Sum Blog 3: Durkheim and Fatalistic Suicide

  During this past week's discussions in class, I was very interested to learn about Emile Durkheim's idea of the four types of suicide, especially the fatalistic category. Learning about the various reasons why people commit suicide and what is possibly going through their minds when they do it is intriguing to me, even if it is a very morbid and depressing interest.
  Fatalistic suicide happens when there is too much regulation in a society. There are extreme structured limitations and society itself is not allowing you to move forward within it. People who commit suicide under these conditions know that they will forever be stuck in this one aspect of their life so they simply  give up. A common example of this is people who are in prison serving life sentences or who are on death row. They have no chance of getting out, so they find some way to commit suicide, even if it has to be done in extreme or grotesque ways. You see this example in cop TV shows, like Law & Order, all the time. A police officer will go into an inmate's cell and find them dead, so clearly this still happens  in today's society, even though Durkheim was writing about fatalistic suicide a hundred years ago.

  As I was writing this and trying to think of a few other unique examples, Hotel California by the Eagles starts playing, and a light bulb goes on in my head, because I ironically had just looked up what the lyrics in this song are supposed to mean the other day, and I feel that it is a perfect example of fatalistic suicide. It basically tells a story of the pitfalls, such as greed and self-destruction, of the Hollywood music industry and how people become engrossed in it. Now the song doesn't go as far as suicide, but we can take it that far, especially with all of the somewhat recent accounts of celebrities who have committed suicide, mostly by drug overdose or drug addiction. They can become so entwined in the glitz and glamour of Hollywood that they can't find a way out. If something in their career goes wrong, they can easily turn to drugs because those drugs are so accessible to people with a lot of money, and the may think that's the way out, but it isn't. I think the last stanza in Hotel California sums up this idea really well, especially the last sentence. An actor or musician can go into the business thinking that they will be able to get out of it at any time, but they soon find out that that's not the way it works in Hollywood, for the most part.

"Last thing I remember, I was

Running for the door

I had to find the passage back

To the place I was before

'Relax,' said the night man,

'We are programmed to receive.

You can check-out any time you like, 

But you can never leave!'"

(Lyrics from http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/eagles/hotelcalifornia.html)

  Phillip Seymour Hoffman is the first example that comes to my mind because his death was so public and advertised. Now they still haven't released an official cause of death, but it was known that he was addicted to heroin and it was found at the scene of his death. It could have been an accidental overdose, but even if it was, he still spiraled down far enough that he couldn't get back up.