Soci Assignment

Torstar news service`s article on “military takes action on suicidal soldiers” published in the Metro on 13th November, 2008 talks about investing suicidal soldiers and treating their psychological problems. A rapid reaction team of mental health workers has been created to quickly address some of the gaps in the way the military deals with soldiers at risk of taking their own lives. Theorist Emile Durkheim studied suicide and was not concerned with why an individual committed suicide but instead was interested in explaining differences in suicide rates. He was interested in why a particular group had higher suicide rates than others and assumed that only social facts could explain the different suicide rates. Durkheim proposed two ways of evaluating suicide rates which are: comparing different societies or other types of collectivities and changes in suicide rates in the same collectivity over time. Durkheim believed that if there were variations in suicide rates from one group to another or from one period to another the difference would be the consequence of variation in sociological factors. Durkheim tested and rejected alternative ideas about the causes of suicide like individual psychopathology, alcoholism, race, heredity and climate. He examined and rejected the imitation theory but admitted that some individual suicides may be the result of imitation never the less it is such a minor factor that it has no significant effect on the overall suicide rate. In a nut shell, changes in the collective sentiments lead to change in social currents, which, in turn, lead to changes in suicide rates. Durkheim’s theory of suicide can be seen more clearly if we examine the relationship between the types of suicide and his two underlying social facts: integration and regulation. Integration refers to the strength of attachment that we have to society while regulation refers to the degree of external constraint on people. Suicide rates go up when either of these currents is too low or too high. Durkheim talks about four kinds of suicide: egoistic, altruistic, anomic and fatalistic suicide. High rates of egoistic suicide are likely to be found in societies or groups in which the individual is not well integrated into the larger social unit. This does not give the individual a sense of purpose and the individual feels he or she is not part of the society. The luck of integration provides distinctive social currents, and these currents cause differences in suicide rates. The rapid reaction team of mental health workers can look at the soldier integration as a cause of the soldiers taking their own lives. Altruistic suicide is another type of suicide and is more likely to occur when social integration is to strong and the individual is literally forced to take his or her own live. People that are so tightly integrated into the society commit altruistic suicide because they feel that it is their duty to do so.

When integration is high, people commit suicide in the name of the greater good and the increased likelihood of altruistic suicide springs from hope, for it depends on the belief in beautiful perspectives beyond this life. As regards to the soldiers, they do have a strong integrated society. The soldiers live together some times in foreign places for long periods of time and this gets to them thus taking their own lives. Anomic suicide is another form of suicide which is more likely to occur when the regulative powers of society are disrupted. Such disruptions are likely to leave individuals dissatisfied because there is little control over their passions, which are free to run wild in an insatiable race for gratification. The rates of anomic suicide are likely to raise whether the nature of disruption is positive for example an economic boom or negative and an economic depression. Either type of disruption renders the collectivity temporarily incapable exercising its authority over individuals. Such changes put people in new situations in which the old norms no longer apply but the new ones have yet to develop and the periods of disruption unleash currents of anomie moods of rootlessness and normlessness leading to an increase in anomic suicide. In the case of economic depression for example the closing of a factory leads to loss of jobs and as a result the individuals are cut adrift from the regulative effect that both the company and job may have had. When an individual is cut off from such structures like: family, religion and the state and all this can leave that individual highly vulnerable to effects of currents of anomie. Durkheim argued that sudden success leads individuals away from the traditional structures in which they a embedded and it may lead individuals to quit their jobs, move to new communities, perhaps even find a new spouse. In such changes people`s activity is released from regulation, and even their dreams are no longer restrained. People thus freed will became slaves to their passions and as a result, in Durkheim`s view, commit a wide range of destructive acts, including killing themselves. Fatalistic suicide is more likely to occur when regulation is excessive. Durkheim describes those more likely to commit fatalistic suicide as “persons with futures pitilessly blocked and passions violently choked by oppressive discipline.” An example is of a slave who takes his life because of too much regulation and oppression. Durkheim concludes by saying that attempts on preventing suicide have failed because suicide has been taken as a individual problem. Attempt to directly convince individuals not to commit suicide are futile, since its real causes are in society. He admits that some suicide is normal, but he argues that modern society has seen a pathological increase in both egoistic and anomic suicide. Many of the institutions for connecting the individual and

society have failed, and he sees little hope of their success. The modern state is too distant from the individual to influence his or her life with enough force and continuity. Instead he suggests the need of a different institution based on occupational groups. (George Ritzer `s “Sociological Theory”, 90-95) As regards to conflict theory, a capitalist economy creates high levels of stress and young people may see no future because free education and employment opportunities are not oriented in society. Low levels of family incomes and education associated with unemployment are all factors that lead to suicide. Some minority groups have high rates of suicide because of racial oppression and social inequality. As regards to the feminist perspective non fatal behaviour is more likely in females and fatal behaviour in males. In particular life situations, like: job loss or an irritating illness killing oneself maybe considered a powerful act for a male. Suicide attempts in women maybe a result of their sense of powerlessness in a male dominated society. As regards to postmodernism, technology influences suicide and how you think is influenced by the media and the internet and as applied to symbolic interactionist perspectives suicide is seen as a way of gaining peer approval and acceptance. The suicidal patterns of the soldiers can examined by looking at their problems as a group not as individuals.