On Suicide by Emile Durkheim

Author:Emile Durkheim
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2006-09-22T04:00:00+00:00

For the reasons already given, these coefficients, calculated in relation to bachelors of 1889–91, are certainly below the true figures. The strength of the tendency among re-enlisted men is particularly striking since they are those who remain in the army after having experienced military life.

Hence, the members of the armed forces who are most likely to be victims of suicide are also those who have the greatest vocation for this career, who have been most moulded to its demands and who are best protected from the trials and tribulations that it may involve. This means that the aggravation coefficient which is peculiar to the profession has as its cause not the repugnance that the army inspires, but, on the contrary, the totality of states, acquired habits or natural predispositions that make up the military ethos. The first quality of the soldier is a kind of impersonality that is not met with to the same extent anywhere in civilian life. He must be trained to attach little value to his own being, since he must be ready to sacrifice it whenever he is ordered to do so. Even outside these exceptional circumstances, in peacetime and in the everyday exercise of the profession, military discipline demands that he should obey without question and even, sometimes, without understanding. This demands a degree of intellectual self-denial that is not compatible with individualism. One must be only very weakly attached to one’s individuality if one is to obey exterior stimuli with such docility. In a word, the soldier keeps the principle of his conduct outside himself, which is characteristic of the state of altruism. As it happens, of all the parts that go to make up our modern societies, the army is the one that most recalls the structure of inferior societies. It, too, consists in a massive and compact group that offers a strong framework for the individual and prevents him from acting on his own initiative. So, as this moral constitution is the natural site of altruistic suicide, there is every reason to suppose that military suicide has the same character and derives from the same origin.

This would explain why the aggravation coefficient rises with the length of service: it is because this tendency to renunciation and liking for impersonality increase the longer the man is conditioned to them. In the same way, since the military ethos is inevitably stronger among those who re-enlist and officers than in private soldiers, it is natural that the former should be more particularly inclined towards suicide than the latter. This hypothesis even allows us to understand the peculiar superiority of NCOs in this respect over officers. If they tend to kill themselves more often, this is because there is no rank which so demands the habit of submission and passivity. However disciplined an officer may be, he must also to some extent be capable of initiative; he has a wider field of action and hence a more developed individuality. The conditions for altruistic suicide are therefore

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.