SOCIAL FACTS by EMILE DURKHEIM - Cause of Suicide

1.      

 Suicide is not an individual act but the product of forces”. How Emile Durkheim’s “social facts” does explain this?

Emile Durkheim; a French philosopher and a sociologist, had the maiden aim to develop a realistic and comprehensive theory of the psychological thinking of man. He disagrees to attribute the individual’s behavior and character to his (man) psychological thoughts but rather he attributed to the society in which the individual emerged.

 He stresses that the society in which man was born; contains certain elements such as culture, education, religion, ethnicity, superstition, etc. which shapes the perception and character of the individual. Durkheim’s theory of “social facts” is aimed to have a positive approach to society. This could be found in his book “The Rules of Sociological Methods”. With the conduction of vigorous research, he aimed to show how social forces affect people’s behavior.

He  argued that, the individual must not be questioned of his behavior; but rather the overwhelming factors in the society in which he comes from; must be questioned because the society is made up of the way of acting, thinking, feeling as well as the believes that forms the individual’s life style.

Durkheim therefore used suicide to conduct a vivid research into how social facts affect the individual. Comparing the suicide rates of several European countries (Durkheim 1897/1966), he found that the rate differed from one country to another and also is stable years after year. He found out that, Protestants, males, and unmarried people killed themselves at a highest rate than the Catholics, Jews, female and the married people.

This ideology is well explained in his types of suicide namely: egoistic, altruistic, anomic, and fatalistic suicide respectively. 

The egoistic suicide is due to the dissatisfaction and the egoistic nature of the individual. However, how the society deals with the person after he has fallen; drives the fellow to cause suicide. 

The altruistic suicide is also as a result of the approval of the society. The society makes the victim fell proud and recognized as a hero – such prestigious title associated with this suicide makes the individual’s wiliness to do it. 

In addition the break down of the society to support the individual also causes the anomic suicide. It occurs due to economic hardship of the society as a whole which drives the individual to the termination of his life. 

The fatalistic suicide which is an opposite of anomic occurs due to the excessive oppression and slavery treatment on the individual. In our contemporary would where there are convention that binds the individual to engage in an unwilling marriage, can also lead to suicide in the victim – a typical example is the cross cousin marriage among the “Akans” of Ghana. 

The bride could easily cause suicide when she doesn’t like the marriage and at the same time wants to obey her parents. All these types of suicide give a vivid explanation to the fact that the society must be accountable to the cause of suicide but not the individual.

Durkheim proposed social integration; the degree to which people are tied to their social groups, as a key social factor in suicide. He insisted that people with weak social ties are more prone to suicide.

 According to Durkheim, people who are isolated and have less means of voicing out their feelings to others who could serve as psychotherapist to them, looks up to suicide as the ultimate way of bringing to a halt their agonies. To confirm this, Gofdman also said “the lack of communication is the cause of suicide”.

In conclusion, if the individual is able to get support from those around him, he would have the encouragement to share his burdens and as such he could have solutions to them. But where it is left on the individual alone, he is consumed by the burden and the only way he thinks could help is to take his own life.

 Also it is the society who causes the burden to be huge on the individual thus the utterances of the society sets the individual in thinking and worries which makes the individual thinks of terminating his life.

For example, when a married couple is not able to procreate, it wouldn’t have been a problem to them. But due to the intervention of the in-laws and friend who use this as an insult to the couple, a partner (especially the bride) becomes frustrated and if she finds no solution – divorce occur which could lead to suicide on both partners. With this illustration, he puts it as “human behavior cannot be understood simply in the individualistic terms; we must always examine the social forces that affects the individual’s life”.

HELPFULL FALLS

we all think of being at the better zones of life. when perhaps we find ourselves in the opposite directions, we fail to recognise their importance to our existence.

consider the worker who wanted to proceed on a study live and a "pull-him-down" made vague his plans. this gentleman hated the fellow; only to know that it was a mean to let him acquire some more experience for a better position ahead of him.

getting to the end of the year, he provided a service to a client who poached him for a contract in the US. as part of the package was a full two-year scholarship for his PHD.

considering his fortune, he went back to say "thank you" to the one who caused his fall on the first attempt saying, "it was God who used you to make me wait for the right time.

so you see, any misfortune is there as a corrective or to keep you waiting for the right time set for you.

any situation you find yourself, try to look beyond and see afar the better thing amidst the problem.

never blame people for your falls, for when the success comes you will not credit people but you will boldly and proudly say "YES, I MADE IT"

-akanchawa-

ALIENATION OF LABOR.

THE ALIENATION OF LABOR.

KARL MARX

According to Karl Marx; in his manuscript called “Economic and Philosophical Manuscript of 1844” which masterminded alienation, says in capitalism epoch, the workers are free as compared with the slave and the serfs, but they do not own the means of production, and in order to survive, they must sell their labor to the capitalist which are bought at just a meager sum. 

This means that the individual’s labor has been alienated. According to Kant, alienation means selling or giving something away. To Marx, man is alienated from:

1.  Nature

2.  Himself

3.  His species-being and

4.  Other men.

Alienation from nature: - man is by nature which lives within nature (environment) and depend on nature (natural resource). The sensual external world “nature is continuous interchange in order not to die”. 

Therefore man is in intimate relationship with both physical (body and products) and mental (natural resources) and to the object of nature (man) thus nature is interdependent – man depends on his sense and use natural resources to produce something suitable for his living.

This relationship is broken in capitalism – man is alienated from nature (his sense) and the products of his activity, work and labor.

 The embodiment of man’s labor into an object which is turn into a physical thing is a product called “objectification of labor” man puts his life into what he produces thus becomes objectified and then alienated from what he has produced – “the worker puts his life into the object and his life then belongs no longer to himself, but to the object; and the object is owned by someone else – the capitalist”.

Alienation from himself: - this is alienation by the process of production. Mans work is not voluntary; but impose upon him; he has a felling of misery instead of well-felling. 

He denies himself and fulfills the wills of the work. 

He does not freely develop his physical and mental capacity but is instead, physically exhausted and mentally debased – the machines at the work factories determine how man should behave and work. 

The worker then fells like human being only during his leisure hours – break time. The reason why he is alienated is that, the worker is not for himself but for the employer (capitalist).

Alienation from man’s species-being:-the species characters of human being is free will, free conscious, and free acting. Man is alienated from his truly human nature – “man makes his life activities themselves an object of his free will and consciousness”. 

Although animals can produce nests and dwellings as in birds, ants, but their production of things is limited to what is strictly required for themselves and their young ones. Man on the other hand produces universally – he produces in the manner which every human being should understand and be applicable to all human being. 

The worker feels himself to be freely active in his animal functions thus eating, drinking and procreation – activities done by animals. This denotes that man has been alienated and reduced from his species being to the species of animals. 

Alienation from other men: - the alienation of man from the products of his labor, from his productivity or activities and from his species-being all leads to the alienation of man to other men. There is the breakdown of human relationship. 

Man sees his fellow man as a worker whose labor is bought and sold but not a full member of the society. There is no trust for his fellows and he sees his fellow as exploiters therefore separates himself from them.

KARL MARX’S FIVE EPOCHS OF THE SOCIETY

         KARL MARX’S FIVE EPOCHS OF THE SOCIETY

KARL H. MARX

 Karl Marx; in his Communist Manifesto, tried to explain the power struggle which generated and emerged in the society in terms “the law of motion” which turns the society into the battle of competition. 

With the help of the Hegelian concept of Dialectic movement, he found history as the phase of these changes. 

However, he was influenced by Feuerbach which made him reject the concept of Hegel but accepted and adapted his theories of Dialectic movement and developed it to be the Dialectic Materialistic.  This concept involved the material aspect of the society as the cause of the struggle. 

This is due to the fact that, the dialectic movement which represents a struggle of opposite by conflict and contradiction, did not just emerge but through the material things that man used to produce things like food for his living. 

In an attempt to go into this historic struggle; he found out and distinguished five “particular historic phases” which Marx indicated that, the class struggle is bound up with. These were termed as “the five Epochs”.

These epochs were: primitive communal, slave, feudal, capitalist and, as a prediction of the things to come, the socialist and communist phase. In these epochs, there is a class conflict which set them in motion to move from one stage to another.

This movement of conflict writes the history of the society and life. Marx’s main reason of the law of motion is to discover not only what history has produced these epochs but also the reasons why these particular epochs have unfolded as they are.

Primitive communal is the first epoch. In this epoch everything was free, there was unity among men. There also existed a harmonious living as well as interdependency among men.

However, due to the struggle of a few to take over as the “Lords” – introduction of class emerged – and lead to the birth of the next epoch – slave.

SLAVE

In the slave epoch the relationship was between the “Lords” (aristocrats) and the “Serfs” (slaves). The slaves have to show devotion and hard service for a reward from the owner. 

They need to be humbled to their masters so as the land (factor of production) that is given them will not be taken away to enhance their ability to live. 

With the same dialectic conflict that commenced among the lords due to dissatisfaction, power struggle, education, economic and politics, the history continues to the feudal system.

FEUDALISM 

As the historical perspective in Marxism; the process by which human creation and interdependency through the various parts of the society thus: economic, political, legal, education, family and religion are interconnected and influenced each other in motion.

These influences can only be understood in terms of their effect on man. 

The economic factor is the primary force that generated feudalism and primarily exerted influence on man which shapes the other aspect of the society.

 It evolved the process of human nature through tension and conflict which gives birth to social change. This change does not occur freely but comes with contradiction – the source of tension and conflict. 

In feudalism, there was the social contract between the lords (bourgeoisie) and the serfs (proletariat). The only distinctive feature here is that, the serfs are given factors of production through their effectiveness and humility towards their lords – the factor of production was not bought with money. 

The other members who do not own the factors of production are given by the owner and at the end; the fruit of their labor is shared into certain proportion which favors the worker. Afterwards, the land is given back to the owner – land was not sold. 

A typical example in the Ghanaian context is the “do ma yenkye” practice among the Akans and the other tribes.

As history is still in motion, the other parts of the society such as education influence the exodus from feudalism to capitalism.

CAPITALISM.

Capitalism according to Marx is the total distinction and destruction of the society. It begins right from childhood; how parents brings up their children to live on their own as well as how they should deal with life so as they could become somebody in future – this brought the individualistic nature of capitalism. 

The servant (Employees) on the other hand’s way of capitalism is selling his labor for money. By so doing only scanty money is given to the servant for his labor which paves way for alienation to set in. 

Marx view of history here is often referred to as dialectical materialism since people’s ideas are primarily reflection of the social relationship of economic production.Karl Marx; in his Communist Manifesto, tried to explain

 Marx view of history here is often referred to as dialectical materialism since people’s ideas are primarily reflection of the social relationship of economic production.