Anomie is defined as a lack of the usual social or ethical standards in an individual or group. In this essay I will be looking primarily at the research of Emile Durkheim and his study into why suicide rates increased, taking into account the social factors which cause anomie, and why integration and regulation are so important for individuals in society especially in a modern, post industrial, capitalist society.
Durkheim’s research into suicide was triggered by the sudden peak in suicides in France in the late 19th Century. He observed the rapid changes in society that had come about due to the French Industrial Revolution and the rise of Capitalism. Alongside the economic progression of society had come new found issues that were unprecedented in society, such as rises in divorce rates, dropping birth rates, an ageing population, fertility control and secularisation. The shift in the paradigm from a simple and generally shared experience of life to the complexity of modernity brought about uncertainty in life, and a loss of social cohesion. Durkheim noted a rise in what he called ‘anomie’ which is the result of a loss of solidarity for an individual due to society failing to provide moral guidance. Durkheim’s research into how anomie causes an individual to take his own life is so important because it was seeking to prove that sociology was an independent field of study, that it could be scientific and could produce an applied manner of discovery to the betterment of society, surpassing fields of philosophy as it can study life’s issues empirically rather than just theoretically or metaphysically. Thus he drew evidence from statistics, ethnography, and history, attempting to interpret evidence subjectively in a rational way.
Durkheim looked at the many influences of modernity and capitalism and how it caused an individual to become destabilised, firstly by looking at how individualism had produced uncertainty and anxiety as historically individuals would neatly fit into a role in society provided by family, they would be regulated in their lives such as who to marry and what to wear, often inheriting the career of their family, the existing fabric of society took care of the worries and expectations of individuals and settled them into a life they understood and envisioned. Capitalism puts all of the pressure on the individual to make their own choices in every aspect of life, therefore with all the control being placed on the individual, the blame for failure is also often left as their own fault. The seemingly good idea of freedom is in actual fact an isolating circumstance, and as society continues
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Sam Saywell to grow more diverse and complicated the shared norms and values that used to unite people, are
growing weaker as we start to have less and less in common with each other. The secularisation of society furthers this anomic trend as it is another way in which society can no longer provide answers to deep philosophical and existential questions that people seek to understand. Science and rational thought are not able to provide the surety of a cosmic understanding and meaning of life in the same way as religion, and the unison of a collective set of moral and universal doctrines and beliefs found in religion and faith are not replaced. Families too are not as united or stable as they were historically due to the nature of freedom, more choices lead to more options, and paths never really follow the same pattern, growing more complex and away from each other. When children reach adulthood their career choices and social circles segregate them from their own families, often resulting in a lonely, anomic state for the individual who fails to integrate properly into society. Durkheim categorised the change as a shift from ‘Mechanical Solidarity’ to ‘Organic Solidarity’, which is a natural evolution in society as population growth and industrialisation change the norms in society from a mechanical, strict set of rules, regulations and moral codes with close, personal connections between individuals, relying greatly on mutual dependence and a restricted division of labour to something that more resembles a complex organic machine, with a varied division of labour, less personal and looser connections with each other with individuality being thrust upon people. Anomie is a result of the rapid and complicated social change that fails to create new ways of belonging, puts pressure on individuals to do things for themselves and drives us apart by increased freedom and decreased solidarity, failing to produce ideologies which don't leave people in control, and are left responsible for their own failures and setbacks.
Durkheim linked his problem of anomie and moral disunity to different social pathologies which can result in suicide. Durkheim thought it important to define suicide as “applied to every case of death which results directly or indirectly from a positive or negative act, carried out by the victim himself, knowing that it will produce this result.” A positive act would be something such as shooting themselves, whereas a negative act could be refusing to eat. Essentially Durkheim’s identification of why people committed suicide boiled down to the integration and regulation of an individual, he gave four key examples of this: Firstly he spoke of an individual who was not integrated enough into society which he called Egoism, examples of this are seen in the rates of suicide between married and unmarried people, marriage helps individuals feel integrated, if they don't marry then they are more likely to feel isolated and want to kill themselves. Egoistic suicide
also happens when people lack religion and the collective morals and spiritual experience had by
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Sam Saywell religious people, and also in times of peace, because during war they are fighting for something and
feel more value is in their lives than when they are not at war. Integration, however, can also be taken to the other extreme where someone is over-integrated, Durkheim called this Altruistic suicide. Altruistic suicide is when an individual might sacrifice themselves for a`cause such as suicide bombers, or a wife killing herself when her husband dies because she may see it as her duty. However this is uncommon in modern, western societies as individualism and anomie are far more common and people are less dutiful to one another. Regulation is especially relevant to modern suicides, as if someone is not regulated enough they can be uncertain about the future and this can lead to a type of suicide Durkheim called ‘Anomic’ suicide, this is not completely the same as the previously mentioned anomie as this kind of suicide relates to an individual’s regulation rather than their attachment to society. The other end of the spectrum is Fatalistic suicide, where an individual is over-regulated or where an individual is physically or morally suppressed, where they feel their future is not in their own hands at all and their hopes, desires and passions are not possible for them to attain, however Durkheim does point out that this type of suicide is not common in modern society as people are less stuck in unhappy marriages and generally are freer to change their own circumstances.
Steve Taylor (1982) believed that in order to truly understand the reasons behind social deviation such as suicide statistics are unreliable and instead argued that we should take a more realist approach looking alternatively at indirect evidence which is not observable which can explain the observable evidence. He used small scale studies, which although lacked the representativeness of quantitive data, were better for understanding individuals actions. He identified 4 types of suicide, the first 2 he called ‘Ecoptic’ which are inner, self directed suicides where the victim is psychologically detached from others. Submissive suicide is where a person is terminally ill and knows they will not survive their illness so choose to take their own life to end their suffering. Rather than Durkheim’s suggestion that they are not well integrated or regulated, they are just fatalistic about their future and decide they want control over how and when they die. Thanatation suicide is a different type of ectopic suicide where the individual is unsure of themselves, and do not know what other think or feel about them, they are desperate for some kind of sign to go on living so take risks that they know could very realistically end in their deaths, e.g. playing russian roulette let’s ‘fate’ decide. Taylor goes on to identify also 2 kinds of directed ‘Symphysic’ suicides where individuals are overly dependant on others and their suicide is a distressed form of
communication, the first of these is ‘Sacrifice’ suicide which occurs when someone loses trust in
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Sam Saywell someone they base themselves around, or that person gives them no reason to keep on living, this
can happen if a partner is unfaithful to them and their death is a way of placing blame for their own unhappiness or grievance on that person, to make them feel guilt for what they have done to them. ‘Appeal’ suicide may transpire out of an individuals lack of self importance or uncertainty about how another individual feels about them and killing themselves is a way to change that persons behaviour towards others in the future. Taylor’s examples of suicide however seem to be very personal examples and his approach to gathering evidence doesn't really allow for a broad understanding that can be generalised to match similar cases, and lacks the scientific evidence that Durkheim produces in his diagnosis of anomie being a big factor in suicide rates.
Jack Douglas (1967) rejected some of Durkheim’s methods and choices of data collection, for example Durkheim collected suicide rates from coroners reports, which Douglas felt was not a realistic or fair form of data collection as he believed coroners may be influenced by a victim’s family and how they react to their death, or will look at the person’s life and if they believe they were well integrated and seemingly happy with life they might rule out suicide as an option, even though there could have been reasons that were unapparent or not observable in the victims life that may have driven them to suicide. Douglas argued that individuals, such as family members or close friends, may destroy suicide notes or evidence of a self-inflicted death in order to cover up the shame of having people knowing of the true circumstances of the individual’s death. Furthermore Douglas contended that if a victim had been found dead who had no friends, family or social integration, then the death could easily be labelled as a suicide because they ‘fit the profile’ of Durkheim’s ‘Anomic’ suicide classification system, without investigators looking for the real cause of their death. Gibbs and Martin (1964) also rejected Durkheim’s definition of suicide as they did not think that ‘integration’ could be measured, and did not think Durkheim defined integration in an observable way. Atkinson, (1971), agreed with Douglas’ reservations about Durkheim’s studies. He argued that coroners reports were biased and unreliable, and they could easily influence their post- mortems to cover up suicides, e.g. Catholics believe that if one is to commit suicide, then they would not be admitted to heaven when they died, therefore coroners could easily disguise a suicide as an ‘accidental death’ in order to save embarrassment for the victim’s family, and to repress their salvation-panic for their lost one, this may explain why Durkheim noted that there was a higher suicide rate amongst protestants than catholics. He also noted that coroners could only look for indications in the corpse and crime scene, and could not actually ask the victim themselves what
their motives were. Atkinson said that coroners looked for ‘primary’ and ’secondary clues’, primary
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Sam Saywell clues being suicide notes and location etc. and secondary clues being information they could gather
about the victims life, by speaking to friends, family and looking at they social integration, therefore the lack of solid evidence meant that Atkinson similarly did not think Durkheim’s study of suicide was relevant.
Durkheim studied firstly how society functions as a whole and observed historical and social changes from primitive, agricultural based societies with low populations which held rigid mechanical morals, norms, values and traditions which created collective solidarity, to more complex ‘organic’ societies post-industrialisation and under capitalism and saw the trends in the rates of suicide. His diagnosis of anomie and how it caused the individuals to feel alienated from one another is a careful, well studied identification of what causes individuals to commit suicide. He took into account the key institutions and the functions they provide in society, understanding that they gave meaning to life through shared experience, consciousness and solidarity and noted how when society failed to provide these necessities to an individual it is understandable that this could cause suicidal behaviour. He systematically proved by cause and effect how people need to be integrated and regulated to an extent, and without this anomie occurs which can certainly be implicated as a scientific and psychological reason why suicide rates have increased in post industrial societies.