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How does Durkheim explain the different suicide rates among different groups in European societies?

Durkheim explains different suicide rates among different groups of European societies partly by looking at different classes. He states that the some of the wealthiest groups in society have higher suicide rates than groups of lower status. He looks at occupations in the following areas: trade, transportation, industry, agriculture, and liberal professions. The different locations he uses for the survey are France, Switzerland, Italy, Prussia, Bavaria, Belgium, Wurttemberg, and Saxony In general, suicide rates were lowest in agricultural industries in all of the locations studied. This occupation is not made up of as many wealthy people as in others and their suicide rates are also lower in this category.
Durkheim would argue that the wealthiest people do not have a specific or attainable goal in sight because of their respective occupations. As a result of this lack of attainable goals, some of these people begin to feel as if their lives are moving towards no ultimate end. Since they are unable to achieve any ultimate goal in life, they feel more or less disconnected from society. This disconnection sometimes results in suicide among these people. The wealthy people are kind of taken over by their greed. They are not necessarily working for any purpose; they are only working to achieve more wealth. Eventually, this results in unhappiness because they are constantly earning money, but they never reach that one, final goal.
By having different class systems, people are more easily able to have attainable goals. Different classes will have goals that pertain to whatever class they are in. For example, a worker somewhere in the middle of the class system will have goals that are higher than the class directly below them, but lower than the class right above them. If someone from this class tried to attain a goal of the class above them, Durkheim might argue that that person will never achieve that goal. So, by having specific classes, each class a goal they can achieve. Since they have achievable goals they will be content in their life. The wealthiest people do not have a class above them, so Durkheim might argue that they are chasing after an infinite goal. This could be why the suicide rates among the wealthy are higher in general than the lower classes.
In a society without a formal structure or rule that controls it, an anomic society, it is plausible that suicide rates might be higher. The reason for this is because in a society with a lack of rule there is no structure to hold the class system together. Without a class system, people would not have goals that are attainable. Everybody would be striving for an unattainable goal or would not even have a specific goal in mind. This would arguably, according to Durkheim result in a society with a high rate of suicide. According to Durkheim, "Those who have only empty space above them are almost inevitably lost in it, if no force retrains them." This could be attributed to a society with a lack of rule because there is no controlling body to structure the class system and allow for attainable goals among the people.

Durkheim is strongly influenced by the concept of evolution. He prefers to study primitive forms of social things because they are closer to the evolutionary origin than advanced forms. In primitive religions, time and tradition have had less time to effect and distort the pure motives for which we began our various worships.
Durkheim felt that in studying the most advanced religions, sociologists might be misleading themselves. He looked at the totemic believes and rites of aborigines as a symbolic precursor to other, more evolved religions, and concluded that the aborigines were attributing the sense of social security of community to physical objects--totems. Thus the totems became sacred. This sacredness, according to Durkheim, is the thing which is common to all religions. Worshipers attribute many feelings which are beyond their comprehension to something sacred, whether it be a totem, nature, a pantheon, or God. Thus religion comes to serve the role of uniting the community. Through religion people can feel a strong sense of mechanical solidarity. They can symbolize their own reality in a second, idealized reality in which their norms and values are paramount. A through the expression of this reality (that is, by conforming perfectly to the collective consciousness) they can achieve that blissful religious fervor.
The way Durkheim applied primordial context and research to religion and the way he described how religion functions in society are trademarks of his method and perspective. Even from this one reading we could guess that he is a functionalist, and he is indeed the father of Functionalism. Durkheim's almost paleontological approach to religion reflects the way he tries to approach sociology not as a school of philosophy, but as a school of science. He is concerned with using hard, testable evidence to support his claims. Finally, his study of religion from the roots up is a tribute to his respect for the evolution of a thing as crucial to the understanding of it.
If Marx heard Durkheim's theory of religion, he would scold Durkheim for overlooking the conflict rampant in religion. He would agree that the sacred is important in religion, but he would see it as secondary. The point of religion for Marx would be to reinforce inequality. The doctrines of religions all set out a series of norms which comply to the society in which they are practiced. By setting these norms up as sacred, the bourgeoisie gives the proletariat spiritual incentives to obey. These sacred norms often advocate docility, subservience, and poverty. Yet those in control of religion are often wealthy, powerful, and noble: a veritable figurehead of the true bourgeois ideal.

Durkheim believes that when societies change from a highly ritualized mechanical society to a more organic society in which each individual has a greater level of independence, a state of anomie ensues. Anomie is most easily defined as 'normlessness.' It occurs when people throw off the ropes of old society and then find themselves in a free fall, no longer tied to society by tradition and mechanical solidarity. When an individual feels particularly lost because of anomie, he has an increased incentive (or decreased inhibition) to commit suicide. Thus suicide rates vary according to who experiences the most anomie. Two main factors affect this: occupation and class. Different occupations experienced different levels of division of labour during industrialization. Incidentally, I take issue with the chart provided. Although it shows suicides according to profession, it shows them as absolute numbers and not as percentages out of those plying the profession. Thus we can not confidently compare the different professional categories in their promotion of suicide. As far as the effects of class: a man who has lived humbly his whole life can accept a little heavier burden, but one who has never known the yoke will find their new burden disorienting and loathsome.
Durkheim identified four types of suicide. The first, anomic, we have already discussed as resulting from anomie. The sufferer is nolonger sure of how to interact with society. Egoistic suicide is vaguely related. It is the suicide that comes from taking no pleasure from life and therefore having no incentive to remain in it. For Durkheim life revolved around the social, so he said that for someone to feel no pleasure in life, they must be dissatisfied with their collective encounters. Both anomic and egoistic suicide result from "society's insufficient presence in individuals" (201). Altruistic and Fatalistic suicide come from the excessive presence of society in individuals. Altruistic suicide occurs when the individual gives up their life in order to comply with society. Fatalistic suicide occurs when society's presence is so oppressive that the individual would rather die than exist in it.
I take problem with these categorizations of society because they imply that the individual's will to live is completely dependent on society. By Durkheim's own rules we evolved from species that had no concept of society, so we should be able to function without it. I believe that people commit suicide for all of the reasons above, but what about the person who expects to find meaning in his life from things besides the collective, and not finding it, kills himself? The reason for his suicide was not lack of meaningful social connections or because he felt lost and disconnected in society, it was what he found outside of society.
Returning to the prompt: altruistic suicide. Some examples are kamikaze pilots, hara-kiri, going into battle for your country (you might expect to survive, but the statistics are that people will have to die), and suicide to make a point (I have a vision of monks burning themselves alive. Obviously the suicide is meant to be shockingly deviant, but they do it because their (sub)culture tells them it is what they must do for the sake of society.) I did not feel that the 12 words Durkheim allotted to altruistic suicide were enough to explain it. From what he said I thought that altruistic suicide was a rather psychological, spiritual endeavor, or something like in Inception whereby the suicidal person is awakening themselves to a truer life. I used Wikipedia to supplement my understanding of the suicides and to find an explanation of Fatalistic suicide, which I did not remember from and could not find in the text.

Sources:
the book
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elementary_Forms_of_the_Religious_Life
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_(book)

Although the purpose of Durkheim's study of sociology is to understand modern society and modern man Durkheim goes to the very early ages to study religious life because he believes that it is necessary to first study a simple form of religion and then extrapolate his findings to that of more complex religious life. He believes that historical analysis is the only way to study religious life. By studying how religions were formed and how they evolved we can determine what conditions were present at the time of its birth and what caused this particular religion to win out over other possible forms of religion. Durkheim says that "It was one of Descartes's principles that the first ring has a predominating place in the chain of scientific truths." (181). This means that the birth of a religion is the most important thing to study when scientifically examining modern religion and society. Durkheim proposes that one cannot simply try to compare modern complex religions in order to discover what is common to all forms of religion. He proposes that one must examine the primitive simplistic forms of religion found in "the lower societies."(183). He says that the less individuality, the closer the group, and similar environments all contribute to the commonalities of dissimilar modern religions. The simplicity of these groups promotes collective consciousness. Durkheim says that in primitive religions "That which is accessory or secondary, the development of luxury, has not yet come to hide the principal elements."(183). Everything is reduced to the bare bones of what is necessary to sustain religion. Without these principal elements, religion would not exist. These bare bones are the common elements which Durkheim says that we must first understand to be able to proceed in our understanding of modern complex religions. By looking at primitive societies we can understand that religion is not always about God. Primitive religions not only help us to strip away the extra meat of modern religions but they also help us to explain them. Because the facts are simpler in primitive religions, the connections between those facts are more easily seen and understood. The reasons that people use to justify their actions in primitive societies are closer to their actual motivations because they have not thought in depth about how to hide their motivations and make them seem purer. When simplistic religions are analyzed the essential ideas which dominate intellectual life (ideas of time, space, class, number, cause, substance, personality) are always found. These ideas come from religion. They are a part of religion. Durkheim says that by studying primitive religion we can understand that human society could not exist without the essential ideas that dominate intellectual life. In saying this he is saying that society cannot exist without religion because the essential ideas that dominate intellectual life come from religion and they are a part of religion. The two are inseparable. Life would not exist if it were not for the essential ideas that dominate intellectual life (e.g. religion).

ELEMENTARY FORMS OF RELIGIOUS LIFE

If the purpose of Durkheim's sociology is to understand modern society and modern man, based on your reading of Durkheim's argument in Elementary Forms of Religious Life, can you explain why does he study religion by going to the very early ages and looking at a primitive society? How do the totemic believes and rites of aborigines can help us to understand the role and function of religion in modern society according to Durkheim? What does this tell about Durkheim's view of sociology and sociological method?

Can you discuss briefly what would be a Marxist critique of Durkheim's study of Religion? E.g. you can discuss his views or lack there of power, power holders as religious leaders, relationship between religious and political and economic elites, and the function of religion in social conflicts.

Suicide

How does Durkheim explain the different suicide rates among different groups in European societies?

Durkheim, based on his empirical data distinguishes 4 different types of suicide. Please explain those types and their relationship to social bonds and integration in communities.

One of the four types of suicide defined in Durkheim's Suicide is altruistic suicide. What are some examples you can think of that have happened in the world where people may have committed suicide for this purpose? Do you think Durkheim's explanation for that type of suicide make sense and convincingly explain that type of suicide?