Anomic Suicide

Altruistic Suicide, Altruism, Egoistic Suicide, Anomie, Anomia, Fatalistic Suicide

Durkheim linked anomic Suicide to disillusionment and disappointment.

Durkheim (1858-1917) borrowed the word anomie from the french philosopher Jean-Marie Guyau and used it in his book Suicide (1897).

Durkheim defined the term anomie as a condition where social and/or moral norms are confused, unclear, or simply not present. Durkheim felt that this lack of norms led to deviant behavior. 

Anomie is a concept developed by Emile Durkheim to describe an absence of clear societal norms and values. In the concept of anomie individuals lack a sense of social regulation: people feel unguided in the choices they have to make.

Durkheim was also concerned that anomie might arise from a lack of consensus over social regulation of the workplace.

Anomie means a condition or malaise which in individuals is characterized by an absence or diminution of standards or values.

Anomie can occur in several different situations. For example, the undermining of traditional values may result from cultural contact.

The concept of anomie can be helpful in partially understanding the experience of colonized Aboriginal peoples as their traditional values are disrupted, yet they do not identify with the new cultural values imposed upon them: they lose a sense of authoritative normative regulation.

Durkheim distinguished between egoistic, anomic, altruistic, and fatalistic suicide, broad classifications that reflect then-prevailing theories of human behavior. Dismissing altruistic and fatalistic suicide as unimportant, he viewed egoistic suicide as a consequence of the deterioration of social and familial bonds.

The conclusion from all these facts is that the social suicide-rate can be explained only sociologically. At any given moment the moral constitution of society establishes the contingent of voluntary deaths. There is, therefore, for each people a collective force of a definite amount of energy, impelling men to self-destruction. The victim's acts which at first seem to express only his personal temperament are really the supplement and prolongation of a social condition which they express externally.

It is not mere metaphor to say of each human society that it has a greater or lesser aptitude for suicide; the expression is based on the nature of things. Each social group really has a collective inclination for the act quite its own, and the source of all individual inclination, rather than their result.

Originally society is everything, the individual nothing. Consequently, the strongest social feelings are those connecting the individual with the collectivity; society is its own aim. Man is considered only an instrument in its hands; he seems to draw all his rights from it and has no counter-prerogative, because nothing higher than it exists. But gradually things change. As societies become greater in volume and density, they increase in complexity, work is divided, individual differences multiply, and the moment approaches when the only remaining bond among the members of a single human group will be that they are all men.

Poverty, Socioeconomic Change, Institutional Anomie, and Homicide* - Sang-Weon Kim, Dong-Eui University, South Korea, William Alex Pridemore, Indiana University
Abstract: Objective. This study examined institutional anomie theory in the context of transitional Russia. Methods. We employed an index of negative socioeconomic change and measures of family, education, and polity to test the hypothesis that institutional strength conditions the effects of poverty and socioeconomic change on homicide rates. Results. As expected, the results of models estimated using negative binomial regression show direct positive effects of poverty and socioeconomic change and direct negative effects of family strength and polity on regional homicide rates. There was no support, however, for the hypothesis that stronger social institutions reduce the effects of poverty and socioeconomic change on violence. Conclusions. We interpret these results in the Russia-specific setting, concluding that Russia is a rich laboratory for examining the effects of social change on crime and that empirical research in other nations is important when assessing the generalizability of theories developed to explain crime and violence in the United States. - pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1534075

Anomia is a social psychological condition, rather than a societal condition which ‘anomie’ refers to, characterized by a breakdown in values and a feeling of isolation. This term has proved much easier to measure than has Durkheim's concept of ‘anomie’.

In the philosophy of law and political science, anomia is the state of the absence of law, the negation of law in the sense of lex. Anomia in the sense of the lack of a positive law promulgated by the authority of the state (lex) occurs in conceptions that accept the existence of a pre-social and pre-political state of nature as a historical fact or as a mere hypothesis.

From Anomie to Anomia and Anomic Depression: A Sociological Critique on the Use of Anomie in Psychiatric Research, Mathieu Deflem, deflem@sc.edu - www.mathieudeflem.net 
Abstract: The author of this paper demonstrates that the sociological concept of anomie has undergone important transformations when applied in psychiatric research. It is argued that these transformations are not fully in concordance with the original theories of anomie as they were set forth by Durkheim and Merton. Two approaches in social and cross-cultural psychiatry are examined in this context. First, the concept of anomia as introduced and applied in the research of Leo Srole is discussed. Second, attention is paid to the concept of anomic depression as it was introduced by Wolfgang Jilek in his research among the Coast Salish Indians. - cas.sc.edu/socy/faculty/deflem/zanomie.htm

Durkheim distinguished between egoistic, anomic, altruistic, and fatalistic suicide, broad classifications that reflect then-prevailing theories of human behavior. Dismissing altruistic and fatalistic suicide as unimportant, he viewed egoistic suicide as a consequence of the deterioration of social and familial bonds.

The term 'altruism' was used by Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) to describe a suicide committed for the benefit of others or for the community: this would include self-sacrifice for military objectives in wartime.

Altruism is social behaviour and value orientation in which individuals give primary consideration to the interests and welfare of other individuals, members of groups or the community as a whole. In altruistic regard for others is the principle of action.

Sociobiologists argue that altruistic behaviour has its roots in self-interest, the unconscious desire to protect one's genetic heritage.

Critics of sociobiology respond that altruism is evident between individuals and in social situations where people are completely unrelated genetically and claim that human conduct and motivations cannot be explained without reference to the values and norms of culture.

For example the condition of slavery may make an individual feel that the only way to find escape is suicide. It would be fatalistic suicide because the individual considers himself condemned by fate or doomed to be a slave. A fatalistic situation calling for a fatalistic suicide as a solution or escape.

The category of fatalistic suicide was constructed mainly for purposes of symmetry (as contrasted with egoistic suicide) and because it would undercut his central claims about the role of modern urban life as increasing the incidence of suicide, Durkheim could never seriously examine the possibility that social integration could result in suicide. 

Fatalistic suicide served as a descriptor for suicides in traditional societies, because Durkheim was faced with the issue that even in societies with abundant social capital, individuals nevertheless killed themselves.  

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