Thoughts on Suicide

[loki]

Originally Posted by cleanbluesky

I can't think of a case where that has happened, surely Edison would have suicided if that were the case

In general terms it was discovered when Durkheim conducted his study into social influences on suicide. The best way to describe it would be if you have everything at your disposal and felt you could no longer offer anything to society then you would be just as likeley to commit suicide as someone who was either destitute or without any money.

Durkheim argued that economic affluence, by stimulating human desires, carries with it dangers of anomic conditions because it "deceives us into believing that we depend on ourselves only," while "poverty protects against suicide because itis a restraint in itself." Since the realization of human desires depends upon the resources at hand, the poor are restrained, and henceless prone to suffer from anomie by virtue of the fact that they possess but limited resources. "The less one has the less he is tempted to extend the range of his needs indefinitely."

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