SOCA01H3 Chapter Notes -Social Darwinism, Scientific Revolution, Auguste Comte
Document Summary
Suicide appears as supremely antisocial, non-social act: condemned by majority of society, typically committed in private, comparatively rare. Reason for suicide usually looked for in individuals" state of mind rather than the state of society. We don"t usually think about patterns of social relations that might encourage or inhibit actions that cause depression, anger, etc. to lead to suicide. At end of 19th century, mile durkheim demonstrated that suicide is more than just an individual act of desperation resulting from psychological disorder (as believed at the time), social forces strongly influence suicide rates. Durkheim made his case examining association between rates of suicide and rates of psychological disorder for different groups, since the idea was that psychological disorder causes suicide. Analysis of european government statistics and other sources disproved idea, suicide rates and rates of psychological disorder often appeared inversely. Durkheim believed suicide rates varied because of social solidarity in various categories of the population.
