Altruistic Suicide

Durkheim, Suicide and Sept. 11, 2001

Emile Durkheim was a sociologist who tried to measure such abstract concepts as "religion" and "suicide" in society. "Collective tendencies have an existence of their own; they are forces as real as cosmic forces, though of another sort; they, likewise, affect the individual from without"(Thompson, 1982, 109). To Durkheim, suicide was a term applied to all "cases of death resulting directly or indirectly from a positive or negative act of the victim himself, which he knows will produce this result"(Thompson, 1982, 110).

Durkheim divided the suicidal act into several categories. One of the classes that he considers, and that has a stunning importance following the events of Sept. 11, 2001, is that of "obligatory altruistic suicide" (Thompson, 1982, 122). In this act, argues Durkheim, society is seen as far more important than any individual, and the worth o

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Category: Psychology - A