TAKE HOME EXAM 2

Durkheim (III) Suicide: Social Causes and Social Types© Meyer Kestnbaum, University of Maryland -- Sociology 203

Overview

I. From last time--clarifying important arguments and muddiest points II. Comparing central notions

III. Why should sociology study suicide? How? IV. What is distinctive about the first type of suicide? V. How is this related to regulation?

Terms and concepts

Historical change in society

Freedom from/freedom to

Positive vs. negative liberty

Liberty as constraint

Free development of socially useful forces

Social current

Suicide

Collective representations (like c.c.)

Egoistic suicide

Moral individualism

(social) Cohesion

Integration (vs. regulation)

I. Clarifying Durkheim I. Some muddy points

A. The anomic division of labor -- it’s all about an issue with the fit between the contents of the collective consciousness (or that part specific to certain locations within the dofl) and the structure of relationships in the economy. 1. → The cc does not always regulate rels well. How do they get out step/sync?

B. Duality of human nature -- society makes up a large part of who any 1 person is, how they understand and judge things, etc.; and each person is made up of a second part, those those things specific to the person and make her or him an individual

C. The moral subtract -- exchange relations, even buttressed by contracts, work smoothly and cooperatively only when there is shared moral agreement, for example, that people will fulfill their end of a bargain, will not defraud others or use coercion. These make up an import part of the cc., especially under organic solidarity

I. Clarifying Durkheim I. On the question of liberty

A. Introducing some distinctions regarding liberty 1. negative vs. positive liberty (Isaiah Berlin), focus on constraints on individual action vs. having a

part in creating the constraints you live under and under what conditions 2. Freedom from vs. freedom to, individual vs. social (or acting in concert)

B. For D, it is always a question of moral regulation exercised over the person by society C. D creates image: of the person being enfolded by and supported by society--where the moral

constraints imposed on people by society are what makes them free (akin to how language has rules) 1. Specifically, D argues that naturally there arise a host of differences and inequalities among

people, and liberty consists in subordinating these “external” forces to social forces, =coll rules 2. Liberty happens only if people raise themselves above such things and make a law for

them--creating a world of moral regulation, where people are united D. → Liberty, then, is an issue of moral regulation--and more (see next slide!)

II. Comparing-- liberty, equality, individuality I. Liberty is intertwined with other key ideas for D. and we can sketch them out

A. For D, the natural order (and even some laws made by man) → troubling inequalities --such as features of the heredity of wealth, or exclusions and discrimination based on religion, race and so on. These preclude or prevent some people’s talents being made use of in the division of labor

B. For people to be free, society needs to make a law that binds us to one another and renders those critical relations more equitable (bringing those inequalities under moral regulation)

C. Thus, we can see 1. Liberty is a product of moral regulation by society; a person is free only when in society and

morally regulated 2. This moral regulation (among other things) regulates those inequalities that interfere with

people developing themselves/their talents in socially useful ways (↓discrimin., exclusion) 3. Moral regulation ↓ some inequalities and → liberty, which → development of the individual

D. Ask: What kind of equality is this? (opportunity?) of individuality is this? (social, bound into dof l)

II. Comparing Durkheim, on ‘society’ I. The understanding of society and the individual-society relationship

A. Society is a reality separate and apart from the persons who make it up; it IS NOT reducible to the persons who make it up

B. Society is anterior to the individual: it exists before and will exist after the individual C. Society is an authority over and above the individual, and dictates to the individual D. It is through what D had called c.c. and now refers to in Suicide as collective or shared representations

that society inhabits the individual and helps to constitute her or him in society’s image E. → Some implications

1. Society produces currents that carry people along--what D calls social currents 2. The individual only exists as an individual because she or he is IN SOCIETY, bound into and

regulated by that society 3. Individuality is NOT about being separate from or independent of others, and certainly not about

being outside of society--it is about being tightly knit into society and having a distinctive place

III. Turning to D’s next work, Suicide

I. Taking suicide as an object of study A. According to D, how should sociology proceed generally?

1. Given what we’ve already read--through detailed study of social phenomena, sociology as an objective science can discover ‘laws’ by which the social world operates, distinct from individuals and bearing upon those individuals

2. Social facts must be studied as things, as realities in themselves external to the individual B. Why study suicide?

1. Psychology vs. sociology, considering it as individual vs. social phenomenon a) Meeting of individual needs vs. individual dominated by a moral reality greater than

herself or himself, a social reality 2. In this way, the phenomenon of suicide is the ultimate expression of society’s grip on

persons, and the role of society as a moral reality

III. Turning to Suicide

I. A sociological approach to suicide A. The importance of classification for empirical study

1. Clear definition of the thing to be examined (or explained) is necessary 2. Intent? Outcome? Death resulting from act of person himself -- positive or negative

-- which knows will produce the result 3. How do we know suicide is of interest to sociologists, then?

a) Observe a social suicide rate, which varies by society, changes over time with changes in society, more consistently than the general mortality rate

b) → serves as initial proof suicide has its own distinctly social logic

III. Turning to Suicide

I. How is the sociologist best able to pull apart this social logic? A. Distinguish among types--on what basis? B. Can we look at forms? What will this tell us? C. Look at etiology of suicide, or causes? D identifies a social current, existing outside the

individual, that bears “the impulse for self-destruction” 1. Real productive causes -- not immediate triggers or causes expressed by persons 2. Primary focus then is on social environments of persons= real concrete groupings of

people in which people are enfolded--religious confessional groups, family, political society, occupational groups--rather than a person’s motives or ideas

3. In future research, one can study how these general causes become individualized

IV. First type of suicide

I. D identifies a first type of suicide--what he calls egoistic suicide A. Part of a strategy to focus on type of suicide, determined by its distinctive cause, and

proceeds by identifying different social groups where we observe this variety of suicide and compare such groups to those where suicide is less common

B. Why do you think he starts with religious groups? (assoc. of religion and morality & religious prohibitions of suicides -- allows him to look at what’s actually at work in religious groups)

C. What does the discussion of religious groups and suicide have to do with education? (frequent reference to religion vs. education, making those the two ‘causes’)

D. What kind of argument is D engaging and (ultimately) countering?

IV. First type -- egoistic suicide

I. Analysis of egoistic suicide in religious groups A. D argues suicidal tendency great in educated circles due to weakening of traditional beliefs B. D contends suicide is a result of a condition of moral individualism, resulting from a weakening of

shared traditional beliefs not education itself--because when intellectualism has another route (as he notes in Judaism, where it’s part of group bonds), it does not result in greater suicide rates

C. → Suicide grows with knowledge, but not because knowledge produces suicide 1. Rather, a loss of cohesion in religious society had been provided by shared traditional beliefs →

persons to seek to learn, AND this loss of cohesion also → them to commit suicide 2. SO,

a) as religious society becomes disorganized, it → desire for knowledge; b) with faith already shaken, knowledge makes further inroads, leaving people without

traditional beliefs to fall back on AND undermining their sense of connection to the religious group defined by these shared beliefs

IV. First type -- egoistic suicide

I. Two KEY conclusions from this analysis A. Established beliefs, once swept away by the current of affairs, cannot simply be re-established

1. Only the cultivation of knowledge can then guide us, allowing us to recover our equilibrium, 2. So we must reconstruct a moral conscience by means of intellect--but we must do so

collectively (not an individual pursuit), in community B. Religion has an effect on suicide, not because it proscribes or offers certain ideas or doctrines, but

because it is a society 1. Consists of beliefs and practices held in common, which are traditional and for that reason

obligatory 2. The more numerous and strong the states of mind that are shared--traditional or newly

created-- the stronger the INTEGRATION of religious communities, the sense of being connected or attached to one another

IV. First type -- egoistic suicide

I. Based on this insight about cohesiveness and integration, D looks to other “socs” A. Suicide rates vary inversely with the degree of integration of each group--religious society, domestic

society, political society 1. That is, suicide rates go down the more the social groups an individual is part of are integrated

B. What’s going on? Part 1: “...society cannot disintegrate without the individual simultaneously detaching himself from social life, without his own goals becoming preponderant over those of the community, in a word, without his own personality tending to surmount the collective personality. The more weakened the groups to which he belongs, the less he depends upon them, the more he consequently depends on himself and recognizes no other rules of conduct than what are founded on his own private interests” (p. 209) 1. So we see a powerful and pervasive egoism that emerges when individuals are not integrated 2. How does this compare to T?

IV. First type -- egoistic I. What’s going on (continued)?

A. Part 2: When a society is well integrated, cohesive--”there is constant interchange of ideas and feelings from all to each and each to all, something like a mutual moral support, leads person to share in collective energy and supports him when he’s exhausted, rather than leaving him to his own resources...this shields us from suicide, but is not decisive”

B. Part 3: Society, fashioning us in its own image, fills us with religious, political and moral beliefs that control our actions; and society is the source of all tools we use to expand knowledge itself 1. The collective origin, the collective purpose--we cling to them, these forms of human activity,

only insofar as we cling to society itself 2. Insofar as we are detached from society, we are detached from that life whose source is

society, so it makes us ask-- “for what purpose are all these laws binding us to all sorts of sacrifices? What is the end of suffering?”

3. As community ↑ foreign, person ↑ mystery to himself, agonized by q: to what purpose?

IV. Egoistic suicide and human nature

I. Egoistic suicide derives therefore from the duality of human nature A. Working through this, D concludes: “In other words, man is double” B. Social man presupposes a society which the individual expresses and serves C. “If social man dissolves, if a person no longer feels society about and above him, the

social in us is rendered hollow and insubstantial” D. Social man “is a masterpiece of existence” -- “without it, we are bereft of reasons for

existence and the only existence that remains fails to meet our needs” E. → With the dissolution of social man--when the person becomes detached from

society--life is not worth the trouble of being lived

V. Relationship to Regulation?

I. Integration is moral, but what about moral regulation, specifically? A. How is all of this related to regulation? B. Why start here? C. For next time...

Durkheim 1-Minute Paper #2

I. Identify and briefly lay out 2 or 3 major claims or arguments Durkheim makes in the readings or discussion for today, 1 of which may be something we touched on from last time

II. Identify a contemporary example of at least two of these major claims playing out in your world, or places where you see this major claim at work in society around you today.

III. Identify 1 muddy point that remains for you IV. In whatever time remains, discuss your examples with your table-mates!