Suicide can sometimes be described as a desperate attempt to take one’s own life
SUKKUR: Suicide can sometimes be described as a desperate attempt to take one’s own life when one is blinded by feelings of utmost uncertainty, absurdity and hopelessness. In fact, it is a complex multifaceted phenomenon; Freud interpreted as a result of instinctual repression of id or ego crisis, whereas Emile Durkheim takes it as a result of social anomaly induced by power imbalance, social disorganisation and integration. Ergo, Durkheim negated all the accepted theories and viewed it within the lens of division of labour. According to Durkheim, “Suicide in a broader sense, applied to all cases of death resulting directly or indirectly positive or negative act of victim himself.”
Emile Durkheim classified it into four major types:
Egoist Suicide: Egoistic Suicide is inherent factor when one lacks altruistic feelings and does not find himself fit into the pre-defined morality of society. Suppose a writer who is non-conformist to the society and rebellion to statuesque. If he has no courage to defy the order and the society doesn’t contribute to his self, he will be more driven to suicidal tendencies out of existential chaos and alienation to the social order.
Altruist Suicide: Under the yardstick of Durkheim, one who drinks the hemlock for truth or kisses the gallows for a greater cause comes under the category of altruistic suicide or a suicide bomber takes his own life by having monomaniac behaviour towards his faith. When a person loses his self for the lasting surveillance of his faith, religion or cause
Anomic Suicide: This is the result of sudden upsurge in socio-economic conditions that results social imparity in identity, values and culture. If a middle-class man jumps to the capitalist class by leaps and bounds. He suffers an identity crisis, if he switches to his pre-existing identity, language and culture in capitalist outfit.
Fatalistic Suicide: Fatalistic suicide may occur due to over-regulation of laws and discipline contradictory to individual self (A child commits suicide for failing in exams).
To sum up, all the types and underlying cause, it is proved suicide is a social phenomenon more than a psychological disorder or individual act.
Amir Abbasi
Published in The Express Tribune, September 16th, 2018.
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