Emile Durkheim’s book, suicide was published in 1897. The book is an analysis of a phenomenon regarded as pathological intended to throw light on the evil which threatens modern industrial societies that is anomie.
Thomas Schaefer, 54 the finance minister of Hesse State of Germany, found dead in a railway track near Frankfurt on 20th March 2020. He was committed suicide due to the economic fallout of the state, and “deeply worried” about the state’s economy in the pandemic situation of Covid-19. Bouffier, Governor of Germany’s Hesse, states that his main concern and the central cause of suicide was the huge expectations of the population from him during the crisis and the economic burden. “I have to assume that these worries overwhelmed him,” Bouffier said, “he apparently couldn’t find a way out. He was in despair and left us.”
We often think that due to the struggle with depression and other personal problems, people are attempting suicide, which is individual in nature, but sociologists have argued that suicide is purely a social phenomenon. Suicide is a classic in sociology for its methodological ingenuity, theoretical import and it is also one of sociology’s most visible works for non-sociological social scientists. Emile Durkheim explains about various sociological explanations of suicide in his book suicide. Among the four types of suicide, anomic suicide might help us to understand the topic highlighted above.
When major changes took place in the society and disrupted the order, structure, and function, people may feel normlessness and sense of anomie and due to that, the society itself looks like fallen apart. The survivors were not able to cope up with the disaster situation and also with their lives, so that period leads to deregulations of desires and suffering. When a person commits suicide due to a lack of regulation, it is called anomic suicide. Anomic suicide is common in situations where society is undergoing major changes, or the individual is experiencing a highly stressful situation, which leads to feelings of confusion and disappointment.
Suicide remains a significant mental health and social problem globally. Durkheim’s anomic suicides are driven by a lack of regulation, often from a sudden loss in social status. So there are various international and national print media headlines elucidates like “Death of German financial officials linked to virus crisis” in The New York Times, “Germany finance minister found dead, apparently committed suicide over COVID 19 fear” in The Statesman, German Minister ends life after ‘virus crisis worries’ in The Hindu.
The collapse of social norms and unexpected social changes encourage anomic suicide. According to Durkheim, not only economic disaster and industrial crisis but even sudden economic prosperity and loss can cause disturbance and deregulation and finally, suicide. To draw attention from the news and to give the lens of the sociological response of the suicide case of German Finance Minister Dr. Thomas Schafer’s was an anomic suicide.