There was a recent news report about a spike in suicide rates and as I possess strong knowledge on suicide, it is important to debunk some quick fallacious conclusions people may assume after reading the article. Please read my previous blogpost on suicide to get more details on what I am going to say below.
1. Stress does not cause suicide. It is statistically proven the more responsibilities a person is given, and thus the higher his acquired stress, his probability of committing suicide will lessen. A good example would be how married people have a lower chance of committing suicide compared to singles.
2. Men have historically committed more suicide than women, and this is nothing new contrary to what the report implies. This is not because men are weaker minded or anything like that. It is because men tend to be integrated less strongly into society as compared to women. A good soft example would be how it is much easier for men to be loners (there is lesser social pressure on men), while it is much harder for women to be loners.
To understand the above, I will explain very quickly 3 types of suicide:
1. Egoistic Suicide. This occurs when the person’s social integration into society is too low.
2. Altruistic Suicide. This occurs when a person’s social integration into society is too high.
3. Anomic Suicide. This occurs when a person is extremely unsure of his accepted stratification in society. This occurs when society is in a state of transition e.g. pre-industrial to industrial age.
Since no one has overthrown the PAP yet, anomic suicide is completely out of the question. The causes in the spike of suicide rates can be attributed to either egoistic suicide or altruistic suicide. Egoistic suicide usually occurs among singles who have accumulated big debts due to the recession. Since they are not burdened with the responsibility to keep a family together and their parents probably have enough retirement money, it is easy for them to take their lives without much consequences on others. Another possibility is altruistic suicide, where someone feels that he or she is a burden on his family and because of the recession, decides to take his or her life. This occurs if the said person is too well integrated into his or her family.
All statements in this blogpost have their evidence in Emile Durkheim’s book, Suicide.
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