O suicide it is, according to Durkheim, “every case of death that results, directly or indirectly, from an act, positive or negative, performed by the victim himself, and which he knew should produce that result”. According to the sociologist, each society is predisposed to provide a determined contingent of voluntary deaths, and what interests sociology about the suicide is the analysis of the entire social process, of the social factors that act not on isolated individuals, but on the group, on the whole of the society. Each society has, at each moment in its history, a defined attitude towards suicide.
There are three types of suicide, according to the etymology of emile Durkheim, namely:
• selfish suicide: is the one in which the individual ego asserts itself too much in the face of the social ego, that is, there is an immeasurable individualization. The relationships between individuals and society are loosened, causing the individual to no longer see meaning in life, to have no more reason to live;
• altruistic suicide: is the one in which the individual feels the duty to do it to get rid of an unbearable life. It is the one in which the ego does not belong, it is confused with something else outside of itself, that is, in one of the groups to which the individual belongs. We have as an example the Japanese kamikazes, the Muslims who collided with the World Trade Center in New York, in 2001, etc.;
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• anomic suicide: is one that occurs in a situation of anomie social, that is, when there is an absence of rules in society, generating chaos, so that social normality is not maintained. In a situation of economic crisis, for example, in which there is a complete deregulation of the normal rules of society, certain individuals are in a situation inferior to what they previously occupied. Thus, there is a sudden loss of wealth and power, causing, for this very reason, the rates of this type of suicide to increase. It is important to emphasize that the anomic suicide rates are higher in rich countries, as the poor are better able to deal with situations of social anomie.
In this way, the types of suicides and their causes are specified, which, according to Durkheim, are always social.
By João Francisco P. Cabral
Brazil School Collaborator
Graduated in Philosophy from the Federal University of Uberlândia - UFU
Master's student in Philosophy at the State University of Campinas - UNICAMP
Would you like to reference this text in a school or academic work? Look:
CABRAL, João Francisco Pereira. "On Suicide in the Sociology of Èmile Durkheim"; Brazil School. Available in: https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/filosofia/sobre-suicidio-na-sociologia-Emile-durkheim.htm. Accessed on June 28, 2021.