Durkheim's Theory Of Altruistic Suicides

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Durkheim was a sociologist of French origin born in year 1958 and died on the November of 1917. He instituted various academic disciplines and is considered as the current social science principal architect. He actually maintained dominancy in the field of social sciences until the time of his death. Durkheim also presented several sociological knowledge papers alongside religion. His studies such as the suicide study have actually picked a popular discourse. Most of Durkheim's work involved social facts' study, term which he developed so as to depict phenomena that is self-existent and which cannot be affected by individuals' actions. Durkheim considered social facts to possess sui generis, which is a self-sufficient existence which is greater…show more content…
Altruistic suicides therefore come about on an integration scale which is contrary to that of egoistic suicide. Durkheim stated that the suicide rate in altruistic societies was generally low as personal interests were not viewed as important. Durkheim viewed the armed forces with this perspective and was really surprising to find out that suicide rates occurred at a high rate within the military service. It was startling due to the fact that the military just like religions as well as cohesive societies should exhibit strong solidarity and moreover the people in the military are usually the most physically fit in the society. Besides, it was not right to attribute the suicide causes to either the military service hatred or even the failure to get used to military service routines. This was because it was evident that suicide rates were directly proportional to the military service length additionally, senior officers committed suicide at a higher rate than their juniors. Also the elite units were affected by higher suicide rates than the normal units. Finally the suicide rate was low in the units which demonstrated weaker military spirit. Therefore Durkheim stated that the senior military officers had to abandon the personal individuality to cope with the service requirements as it…show more content…
In addition he tends to possess vibrant structural society view, as well as the mode in which everyone within the society is affected by various social facts and how it is a must for each to comply with them. Durkheim indeed tried to have the situation where the social roles are distinguished from psychological, economical alongside biological roles. This is actually be observed within his social influences view on the rate of suicides, in which he studies several factors and determines their effect on the propensity to commit suicide In conclusion Durkheim used his study on suicide to provide an empirical way of sociology following his rules of sociological method. He tried to move sociology to a more scientific perspective that of objectivity and not subjectivity. He also stressed on the importance of Social Facts and that suicide was not a personalized situation but a social phenomenon. Through his concrete and extensive study of suicide Durkheim goal was to advances the discipline of Sociology, forwarding its recognition as a science and not just another branch of
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