Suicide / Le Suicide 1897

1. Suicide / Le Suicide1897

2. key motivation: to bring moral issues into study of suicide • methodological objective: application of sociological method to explain what appears on its face to be an "individual" phenomenon • separates distribution of suicide rates and the etiology (causes) of individual cases of suicide Suicide and Modernity

3. Therefore, patterns of suicide rates must depend upon stably distributed phenomena of geographical, biological, or socialkind • ED considers geography and biology in detail, but rejects both, focusing on the social factor 19thcentury suicide DATA show stable distributions from year to year interspersed with periodic fluctuations

4. egoisim: a lack of integration of the individual into the social group • anomie: a lack of moral regulation • These conditions, in the extreme, pathological form express themselves as: • egoistic suicide • anomic suicide Two key conditions that are “chronic” in modern industrial society

5. Predominantly Catholic countries have lower suicide rates than those which are mainly Protestant • Both creeds prohibit suicide w/equal stringency, so it's necessary to look for differences in the social organization of the two churches • Difference is that Protestantism is founded upon the promotion of a spirit of free inquiry • Catholic church is formed around traditional hierarchy of the priesthood, whose authority is binding in matters of religious dogma, but the Protestant is alone before God • Protestantism is "less strongly integrated" church than Catholicism • Suicide rates are higher among Protestants than Catholics or Jews • Jews, like Catholics, are considered more “communally oriented” than Protestants Distribution of suicide rates in Western Europe are associated withreligion

6. unmarried persons show higher rates of suicide than married ones of comparable age • inverse relationship between suicide and size of conjugal unit • the greater # of children, lower suicide rate • suicide declines in times of national political crisis and in times of war • in war this holds for those in armed forces and civilians • political crises stimulate involvement in events, for a time, bringing about closer integration of society degree of integration in other sectors of society related to suicide rates in same way

7. Suicide rates higher in industry & commerce vs. agricultural occupations • Within non-agricultural occupations, suicide rates inversely related to socio-economic level • Lowest among chronically poor • Highest among well-to-do & those in the liberal professions  Poverty itself is a source of moral restraint Suicide rates & occupational structure

8. not simply the result of economic deprivation, since suicide increase in equivalent degree during sudden prosperity moves both up and down in terms of prosperity have a disruptive effect upon accustomed modes of life in either case, people’s habitual expectations come under strain Suicide increases duringbooms AND busts

9. anomic suicidesprings from the phenomenon discussed in DoL: the anomic state of moral deregulation characterizing economic relationships • egoistic suicideis caused where "the individual self asserts itself to excess in the face of the social self and at its expense…" • altruistic suicideoccurs when the basis for man's existence seems to be situated beyond this life types of suicide: anomic, egoistic, altruistic

10. Egoistic suicide is caused where "the individual self asserts itself to excess in the face of the social self and at its expense…" • Egoistic suicide is particularly characteristic of contemporary societies • Egoistic suicide linked to the "cult of the individual" in contemporary societies Egoistic suicide

11. Altruistic suicide • in altruistic suicide an individual gives his life for the social group • the primary type of suicide in small, traditional societies where individuation is minimal

12. The elementary forms of religious life (1912)

13. The fundamental categories of thought, and consequently of science, are based on religion • If religion has given birth to all that is essential in society, it is because the idea of society is the soul of religion Religion & society

14. Theory concerns the functional role of religion in society The importance of ED's novel understanding of religion is that it leads to a clarification of the nature of the continuity between the traditional forms of society and the modern "In order to understand these new forms, one must connect them with religious phenomena properly speaking" A functionalist theory of religion

15. Australian totemism the existence of supernatural divinities is not essential to religion there are systems of belief and practices which we should quite properly call religious, but where gods and spirits are absent or are of minor importance Theory of religion based on study of one of simplest, most primitive religions

16. they presuppose a classification of all things known to men, real and ideal, into two classes, two distinct kinds: the sacred and profane the character of religious thought relies on the notion of dichotomy itself What is a religious belief cannot be defined wrt substantive content of ideas

17. A religion is never simply a set of beliefs; it always also involves prescribed ritual practices and a definite institutional form • There is no religion which does not have a church, although the form which this assumes varies widely • Church refers to the existence of a regularized ceremonial organization pertaining to a definite group of worshippers • it does not imply that there is necessarily a specialized priesthood religion always involves prescribed ritual practices & An institutional form

18. Religion: A religion is a unified (solidaire) system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden - beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a church, all those who adhere to them. Durkheim’s definition of religion

19. ED does not argue that religion creates society • this leads to a misinterpretation of his theory as idealism • By contrast, ED says religion is the expression of the self-creation, the autonomous development, of human society The equation of society and the sacred must not be misunderstood