Читать книгу Sociology - Anthony Giddens - Страница 37

One of the more emotionally unsettling aspects of our lives is the phenomenon of suicide, which often leaves those left behind with more questions than answers. Why do some people decide to take their own lives? Where do the pressures they experience actually come from? One of the early sociological classics which explores the relationship between the individual and society is Emile Durkheim’s analysis of suicide rates, Suicide: A Study in Sociology (Durkheim 1952 [1897]). Even though people see themselves as individuals exercising free will and choice, Durkheim’s study showed that even a highly personal act such as suicide is influenced by what happens in the wider social world.

Research had been conducted on suicide before Durkheim’s study, but he was the first to insist on a sociological explanation. Previous writers had acknowledged the influence of ‘racial type’, climate or mental disorder to explain an individual’s likelihood of committing suicide. But Durkheim argued that the suicide rate – the percentage of suicides per 100,000 of the population – was a social fact that could only be explained by other social facts and that suicide rates vary widely across the world’s societies (see figure 1.1).

By examining official statistics in France, Durkheim found that certain social groups were more likely to commit suicide than others. He discovered that more men committed suicide than women, more Protestants than Catholics, the wealthy more than the poor, and single people more than those who were married. The question was, why?