Extra Credit: Bully Film Review
Bullying in the educational setting has become significantly prevalent. Children appear to be less restrained as to mean things they say to their peers, as evidenced with cyberbullying where atrocious statements are said behind a screen in anonymity. Bullying can be so damaging to a child which leads them to feel as if there was no escape other committing the act of suicide. Society has long believed that suicide is an individualistic problem, however sociologist Émile Durkheim posed the idea that sociology is socially rooted. This paper will convey the premise in Durkheim’s 1897 work Suicide: A Study in Sociology and relate the issues presented in the riveting documentary Bully, which represents first hand experiences
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As related by his father, Tyler slowly became socially isolated after some time of being bullied. The isolation was evidenced by Tyler not expressing his feelings to his parents or to anyone around him. Ty was an 11 year old that took his own life after he could not take his tormenters comments any longer. As Durkheim states, these children suffered of infinite sadness, due to bullying. Additionally, they could not continue with the heavy weight of the pain they endured daily which led them to renounce life (Durkheim in Desfor Edles and Appelrouth 2010:134). Egoistic suicide was also evidenced in Kelby, as she stated that she tried committing suicide three times. However the social bonds that her family had is what eventually kept her going (Desfor Edles and Appelrouth …show more content…
As noted with Ms. Lockwood’s, the assistant principle, acknowledgement to the child whose head was slammed into a nail was very dismissive. She responded by saying, “…well I don’t see a hole” while examining the child’s head. Although she later sat down with other children, inquiring about the bullying that was taking place in the cafeteria, it did not seem as if she really had much of an action plan in place (Hirsh, 2011). Another response of hers was “I don’t have any magic” as if magic were the solution to the problem. This is a great example of anomic suicide, in which bullies continue engaging in such behavior because of the lack of regulation by school administrators. This is also a great example of the collective conscious because it shows how the educational system in this particular community functions – which leads to parents having their hands tied. Parents were shown to actively seek help or solutions from the school administrators with no avail. This collective conscious also leads victimized children into thinking that they have no support or that the society around them does not care about their wellbeing, which leads them towards egoistic
“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” Martin Luther King Jr. knew it was better to speak up than to stay quiet. This is a lesson that needs to be taught throughout both middle schools and high schools. All around the world, suicide rates are going up, and most of these cases relate back to bullying. The children often do not say anything because they are afraid the bullying will only get worse. When nothing changes, they are driven to suicide to relieve the pain that they are feeling. As Marge Piercy examines in “Barbie Doll,” students are picked on for being or looking different than others. No matter what type of bullying it may be, it hurts people more than they are willing to let on. All forms of bullying, whether it be in schools, physical, verbal, or online, have an impact on teen suicide ideation.
Emile Durkheim main concern was social order, and how individual integrated to maintain it. The Division of Labor was one of Durkheim’s first major works. Society is a system of inter-related and inter-connected of not only individuals but also subgroups interacting with one another. Durkheim is interested on how this division of labor changes the way that individuals feel when they are part of society as a whole. As society advances it becomes more complex, and as it becomes more complex, it gets harder to maintain with the rise of conflict. According to Durkheim, this is why society has its division of labor, and in order to survive, society is broken down to certain specializations where people are more dependent on each other. Durkheim believed that the division of labor begins when the social, economic and political boundaries dividing segments begin to break down and smaller segments come together. Within these segments, Durkheim describes another degree of integration which is broken down into two aspects; Mechanical Solidarity and Organic Solidarity. Within in these social solidarities, he identifies a system of social relations linking individuals to each other and to the society as a whole.
...eaning which individuals attribute to their actions” (Mazman 69, Weber, 1968: 29). Durkheim talks about the unfettered wants of the people, and society’s role in controlling these wants. In other words Durkheim is focusing on the society to shape the role of individual; and whatever part an individual plays is not limited to his/her own psychological or biological needs, it also bears the societal effect.
Suicide due to bullying has been given the name of bullycide. One example of bullycide would be Jon Carmichael from Texas who was bullied so harshly that “one day they stripped him naked, tied him up, and stuck him in a trash can, and they taped it with their cell phones and put it all on You Tube” per his mother’s account (Texas Monthly, Hollandsworth). A few days later Jon was found hanging by a rafter from their barn after committing suicide. The perpetrators of this abuse were his fellow classmates and it is reported that “60% of boys who bullied others in middle school had at least one criminal conviction by the age of 24; 40% had three or more convictions” (van der Valk, 41). Bullying behavior not only negatively affects the victims that are singled out and tormented, but from a legal perspective can lead to long term criminal
In the macro to micro category, each sociological theory concentrated on one major problem of society and then went on to explain what would have to be done within individuals in order to achieve social progress. Durkheim's focus was upon the division of labor being the primary cause of social problems (Berger 123). For Du Bois, the concentration was on racial issues; "I have faith in the power of freedom and democracy to lead these peoples to higher levels of... progress. I see race, not class, as the fundamental cause of the problems societies have faced over the centuries" (Berger 120). Falling also into the macro to micro category were Lenin and B. Webb. Lenin focuses on the exploitation of the working class as a whole, while Webb concentrated on criminal behavior connected to poverty and poor people as an entire group. The sociologists in this category tended towards focusing on the society as a whole, with the occasional correlation to the individual as the focal point; each theorist was concentrated on groups of individuals more so than the individual. Durkheim's idea was that suicide was more of a reflection of the society within which the individual lives, than it was a reflection of the individual. Durkheim did research linking suicides and communities. He found that "organic societies - those characterized by weak links between people and the breakdown of a sense of community" had higher rates than communities that were lin...
Emile Durkheim is another sociologist who used Herbert Spencer’s theory to explain the change in society. He believed that society is a very intricate system of interrelated and interdependent parts that work together to maintain stability (Durkheim 1893). This ensures that the social world is held together by shared values and languages. He wrote the Division of Labor.
Karl Marx focused his attention on how capitalism alienated humanity by making work a mere means of individual existence, while Max Weber centered his focus on how excessive rationalism suppressed freedom, and intuition. Emile Durkheim managed this phenomenon with temporary pathologies. Their evaluations of modernity are connected to their beliefs of human nature. Emile Durkheim’s view of modern society is thought of as a high division of labour in which ‘ organic solidarity’ predominates. The roles and institutions act like the organs of our body, and are dependent on each other.
Emile Durkheim was born in France in April of 1858 and died in November of 1917. He was from a close Jewish community that he continued to be close to even after breaking with the Jewish church. Having come from a long family line of rabbis, he had planned to follow in that profession. Durkheim was known as the Father of Sociology. He was a liberal, a modernist, and a nationalist. He was a very ambitious man; this ambition was illustrated by the accomplishments he made over the course of his life.
The most critical difference they have is that Tylor and Frazer advocate for a substantive, intellectualist perspective while Durkheim pushes for a functionalist, reductionist approach to religion. Durkheim’s approach allows for the development of a scientifically observable explanation to prove his notion of religion as a social purpose. Durkheim’s observable proof is displayed through the practice of religious communal ceremonies and ritual practices such as Christian mass or Hindu celebration of Holi. To expand, both communal and independent expressions of religion such as praying or meditation, result in social cohesion because they provide a sense of what one is supposed to be doing as a member of a specific community. On the other hand, Tylor and Frazer merely create their own standards of evaluating religion’s purpose and effectiveness through their subjective interpretation of linear human progression. The point is that Durkheim’s evidence that religion’s purpose is social rather than intellectual is physically observable through religious ceremonies and rituals. Moreover, it can be suggested that these ceremonies are not performed for the purpose of intellectual advancement but rather social cohesion. If it was the case that religious ceremonies and rituals were performed with the intent to gain intellectual advancement, than it is unlikely that they would involve the entire community, perform customary practices or take place on formalistic dates. Further, Durkheim states, “[r]religious ideas can be discarded and changed, but religious rituals or something very much like them, must endure. Society cannot exist without ceremony; community requires religiosity” (Pals: Nine Theories, 105). Durkheim is accurate in this statement because without ceremony, a community cannot exist because there is no uniformity or collective
...s modernity. He saw socialism as even more malicious than capitalism. He thought that alienating bureaucracies would gain even more control over people. Durkheim had an optimistic view towards modernity. He predicted more freedom for individuals which were ideal for individuals within societies. However, he was concerned about the risks of anomie, or a condition in which society provides little moral guidance to individuals.
Emile Durkheim was born in the eastern French province of Lorraine on April 15, 1858. He was the s on of a rabbi and descending from a long line of rabbis, he decided early that he would follow the family tradition and become a rabbi himself. He studied Hebrew, the Old Testament, and the Talmud, while following the regular course of in secular schools. He soon turned away from all religious involvement, though purposely not from interest in religious phenomena, and became a freethinker, or non-believer. At about the time of his graduation he decided that he would dedicate himself to the scientific study of society. Since sociology was not a subject either at the secondary schools or at the university, Durkheim launched a career as a teacher in philosophy. Emile Durkheim made many contributions to the study of society, suicide, the division of labor, solidarity and religion. Raised in a time of troubles in France, Durkheim spent much of his talent justifying order and commitment to order. Durkheim was a pioneer French sociologist, taught at Bordeaux (1887-1902) and the University of Paris (1902-17). He introduced the system and hypothetical framework of accurate social science. Durkheim was author of The Division of Labour (1893), Rules of Sociological Method (1895), Suicide (1897), Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1915). Emile Durkheim has often been characterized as the founder of professional sociology. He has a great closeness with the two introductory sociologists, Comte and Saint-Simon. Durkheim willingly noticed the ideas of the Division of Labor and the Biological Analogy.
Emile Durkheim, Karl Marx, and Max Weber are all important characters to be studied in the field of Sociology. Each one of these Sociological theorists, help in the separation of Sociology into its own field of study. The works of these three theorists is very complex and can be considered hard to understand but their intentions were not. They have their similarities along with just as many of their differences.
Sociology is the study of the structure of groups, organizations, and societies, and how individuals interact within these environments. Sociology at one time was not a respectable or well-known field of study until Emile Durkheim, a college professor, made sociology a part of the French college curriculum. Durkheim is regarded as one of the founders of sociology. He introduced sociology as a branch of learning separate from other sciences by declaring that sociologists must examine specific characteristics of group life. In this paper, I plan to provide some insight into who Emile Durkheim was and his contributions to the field of sociology.
“Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” These words have been repeated countless times, but they are not accurate. In truth, words can kill. Bullying has become a highlighted problem within our society, and bullying in the school systems is even more prominent. According to the news, there are countless cases of bullying, many of which do not have happy endings. The rates of suicide due to bullying are currently higher than they have ever been before. Suicide is the third top causes of death in young people within the United States, averaging at 4,400 deaths a year, with over 50% of these deaths as a result of some sort of bullying. Studies also show that there are 100 suicide attempts for every one successful suicide performed (“Bullying and Suicide”). These numbers are disturbingly high. Bullying is affecting more kids in ways that some adults may never understand. The fact that words and actions can lead to cutting and suicides is still a distant concept to some and needs to be brought to immediate attention. Laws are now being put into place to prevent these tragedies, but what is really being done to prevent them within the schools or even within the students’ homes? There is a lot of finger pointing when it comes to this topic. But we all want to know what the cause is behind this nationwide crisis and who is responsible for it.
Mestrovic, S. (1988) Emile Durkheim and the reformation of sociology. London: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers