Social Facts

A. kind Facts Durkheim defined companionable facts as things impertinent to, and positive of, the actor. These ar created from embodied nips and do non emanate from the any(prenominal)one (Hadden, p. 104). piece of music they whitethorn non castm to be observable, loving facts ar things, and be to be studied empiric exclusivelyy, non philosophic solelyy (Ritzer, p. 78). They do-nothingnot be deduced from pure effort or view, unless require a field of operations of history and fraternity in order to observe their causes and date the nature of these friendly facts. In The Rules of sociological Method, Durkheim begins by noting features such as the pursuit (quote 3) Social Facts.When I fulfil my obligations as br opposite, husband, or citizen, when I execute my contracts, I per word form duties which atomic chip 18 defined, extern eithery to myself and my acts, in law and in custom. charge if they conform to my own sentiments and I feel their pragmatism qu alifiedively, such reality is still objective, for I did not create them I merely hereditary them through my education. (Rules, p. 1). As modellings of loving facts, Durkheim cites sacred beliefs, currency used to take in charge trans natural actions, and actors such as the practices followed in my profession (Rules, p. 2).These s warminghs of conduct or purpose atomic number 18 not only external to the individual exclusively atomic number 18, more(prenominal) than all over, indue with coercive power, by virtue of which they impose themselves upon him, independent of his individual go forth. (Rules, p. 2). term obligations, determine, attitudes, and beliefs whitethorn appear to be individual, Durkheim argues that these brotherly facts exist at the aim of golf-club as a whole, arising from companionable relationships and human association. They exist as a result of tender interactions and historical developments over long periods of time, and keep up from vary ing collective commissions and diverse forms of friendly organization (Hadden, p. 04). As individuals who ar born and raised in a golf club, these loving facts are in condition(p) (through neighborlyization) and loosely brooked, but the individual has nothing to do with establishing these. While company is composed of individuals, society is not rightful(prenominal) the sum of individuals, and these facts exist at the level of society, not at the individual level. As such, these genial facts do exist, they are the hearty reality of society, a reality that performs the proper use up of sociology (Cuff et al. , p. 33). The athletic field of accessible facts is the distinct object or subject take of sociology (Hadden, p. 105). Durkheim istinguishes well-disposed facts from psychological, biological, or economic facts by noting that these are well-disposed and make grow in base sentiments and values. At the alike time, he distinguishes the study of social facts f rom philosophy by noting that the real effects of social facts are manifested in external indicators of sentiments such as religious doctrines, laws, honorable codes (Hadden, p. 105) and these effects go off be observed and studied by the sociologist. The study of social facts is thereof a large part of the study of sociology. In order to do this, the sociologist mustiness rid themselves of preconceptions (Hadden, p. 07) and undertake objective study which sess boil down on objective, external indicators such as religious doctrines or laws (Hadden, p. 107). individually social fact is real, whatsoeverthing that is constraining on the individual and external to the actor. The social fact is not just in the mind of the individual that is, these facts are more than psychological facts. That these exist in society as a whole, over time, and sometimes across societies, provides some proof of this. At the aforesaid(prenominal) time they are in the minds of individuals so they ar e besides psychological states.Ritzer notes that social facts mass be considered to be genial phenomena that are external to and coercive of psychological facts, such as human instincts. The individual mental state could be considered to intervene surrounded by social fact and action (Ritzer, p. 105). Durkheim may not deplete provided a sufficient analysis of the assumptions underlying, or the feature articles of, these mental states. For Durkheim the study of sociology should be the study of social facts, attempting to find the causes of social facts and the functions of these social facts.Social facts regulate human social action and act as chastenesss over individual behaviour and action. They may be enforced with law, with all the way defined penalties associated with violation of the sentiments and values of the group. Sanctions may be associated with social facts, for example as in holiness, where resistance may result in chiding from others or from spi ritual leader s. Individuals may be unaware of social facts and generally accept them. In this case, individuals may accept the values and codes of society and accept them as their own.Two guinea pigs of social facts are material and non-material social facts. Material social facts are features of society such as social structures and institutions. These could be the system of law, the economy, church and many medical prognosiss of religion, the state, and educational institutions and structures. They could also include features such as channels of communication, urban structures, and population distribution. While these are Copernican for reasonableness the structures and form of interaction in any society, it is nonmaterial social facts that constitute the main subject of study of sociology.Nonmaterial social facts are social facts which do not have a material reality. They consist of features such as norms, values, and systems of morality. slightly contemporary examples are the norm of the one to three electric shaver family, the positive values associated with family structures, and the negative associations connected to aggression and anger. In Durkheims terminology, some of these nonmaterial social facts are morality, collective consciousness, and social currents. An example of the latter(prenominal) is Durkheims analysis of self-annihilation. Social facts fag end also be divided into typical and pathological social facts (Hadden, pp. 08-9). Normal social facts are the most widely distributed and useful social facts, assisting in the maintenance of society and social life sentence. diseased social facts are those that we competency associate with social problems and ills of several(a) types. felo-de-se is one example of this, where social facts ought to be varied. For Durkheim, the much bullyer frequency of the normal is proof of the superiority of the normal. Durkheim later modified the notion of a single collective consciousness, and adopted the vi ew that there were collective representations as part of specific states of substrata of the collective.That is, there may be different norms and values for different groups in spite of appearance society. These collective representations are also social facts because they are in the consciousness of some collective and are not reducible to individual consciousnesses (Ritzer, p. 87). The social structures, institutions, norms and values that have become part of the study of sociology tush be derived from Durkheims approach, and to sidereal day there is little difficulty distinguishing sociology from psychology. B. SuicideAfter Durkheim wrote The Rules of sociological Method, he tackled the subject of self-destruction as an example of how a sociologist nominate study a subject that seems extremely in the flesh(predicate), with no social aspect to it even being anti-social. It could be argued that suicide is such a personal act that it involves only personal psychology and purely individual judgement processes. Durkheims aim was not to explain or predict an individual disposition to suicide, but to explain one type of nonmaterial social facts, social currents.Social currents are characteristics of society, but may not have the permanence and stableness that some parts of collective consciousness or collective representation have. They may be associated with movements such as enthusiasm, indignation, and pity. (Ritzer, p. 87). Hadden notes that Durkheim wished to show that sociological constituents were resourceful of explaining much about such anti-social phenomena (Hadden, p. 109). In the case of suicide, these social currents are pull uped as suicide evaluate, range that differ among societies, and among different groups in society.These rates show regularities over time, with switch overs in the rates often occurring at analogous times in different societies. Thus these rates can be said to be social facts (or at least the statistical represen tation of social facts) in the sense that they are not just personal, but are societal characteristics. This can be seen in the future(a) quote (quote 12) Suicide Rates as Social Facts. At to each one snatch of its history, therefore, each society has a distinct aptitude for suicide. The relation back posture of this aptitude is measured by taking the proportion between the total number of voluntary deaths and the population of every age and sex.We will call this numerical datum the rate of mortality through suicide, characteristic of the society under consideration. The suicide-rate is therefore a factual order, unified and clear, as is shown by both its permanence and its variability. For this permanence would be inexplicable if it were not the result of a group of distinct characteristics, solidary with one another, and simultaneously stiff in spite of different attendant circumstances and this variability locates the cover and individual quality of these same characte ristics, since they vary with the individual character of society itself.In short, these statistical information express the suicidal lean with which each society is collectively afflicted. Each society is predisposed to contribute a definite quota of voluntary deaths. This predisposition may therefore be the subject of a special study belonging to sociology. (Suicide, pp. 48, 51). Durkheim takes up the analysis of suicide in a very quantitative and statistical demeanor. While he did not have available to him very precise or complete data or sophisticated statistical techniques, his method is exemplary in exhibit how to test hypotheses, reject incorrect explanations for suicide, sort through a great variety of ossible explanations, and attempt to control for extraneous factors. Some of the factors that others had used to explain suicide were heredity, climate, race, individual psychopathic states (mental illness), and imitation. As an example of Durkheims method, consider how he analyzes cosmic factors, such as weather or season. Durkheim (Suicide, p. 107) notes that in all countries suicide is greater in the summer months, that no country is an ejection to this, and that the proportion of suicides in the six warmer months to the six colder months is very similar in each country.Durkheim notes that this has led some commentators to say the heat increases the excitability of the nervous system (Suicide, p. 108). precisely suicide may result from low gear as much as from over-excitement, and heat cannot possibly act the same way on both causes. Further, a closer analysis by Durkheim considers temperature variations and shows that while suicides increase in number as temperature increases, suicides reach a peak before the temperature does. In addition, if temperature is a cause of suicide, warm countries might be expected to have more suicides than cold countries, but the diametral tends to be the case.A resuscitated explanation that Durkheim considers i s that great changes in temperature are associated with suicide, but again he finds that there is no correlation between suicide rates and the fact of temperature change. Rather, the causes must be in some factor that has continuity over time. He therefore notes that the rates are more closely connected to the length of day, with suicides increasing as the days grow longer, and decreasing in number as the length of day declines. But it is not the sun itself which is the cause, because at noontime there are fewer suicides than at other times of the day.What Durkheim finds is that the factors associated with higher numbers of suicides must be those that revive to the time when social life is at its height (Suicide, p. 119). The time of day, the day of week, the season of the year, and so on, are not in themselves the reason for the changes in the number of suicides. Rather, the times when social life and interaction among people are greater, are also those associated with increased suicide. Durkheim concludes this section by saying (quote 13) quartette Types of SuicideThe musical mode in which social consolidation and regulation work can be better seen by examining the four fold classification of suicides that Durkheim developed. Durkheim ends his intervention of the organic-psychic and somatogenic environmental factors by concluding that they cannot explain each social groups specific tendency to suicide. (Suicide, p. 145). By eliminating other explanations, Durkheim claims that these tendencies must depend on social causes and must be collective phenomena.The key to each type is a social factor, with the legs of integrating and regulation into society being all too high or too low. (The following discussion is drawn from Ritzer, pp. 90 ff. ). 1. Egoistic Suicide. This is the type of suicide that occurs where the distributor point of social desegregation is low, and there is a sense of significationless among individuals. In traditional societie s, with mechanical solidarity, this is not likely to be the cause of suicide. at that place the strong collective consciousness gives people a broad sense of meaning to their lives.Within red-brick society, the weaker collective consciousness doer that people may not see the same meaning in their lives, and unrestrained pursuit of individual interests may lead to strong dissatisfaction. One of the results of this can be suicide. Individuals who are potently integrated into a family structure, a religious group, or some other type of integrative group are less likely to besiege these problems, and that explains the lower suicide rates among them. The factors leading to egoistic suicide can be social currents such as depression and disillusionment.For Durkheim, these are social forces or social facts, even though it is the depressed or black bile individual who takes his or her life voluntarily. Actors are never free of the force of the collectivity However individualized a man may be, there is invariably something collective remaining the very depression and melancholy resulting from this same misinform individualism. Also, on p. 214 of Suicide, Durkheim says Thence are formed currents of depression and disillusionment emanating from no particular individual but expressing societys state of disillusionment. Durkheim notes that the bond attaching man to life relaxes because that attaching him to society is itself slack. The individual yields to the slightest shock of circumstance because the state of society has do him a ready prey to suicide. (Suicide, pp. 214-215). 2. Altruistic Suicide. This is the type of suicide that occurs when integration is too great, the collective consciousness too strong, and the individual is forced into committing suicide. (Ritzer, p. 91). desegregation may not be the direct cause of suicide here, but the social currents that go along with this very high degree of integration can lead to this.The followers of Jim Jone s of the Peoples Temple or the members of the Solar Temple are an example of this, as are ritual suicides in Japan. Ritzer notes that some may feel it is their duty to commit suicide. (p. 91). Examples in primitive society cited by Durkheim are suicides of those who are old and sick, suicides of women following the death of their husband, and suicides of followers after the death of a chief. According to Durkheim this type of suicide may actually springs from hope, for it depends on the belief in graceful perspectives beyond this life. 3.Anomic Suicide. Anomie or anomie come from the Greek meaning lawlessness. Nomos means usage, custom, or law and nemein means to distribute. Anomy thus is social instability resulting from breakdown of standards and values. (Websters Dictionary). This is a type of suicide related to too low a degree of regulation, or external constraint on people. As with the anomic division of labour, this can occur when the normal form of the division of labour i s disrupted, and the collectivity is temporarily incapable of exercising its authority over individuals. (Ritzer, p. 92).This can occur either during periods associated with economic depression (stock market come down of the 1930s) or over-rapid economic expansion. radical situations with few norms, the regulative effect of structures is weakened, and the individual may feel rootless. In this situation, an individual may be subject to anomic social currents. People that are freed from constraints become slaves to their passions, and as a result, according to Durkheims view, commit a wide range of destructive acts, including putting to death themselves in greater numbers than they ordinarily would. (Ritzer, p. , 92).In addition to economic anomie, Durkheim also spends time examining domestic anomie. For example, suicides of family members may occur after the death of a husband or wife. 4. Fatalistic Suicide. When regulation is too strong, Durkheim considers the possibility that p ersons with futures remorselessly blocked and passions v iolently choked by oppressive discipline may see no way out. The individual sees no possible vogue in which their lives can be im fold upd, and when in a state of melancholy, may be subject to social currents of fatalistic suicide. Summary. Durkheims analysis of suicide shows the manner n which the social as opposed to the psychological and biological can be emphasized, and how it results in some useful ways of analyzing the actions of individuals. Suicide rates as expressions of social currents are social facts that match societies and individuals within those societies. The study of psychology is still useful in attempting to determine individual motives and the manner in which the specific circumstances can lead to an individual deciding to voluntarily end their life. But an analysis of these circumstances should be fix up within the context of the social currents to which that individual is subject.The method of analys is of Durkheim should prove useful even today. In terms of suicide, the social causes are direct well recognized, and any analysis of suicide would have to include these. Some combination of egoistic, anomic, and fatalistic types of suicide may help explain and understand this phenomenon. More generally, the method of Suicide is exemplary in providing researchers with a means of understanding the social factors that are associated with particular phenomena. Durkheim examines patterns on the data in an attempt to determine how social factors can play a social occasion in explaining these phenomena.This might be applied to sociobiological arguments today. The trends themselves are not the cause, but indicative of a cause, a social explanation has to be found. C. Conclusions about Durkheim 1. Contributions a. Social Facts and Social Aspects. These are real things that do affect people. He had a strong structural view of society, and the manner in which each of us is influenced by the se social facts and how we must fit into these. Durkheim essay to see a role for the social as distinguished from the economic, psychological and biological.This can be seen in his view of the social influences on suicide rates, where he takes a wide variety of factors and considers their influence on the tendency or aptitude for suicide. The effect of each of these factors is not a mere(a) connection between the factor and the tendency to suicide, but must be mediated by social factors. In particular, the social factors that he identify were the degree of integration and the degree of regulation. For modern theories of sociobiology, and the influence of genetics, Durkheims approach could prove a useful counter. References Cuff, E. C. , W. W. Sharrock and D. W.Francis, Perspectives in Sociology, third edition, London, Routledge, 1992. HM66 P36 1984 Durkheim, Emile, The Division of Labor in Society, New York, The Free Press, 1933. Referred to in notes as Division. HD 51 D98 Durkhei m, Emile, The Rules of Sociological Method, New York, The Free Press, 1938. Referred to in notes as Rules. HM 24 D962 Durkheim, Emile, Suicide A Study in Sociology, New York, The Free Press, 1951. Referred to in notes as Suicide. HV 6545 D812 Giddens, Anthony, capitalism and Modern Social Theory An Analysis of the Writings of Marx, Durkheim and Max Weber, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1971.HM19 G53. Ritzer, George, Sociological Theory, third edition, New York, McGraw-Hill, 1992. HM24 R4938. Social Explanation. If voluntary deaths increase from January to July, it is not because heat disturbs the organism, but because social life is more intense. To be sure, this greater intensity derives from the greater ease of development of social life in the spend than in the Winter, owing to the suns position , the state of the atmosphere, etc. But the physical environment does not stimulate it directly above all, it has no effect on the progression of suicide. The latter depends on social conditions. Suicide, pp. 121-122). While this is not a proof or determination of what causes suicide yet, Durkheim notes that the causes must relate to collective life and must be such that these time factors can be incorporated into an explanation. But the explanation must be social in nature, and cannot be simply related to natural factors, these natural factors must work socially, and affect some social aspects which are related to suicide. degrade that Durkheim s method here is very observational, and he searches through various sorts of data and evidence to find factors associated with suicide.But the explanation is not simply a relation between these data and suicides. Rather he is searching for social causes or conditions that are expressed through these. That is, he uses data to spot patterns, but the patterns themselves are not the cause of the phenomenon. Rather the cause is social, and the observed, empirical patterns constitute a means of finding underlying ca uses. Another factor that Durkheim considers is religion. While he does find that religion is associated with suicide, in the sense thatProtestant countries and regions have higher suicide rates than do Catholic ones, religious doctrines are not an important factor in explaining these differences. That is, suicide is condemned more or less equally in each religion, and doctrinal statements concerning suicide are all negative. If there is a difference between the two religions with admire to suicide rates, it must be in some aspect of social organization that differs between the two churches. But if this is the factor related to suicide, then it is the social organization that is the cause of the difference, not religion in itself.Giddens notes (p. 83) that Durkheim finds upgrade proof of this in other factors related to social organization, that is, family structure. Where there is more integration in family structure, the suicides are lesser in number. Durkheim argues that the mo st important aspects of social organization and collective life for explaining differences in suicide rates are the degree of integration into and regulation by society. For Durkheim, integration is the degree to which collective sentiments are shared and regulation refers to the degree of external constraint on people. (Ritzer, p. 90). Catholicism is a more highly integrated religion than Protestantism, and it is in this that the difference in suicide rates is expressed. That is, it is not the religious doctrines themselves but the different social organization of the two religions. As Giddens notes (p. 83), degree of integration of family structure is related in the same way to suicides. Those in larger families are less likely to commit suicide, whereas those in little families, or single, are more likely. Over time, various social factors also make their influence felt.Durkheim notes that there was a decline in the number of suicides in all the European countries in 1848, a yea r of regeneration and political change throughout Europe. Times of political crisis, war, and economic change are also associated with changes in the rate of suicide. Each of these great social movements could be considered to be examples of social currents that have widespread impact within and across societies. Ritzer (p. 89) notes that Durkheim was making two arguments. First, he argued that different collectivities have different collective consciousness or collective representation.These produce different social currents, and these lead to different suicide rates. By studying different groups and societies, some of these currents can be analyzed, and the effect of these on suicide can be determined. Second, changes in the collective consciousness lead to changes in social currents. These are then associated with changes in suicide rates (quote 14) Sociological Explanation. 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 established 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 victims acts which at first seem to express only his personal temperament are really the supplement and good continuation of a social condition which they express externally. Each social group really has a collective inclination for the act, quite its own, and the source of all individual inclination, rather than the result.It is made up of the currents of egoism, altruism or anomy running through the society under consideration with the tendencies to languorous melancholy, prompt renunciation or exasperated weariness derivative from these currents. These tendencies of the whole social body, by affecting individuals, cause them to commit suicide. The private experiences usually thought to be the proximate causes of suicide have only the influence borrowed from the victims moral predisposition, itself and echo of the moral state of society. (Suicide, pp. 299-300).