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Society and suicide
Society and suicide
Sociological theory of suicidal behavior
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Within Durkheim’s text On Suicide, he arrives at his arguments by first explaining why an existing argument is invalid. There are several examples of this method within the text, however there are three prominent ones that will be the main focus of this analysis.
The first example of this method would be Durkheim’s description and then rejection of the validity of insanity as a driving force of suicide. Durkheim distinguishes that insanity is too broad of a term and is not easily backed up by statistics when analyzing its influence on suicide. However, Durkheim argues one exception to this and he labels it ‘monomania’, “the monomaniac is a patient whose consciousness is perfectly healthy except on one point: he exhibits only one flaw and this
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Because the ratio of married men’s deaths to unmarried was consistent in other countries, it lead to the assumption that married life brought with it an increased chance of suicide. But after looking deeper into this assumption it becomes evident that this is an imbalanced ratio as many unmarried men are under the age of 16 where the chance of suicide is a rarity, creating a gap in the suicide population in relation to age (Durkheim, 2006: 179-180). The ratios are similar in Italy and France, when the numbers are modified to take into account the age barrier the numbers fall into a more equal ratio with married men just slightly above the number of unmarried men. With further investigation it can be see that the institution of marriage actually reduces the risk of suicide and the state of being unmarried aggravates this tendency. Finally, it is decided that comparing these two groups generically isn’t possible so they are broken down into different stages of life to gain a more balanced population, however the statistics available only offered suicide and age not marital status. After establishing four rules that arose from the information (Durkheim, 2006: 186-189), it is decided that this argument of married men killing themselves more frequently is abolished. The institution of marriage provides mainly protection not
"Suicide, what a terrible concept. There are two types of suicide: physical, and theoretical. Physical suicide is the more commonly heard type of suicide. It entails the person actually, physically killing himself or herself. On the other hand, theoretical suicide is when the person does something that will, in turn, get him or her killed. For example, in “All About Suicide” by Luisa Valenzuela, Ismael, a man that works at a minister’s office, murders the minister, a high-ranking public official. Ismael has been forced to be quiet by the government; therefore he lashes out by killing the minister so that he can reveal the truth about the government. In doing this, Ismael technically “kills himself” because he knows the government will eventually find him and execute him. The theme of this story is that quite often, the truth is misconstrued or is hidden from the public. In order to reveal the truth, action must be taken to bring the truth to the people. Valenzuela reveals this theme through flashbacks, pronoun usage, and imagery.
Stress Induced Suicide Julie Scelfo’s “Suicide on Campus and the Pressure of Perfection” first appeared in The New York Times magazine on July 27, 2015. Scelfo discusses the pressure that family, society, and the individual places on themselves to be perfect. This stress ultimately results in college- age students taking their own lives. “Nationally, the suicide rate among 15- to 24-year-olds has increased modestly but steadily since 2007: from 9.6 deaths per 100,000 to 11.1 in 2013.” Scelfo uses an anecdote, statistics, and expert’s observations to successfully portray her stance on this issue.
I was coming home from work, stepping inside I noticed everything was silent. I noticed my family downstairs solemly waiting for me. A strange feeling overcame, while my Dad told me to sit down. He gave each of us a stern look and somberly announced that my brother tried to get his rifle and commit sucide. Overcome by the news, I found myself speechless this similar situation has happened before. My brother is suffering from schizophrenia and has attempted many times to commit sucide. This mental illnesss is genetic in my family, it has not been easy to deal with. I chose this topic for reasons why one will commit sucide in his or her youth. I find if one has trouble with family, living in a poor neighborhood or inherits a genetic mental illness it can influence youth sucidality.
In 1897, Emile Durkheim (1997) showed that the suicide – perhaps the most personal of all decisions – could be analysed through the conceptual lenses of sociology.
In this paper I will dispute that Roman Catholic arguments against suicide, are weak and vague. This is not to say that if Catholicism arguments against suicide fail, then that suicide is morally permissible. The morality of suicide contains a vast literature of itself, and this encompasses the purpose of this paper. My main target is to bring about the problems Catholicism and their ethical views against suicide. I will show that arguments against suicide are unsuited with beliefs concerning the Old Catholic religious appreciation of martyrdom.
“Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.” - Phil Donahue. As a complex, tragic public health issue, suicide occurs in men significantly more often than in women. Suicide is simply defined as the act of intentionally ending one’s own life, but the factors that play into a person making that decision are anything but simple. The most obvious and severe effect of suicide is the loss of a valuable, meaningful human life. According to Harvard School of Public Health (n.d.), suicide affects parents, children, siblings, friends, lovers and spouses; the loss for society is psychological, spiritual, and financial. People who lose a loved one to suicide often experience devastating effects and deal with a complex grief. These “suicide survivors” typically feel a range of emotions from sadness, blame, and guilt to extreme anger and confusion. “Suicide among males is four times higher than among females and represents 79% of all U.S. suicides” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, 2012). This gender paradox is one of the most compelling components regarding who is most at risk to attempt suicide. Why is it that men commit suicide more often than women? More than four times as many men as women die by suicide because depressed men are less likely to seek out help, men typically use more violent, lethal methods and cannot be resuscitated, and men carry the pressure of employment, providing for and protecting a family, and maintaining relationships.
Durkheim’s theory of suicide illustrated his approach as a positivist theorist; he was a strong believer that sociology should be studied scientifically in a way that those utilized by other natural sciences in order to establish the field as a credible one. Essentially, this involved the establishment of cause-and-effect associations using hypothetical and deductive reasoning. In his study of suicide, Durkheim attempted to explain how the field of sociology could uniquely describe elements of society and human behavior in a way that differed from that offered by other disciplines. His beliefs regarding suicide involved his conviction that suicide may happen as...
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).
A Study of Suicide: An overview of the famous work by Emile Durkheim, Ashley Crossman, 2009, http://sociology.about.com/od/Works/a/Suicide.htm, 25/12/2013
With each analysis the reader gets a greater understanding of suicide and the mental state of those who commit it, as well as some of their motives. One could read only a single chapter of this book and gain a greater understanding than they previously had on the topic of suicide, but when one brings all the chapters together as a whole a much deeper understanding is obtained. Lester’s analyses start with diaries, using that of a girl he has called Katie as his first example. In this 14 page chapter he analyses her diary, not only comparing her to Ophelia from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, but using that comparison to show some of her motives and to make sense of them. It is this astute analysis that sets the tone for the rest of the similar chapters, in a way that is not boring but is not lighthearted in the slightest. The way that the whole book works together to give one insight on the topic of suicide makes it a useful resource for those who wish to understand it in a more in-depth way.
Suicide, may be said to happen, if and only if, there is an intentional end of someone's life. The doctrine converses that we should never break off anyone’s life, including ours, because life is internally estimable that we should cherish. Therefore chances of that the act, suicide, violating this concept depends on whether a life worthwhile or not. So how do we define a worthwhile life? There is no satisfactory answer. It is ponderable that fragile at best because in moments of despair, nothing seems worthwhile and a Prozac later, everything may be all right again.
Inside the article “Why Marriage is Good for You”, Maggie Gallagher makes claims that marriage improves many facets of an individual’s life; including both mental and physical health, longevity, finances, and reduced chances of infidelity (Gallagher). The statements made throughout the article reference many statistics and studies conducted by various organizations and individuals, however, Gallagher falls victim to a number of common logical fallacies. While this weakens Gallagher’s argument in the article, it does not necessarily make it false.
Durkheim was a functionalist, and theorised that a holistic social narrative could be identified which would explain individual behaviour. He argued that, whilst society was made up of its members, it was greater than the sum of its parts, and was an external pressure that determined the behaviour of the individuals within it. At that time, suicide rates in Europe were rising, and so the causes of suicide were on the agenda. Since suicide is seen as an intrinsically personal and individual action, establishing it as having societal causes would be a strong defence for Durkheim’s functionalist perspective. Durkheim used the comparative method to study the official suicide rates of various European countries. While he was not the first to notice the patterns and proportional changes of suicide rates between different groups in European societies, it was this fact that was the foundation of his theory – why did some groups consistently have much higher rates than others? This supports the idea that it was the external pressures placed on certain groups within society that induced higher rates of suicide, and is the basis of Durkheim’s work.
Often times when I heard the word "suicidal" I was curiously caused the person to do it. Growing up, I heard that people decided to commit suicide was because they "wanted attention, they wanted the easy way out, they were weak, they couldn't handle life, etc." Personally, I have significant people in my life that have felt like they wanted to commit suicide. So, this topic honestly is a difficult, yet, emotional one to discuss.
The debate on whether to get married or stay single has been raging for a long while, with both sides of the coin having their own pros and cons regarding the matter. Many proponents of either marriage or single life have strong individual convictions, and it is difficult to reach a definitive objective conclusion. Is the married individual happier than his/her single counterpart, or is getting married just a comfort seeking ritual that people believe they have to fulfill at some point in their lives? It is necessary to dissect this issue in the light of four factors: health and other medical factors, the economic and finance front, mental and emotional wellbeing and lastly, the social factor.