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Nancy McFadden M.A.
--page 1-- Suicide go to page 1-
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Suicide
The intent in this presentation is to discuss 'Suicide' as a social
concept using a theory espoused by Emile Durkheim (1858-1917). What makes
Durkheim's theory worthy of consideration is the main thrust in his overall
doctrine which was an insistence that we shun biologistic and psychologistic
interpretations of behaviors and focus instead, on 'social facts'.
Durkheim insisted that the study of society must refrain from reductionism
and lend more weight to a generic social phenomenon. It was his opinion that
social phenomena are 'social facts' and therefore, the subject matter of
sociology.
In Durkheim's opinion, these 'social facts' have specific social
characteristics and determinants which cannot be identified and explained on
a biological or psychological level. They are, he claimed, external to any
particular individual. From there, Durkheim focused his attention on the
social-structural determinants of mankind's social problems - suicide being
one of them.
To Durkheim, suicide could not be explained on a biologic level because it,
like other 'social facts', endured over time. As well, it survived
particular individuals who, he claimed died and were replaced by others. The
resurgence of the situation was, for him, evidence of a coercive social
power which imposed itself on certain individuals - independent of his or
her individual will. *1
So, in Durkheims's opinion, a 'social fact' could therefore, be defined as
"every way of acting, fixed or not, capable of exercising on the individual
an external constraint". *2
Constraints, he claimed, whether in the form of laws or customs, comes into
play whenever social demands are being violated. These sanctions, are
imposed on individuals and channel and direct their desires and
propensities. In other words, society, not the individual rules.
During the development of his theory, Durkheim came to stress that social
facts, and more particularly, moral rules, become effective guides and
controls of conduct only to the extent that they become internalized in the
consciousness of individuals, while continuing to exist independently of
individuals.
According to this formulation, constraint is no longer a simple imposition
of outside controls on individual will, but rather a moral obligation to
obey a rule. In this sense, society is something beyond us and something in
ourselves. *3
Out of his theory evolved a kind of argument which was, that when
interacting individuals create a reality (such as the phenomenon of
suicide), the determining cause of this, or any social fact, should be
sought among the social facts preceding it and not among the states of the
individual consciousness. This was the basis of his theory and as it
developed, Durkheim became more concerned with the characteristics of groups
and structures rather than with individual attributes. Suicide go to page 1-
2- 3-
4 Back to main
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