt alone and
far from integration this is egoistic where as if someone was feeling over
involved is altruistic. The second
category is regulation, the amount of and or lack of rules that society has one
an individual. The lack of regulation
is anomic and too much regulation is fatalistic. As I said before that I always thought of
someone who committed suicide to be depressed and alone. With Durkheim’s four types of suicides we are
able to classify this person as egoistic.
They have low integration and do not have the solid connection of involvement
and belonging.
I think
Durkheim did ground breaking work with this and one of the ideas that I never
thought about were suicides like suicide bombers or the willingness of soldiers
to push forward when they know that death is very probable. Here is a clip (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vc2cPuwpqTg)from
the move Full Metal Jacket which is a great example of Fatalistic. Private Pyle’s over regulation lead to him
becoming insane and taking the Sargent’s and his own life.
Overall
I found it interesting and logical how Durkheim broke suicide in the four
categories of egoistic, altruistic, anomic and fatalistic. To have the perfect society we need to find
the balance between integration and regulation.
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