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The social meanings of suicide
132
BOOK REVIEWS
T H E S O C I A L M E A N I N G S O F S U I C I D E . JACK D. DOUGLAS. Princeton University Press. London; Oxford University Press, 1967, 398 ~- iv pp, $8.50.
THE AUTHORset out to build upon Durkheim's work, but in studying the almost sacred text his faith was shaken. It came as something of a shock to him that the master had failed to examine critically the information about the phenomena he described and that the statistics on which he, and others, built their theories were far from reliable. Having had to dismiss most of the evidence on which classical sociological theory on suicide is based, the author viewed Durkheim's work in its historical context. He understands it as a product of the romantic notions of the " m o r a l statisticians" of the last century, of whom Brierre de Boismont was the outstanding exponent. Durkheim was, according to the author, strongly motivated by a purpose of scientific policy. He was anxious to demonstrate the need for an independent discipline concerned with human society and dealing with a social reality independent of individual realities. What could be more respectable and impressive than theories based on apparently indisputable facts embodied in the suicide rates ? Sociologists and, more recently, the ecologists, have taken it for granted that the definitions of suicide and the search procedures are the same everywhere, and that the suicide rates of different populations are therefore comparable. There is much evidence to the contrary. Even in the same community pressures against the categorization of a death as suicide vary greatly according to the degree of integration of the individual in the community. Pressures against such a categorization will be greater if the deceased was a member of a functioning family group than if he died in isolation. For this reason, the author argues rather convincingly, any studies using official statistics and showing a relation between suicide and loneliness have to be regarded as biased. Durkheim is not only criticized for lack of judgment concerning the official statistics, but he is accused of bending the data to fit his preconceived ideas and having advanced an untestable theory. This is by far the most radical refutation of Durkheim's research on suicide which has dominated this field of study for the last seventy years. There have been other critics, but none of them went as far as the author of this book. The Gibbs and Martin "status integration theory" aimed at improving on Durkheim by providing an instrument for the measurement of social integration. JACK DOUGLAS has no use for this theory which in his judgment suffers from just about all the faults of Durkbeim's work and has many of its own. Powell's "status and anomie theory" based on Durkheim and F r o m m is equally rejected, and so a r e ecological studies such as those by Cavan and Sainsbury. These and other workers are found guilty o f uncritical treatment of data and of having taken the social meanings of "roles" and "loss of status" as obvious. The author regards it as remarkable that there is at present hardly any knowledge of the functioning of the official organizations responsible for the suicide statistics. He is not aware that a world wide enquiry into this very problem has recently been carried out by Stengel and Farberow (in press). The results of this enquiry tend to confirm his doubts about the reliability and comparability of the official suicide rates. In denying the official statistics any significant value for the constructing and testing of sociological theories on suicide, the author dismisses an enormous volume of work much of which has been accepted as established knowledge. He concedes to sociologists only one significant contribution: their insistence on seeing suicidal actions as in some way the result of social forces. He regards it as essential to study the shared and individual meanings of what appear to be
Boo~
REVIEWS
133
suicidal acts taking place in different socio-cultural systems. As these meanings are essentially problematic the idea of a "real rate" is believed to be a misconception. The concept of the socially meaningful action is discussed at length. The author follows Max Weber who defined social action in terms of the subjective meanings of activities to the social actors involved. "Suicidal actions mean something fundamental about the actor himself." The following are common patterns of fundamental meanings: suicide as a means of transforming the soul from this world to the other world; as a means of achieving fellow feelings; as a means of getting revenge. The author envisages a classification of suicidal actions according to meanings. He is interested in suicidal communications and in typical suicidal situations. He believes, quite wrongly, that the therapist can, by asking questions about suicidal intention, set the suicidal process in motion. The author stresses the need for careful observation and description of social phenomena such as suicidal actions. He wants sociologists to go into the field and carry out empirical investigations before attempting to explain them. There are, of course, scattered in the literature plenty of good descriptions of suicidal actions as meaningful events, but they were reported by psychiatrists and psychoanalysts, not by sociologists. Whether the latter are able to describe and interpret those psychological happenings may be doubted. The author's idea of classifying suicidal actions according to their meanings is bound to run into ditfieulties, for at least two reasons. Firstly, he confines himself to the conscious meanings only, while the unconscious ones may be the more important. Secondly, one and the same suicidal action may have several meanings at the same time and they may even contradict each other. However, this should not discourage sociologists from joining psychiatrists, psychoanalysts and clinical psychologists in the study of abnormal behaviour patterns. As members of multidisciplinary teams sociologists have much to offer. It remains to be seen how many of them will be ready to forego the precision of their statistical tables, however illusory, for the bewildering complexities of human motivations. In his critique of sociological theory the author pours out the baby with the bathwater. To many his new approach will appear naive and amateurish. Nevertheless, sociologists should not ignore his challenge as the outpourings of an angry young man and go on treating suicide statistics as a sacred cow. Statistics there must be, but why should sociologists not join in the efforts to make them more reliable? In a symposium held at Washington D.C. it was proposed that only comparable data should be compared and that suicidal rates should be regarded as not comparable unless evidence of their comparability is provided. This restriction, the speaker (E. Stengel) remarked, would have a highly beneficial effect on both the quality and quantity of suicide research. E. STENGEL, M.D.
Sheffield University, Sheffield, England. S O C I A L ASPECTS O F A G I N G : Edited by IDA H~aU'ER SIMPSON and JOHN C. MCKXNNEY. Duke University Press, 1966. $10.00. vii+341 pp. Tins volume is a valuable increment to the literature on aging and has a variety of useful information and insights for both those persons interested in "basic" social science research and also for the practitioners in applied fields.
BOOK REVIEWS
T H E S O C I A L M E A N I N G S O F S U I C I D E . JACK D. DOUGLAS. Princeton University Press. London; Oxford University Press, 1967, 398 ~- iv pp, $8.50.
THE AUTHORset out to build upon Durkheim's work, but in studying the almost sacred text his faith was shaken. It came as something of a shock to him that the master had failed to examine critically the information about the phenomena he described and that the statistics on which he, and others, built their theories were far from reliable. Having had to dismiss most of the evidence on which classical sociological theory on suicide is based, the author viewed Durkheim's work in its historical context. He understands it as a product of the romantic notions of the " m o r a l statisticians" of the last century, of whom Brierre de Boismont was the outstanding exponent. Durkheim was, according to the author, strongly motivated by a purpose of scientific policy. He was anxious to demonstrate the need for an independent discipline concerned with human society and dealing with a social reality independent of individual realities. What could be more respectable and impressive than theories based on apparently indisputable facts embodied in the suicide rates ? Sociologists and, more recently, the ecologists, have taken it for granted that the definitions of suicide and the search procedures are the same everywhere, and that the suicide rates of different populations are therefore comparable. There is much evidence to the contrary. Even in the same community pressures against the categorization of a death as suicide vary greatly according to the degree of integration of the individual in the community. Pressures against such a categorization will be greater if the deceased was a member of a functioning family group than if he died in isolation. For this reason, the author argues rather convincingly, any studies using official statistics and showing a relation between suicide and loneliness have to be regarded as biased. Durkheim is not only criticized for lack of judgment concerning the official statistics, but he is accused of bending the data to fit his preconceived ideas and having advanced an untestable theory. This is by far the most radical refutation of Durkheim's research on suicide which has dominated this field of study for the last seventy years. There have been other critics, but none of them went as far as the author of this book. The Gibbs and Martin "status integration theory" aimed at improving on Durkheim by providing an instrument for the measurement of social integration. JACK DOUGLAS has no use for this theory which in his judgment suffers from just about all the faults of Durkbeim's work and has many of its own. Powell's "status and anomie theory" based on Durkheim and F r o m m is equally rejected, and so a r e ecological studies such as those by Cavan and Sainsbury. These and other workers are found guilty o f uncritical treatment of data and of having taken the social meanings of "roles" and "loss of status" as obvious. The author regards it as remarkable that there is at present hardly any knowledge of the functioning of the official organizations responsible for the suicide statistics. He is not aware that a world wide enquiry into this very problem has recently been carried out by Stengel and Farberow (in press). The results of this enquiry tend to confirm his doubts about the reliability and comparability of the official suicide rates. In denying the official statistics any significant value for the constructing and testing of sociological theories on suicide, the author dismisses an enormous volume of work much of which has been accepted as established knowledge. He concedes to sociologists only one significant contribution: their insistence on seeing suicidal actions as in some way the result of social forces. He regards it as essential to study the shared and individual meanings of what appear to be
Boo~
REVIEWS
133
suicidal acts taking place in different socio-cultural systems. As these meanings are essentially problematic the idea of a "real rate" is believed to be a misconception. The concept of the socially meaningful action is discussed at length. The author follows Max Weber who defined social action in terms of the subjective meanings of activities to the social actors involved. "Suicidal actions mean something fundamental about the actor himself." The following are common patterns of fundamental meanings: suicide as a means of transforming the soul from this world to the other world; as a means of achieving fellow feelings; as a means of getting revenge. The author envisages a classification of suicidal actions according to meanings. He is interested in suicidal communications and in typical suicidal situations. He believes, quite wrongly, that the therapist can, by asking questions about suicidal intention, set the suicidal process in motion. The author stresses the need for careful observation and description of social phenomena such as suicidal actions. He wants sociologists to go into the field and carry out empirical investigations before attempting to explain them. There are, of course, scattered in the literature plenty of good descriptions of suicidal actions as meaningful events, but they were reported by psychiatrists and psychoanalysts, not by sociologists. Whether the latter are able to describe and interpret those psychological happenings may be doubted. The author's idea of classifying suicidal actions according to their meanings is bound to run into ditfieulties, for at least two reasons. Firstly, he confines himself to the conscious meanings only, while the unconscious ones may be the more important. Secondly, one and the same suicidal action may have several meanings at the same time and they may even contradict each other. However, this should not discourage sociologists from joining psychiatrists, psychoanalysts and clinical psychologists in the study of abnormal behaviour patterns. As members of multidisciplinary teams sociologists have much to offer. It remains to be seen how many of them will be ready to forego the precision of their statistical tables, however illusory, for the bewildering complexities of human motivations. In his critique of sociological theory the author pours out the baby with the bathwater. To many his new approach will appear naive and amateurish. Nevertheless, sociologists should not ignore his challenge as the outpourings of an angry young man and go on treating suicide statistics as a sacred cow. Statistics there must be, but why should sociologists not join in the efforts to make them more reliable? In a symposium held at Washington D.C. it was proposed that only comparable data should be compared and that suicidal rates should be regarded as not comparable unless evidence of their comparability is provided. This restriction, the speaker (E. Stengel) remarked, would have a highly beneficial effect on both the quality and quantity of suicide research. E. STENGEL, M.D.
Sheffield University, Sheffield, England. S O C I A L ASPECTS O F A G I N G : Edited by IDA H~aU'ER SIMPSON and JOHN C. MCKXNNEY. Duke University Press, 1966. $10.00. vii+341 pp. Tins volume is a valuable increment to the literature on aging and has a variety of useful information and insights for both those persons interested in "basic" social science research and also for the practitioners in applied fields.