On Suicide

Before I ever started studying sociology I had ideas on the nature of suicide some of which are based on second person experiences on the subject and others on the biology and sociobiology that I studied before switching my major. If you look at suicide from a strictly biological standpoint then it is the most impossible gene to possess if the act is committed before procreation. A species cannot pass on their specific genetic code if they die before procreation and therefore it is impossible for an individual to possess that specific mutation or even more so for a species. Think about it from this perspective; if an individual was born with a mutation that caused them to self terminate before they were able to pass on that trait then that trait, “suicide,” would never be passed on. 

This is a very detached way of viewing the subject but for people to see that it cannot be biological factor you have to view this emotionally crippling subject in biological terms. In America, the majority of suicide is committed by younger adults, who have not passed on their genes. So the whole argument of nature vs. nurture is just not logically applicable in the case of suicide. A single generation could be eliminated if just half of those individuals possessed this gene. If suicide is not a biological cause then it must be a environmental or social cause. Of course Emile Durkheim’s Suicide was controversial on the subject that was later proven true with a plethora of scientific evidence. The number of deaths as a result of suicide can be seen as an indicator of how well that specific social construct is serving its individuals, its people. Meaning that if a society is fully serving all the emotional and physical needs of its individuals then the suicide rate will be none existent. From a biological perspective we see that our species is highly social and adaptive to a variety of social environments. 

However, there are limitations to extent that the human psyche can fully develop cognitively, emotionally, and intellectually and an absence of development can actually trigger genes that in our early history would encourage survival but in our modern social environment lead to depression, the main cause of suicide. Our sociobiological genetic needs were developed in a culture of deep emotional connectivity and interdependence upon our peers. Or to put it simply people need to feel loved to survive and so do most species as science has shown. In my opinion when individuals in a society experience a sense of importance and feelings of love through all stages of development, childhood being the most important, through old age, then the suicide rate will be nearly nonexistent. Of course there exists a variety of reasons and causes to each specific incident and there is always exceptions to every generalization. My heart goes out to the loved ones this horrific act leaves behind. 

I would definitively agree that suicide is primarily the cause of mental illness.

However, I believe that the majority of mental illness is caused by social problems. To simplify the argument we can say that either the body or mind of the individual or the life experiences or both causes mental illness.  I think that the majority of the time it is in fact both circumstances.

However, sociobiology has shown us that certain psychological conditions are the results of environment effects. For example recent social psychological research has shown that there is in fact a serial killer gene, however, individuals who have been raised in nurturing non-violent homes are peaceful without any violent tendencies, whereas the individuals with the gene are at a high risk for sociopathic behavior. Refer to this link http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127888976

            This is a very simple example how the environment triggers an emotional disorder. Therefore if a person with the serial killer gene lived a happy normal life then they would be a happy normal person and conversely a person with the serial killer gene who lived a violent life is very likely to be violent. This is an example of how the environment or society is the factor. The human mind is an amazing thing that was designed to adapt to a variety of social environments and if the environment is the final executor of a genetic code then it needs to be the first line of consideration. This means that the environment has the final say, that the society that one is raised will cause them to be depressed, ADHD, diabetic, schizophrenic etc.. I see the degree of depression that a society suffers from as a indicator of how well that society is fulfilling its deign. Meaning that society is a group of people and the constructs, government, religion it employees to control its members can be measured for its efficiency. One of the best measurements of how well a society is performing is by how many people opt out, how many people would rather cease to exist rather than exist in any given society.  In all reality I would make the argument that all suicide caused by depression can be blamed on society, because in one way or another the society failed that individual, more than likely during the primary imperative psychological growth period of birth to five years old.  During this period the brain is developing the cortex and neurological receptors that enable serotonin reception and creation amongst many other hormones that contribute to emotional wellbeing. Therefore, if a child isn’t shown love then they grow up and don’t have that part of their brain developed for receiving love. How on earth can a person say it is that child’s fault? It’s the fault of the parents and the bigger picture the family that raised those parents and even bigger picture the culture that raised that family and even bigger picture the norms, ideas, traditions that fostered that culture.I call this the society and we see that if we step back after examining the individual that it was created by the culture and that as much as we want to feel that we are individual in control of our own thoughts and actions is a very real way we are all products of our environment.

 “And so every person, at every stage of his growth, is free or unfree in proportion as he does or does not find himself in the midst of conditions conducive to full and harmonious personal development. So far was children are ill nurtured or ill-taught, as family training is bad, the schools inefficient, the local government ill-administered, public libraries lacking, or private associations for various sorts of culture deficient, in so far as the people are unfree. A child born in a slum, brought up in a demoralized family, and put at some confining and mentally deadening work when ten or twelve years old, is no more free to be healthy, wise and moral. Every social ill involves the enslavement of individuals,” Charles Horton Cooley.