Readings from Emile Durkheim by Thompson Prof Kenneth; Thompson Kenneth;

Author:Thompson, Prof Kenneth; Thompson, Kenneth;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 199561
Publisher: Routledge

HOW TO DETERMINE SOCIAL CAUSES AND SOCIAL TYPES

The results of the preceding section are not entirely negative. We have in fact established that for each social group there exists a specific tendency towards suicide, which is explained neither by the organicpsychological constitution of individual nor by the nature of the physical environment. Therefore, through a process of elimination, it must necessarily depend on social causes and be in itself a collective phenomenon; certain facts that we have examined, particularly geographical and seasonal variations in suicide, have led us directly to this conclusion.[…]

Unfortunately, classification of suicides of sane persons according to their morphological forms or characteristics is impracticable because there is a total lack of the necessary documentation. To be viable it would need good descriptions of many individual cases. One would need to know the suicide's psychological state at the moment of his decision, how he prepared to carry it out, how it was finally executed, whether he was agitated or depressed, calm or excited, anxious or irritated, etc.[…]

But we can achieve our end by another method, by reversing the order of study. In effect, there can be only as many different types of suicide as there are different causes. For each type to have its own nature, it must also have special conditions of existence. The same antecedent or group of antecedents cannot sometimes produce one result and sometimes another, otherwise the difference between the second and the first would itself be without cause, which would deny the principle of causality. Any specific difference observed in the causes, therefore, implies a similar difference between the effects. Consequently we can determine the social types of suicide by classifying the causes which produce them, rather than by classifying them directly according to their previously described characteristics. Without seeking to know why they are different from each other, we shall first study the social conditions which are responsible for them; then we shall group these conditions according to their similarities and differences into a certain number of separate classes, and we can be sure that a specific type of suicide will correspond to each of these classes. In a word, instead of being morphological, our classification will be aetiological from the start.[…] Thus we shall proceed from causes to effects and our aetiological classification will be complemented by a morphological classification, which will serve to verify the former, and vice versa.

In all respects, this reverse method is the only one suitable for the special problem that we have raised. We must not forget that it is the social suicide rate that we are studying. The only types of interest to us, therefore, are those which contribute to its formation and bring about its variations. It has not been established that all individual sorts of voluntary death have this property. There are some which, though general to a certain degree, are not linked or not sufficiently linked to the moral character of society to enter as a characteristic element into the special physiognomy of each people in relation to suicide.

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