Power And Class In The United States, Who Rules America Essay, Research Paper

1.On Durkheim, Why do the U.S.A have a high suicide rate use Durkheim’s two notions Egoistic and Anomie suicide?

Durkheim insisted that individuals were born into an existing social structure consisting of institutions, norms, rules, roles, customs and ideals to which they conformed. The U.S.A is no exception because lady liberty follows a social structure. The high rate of suicide is because of Individual Isolation. The breakup of the family could be working or divorced. The grandparents may live in a Sunbelt state. Science or superstition may weaken the loss of religion that includes rituals, church groups, and the beliefs. Another reason the suicide rate is high in the U.S.A is the loss of community. You can be lonely walking into a crowd, they now starting building malls, there’s no town center, and urban; suburban sprawl are rapidly increasing. When people feel they don’t belong to something, they don’t have the need to be wanted. They tend to feel that no one wants them around. The Anomie starts to kick in because they started to lose the norms and values of society. Moral confusion sets in.

2.From Durkheim, Why does Japan have a high suicide rate, use Durkheim’s notion of Altruistic Suicide?

Japan has a high suicide rate, which we call altruistic suicide. Most of the suicide that occurs in Japan is because the individual shames the family or religion. Japanese culture has a family with close ties. There are grandparents, uncles many elderly people living within the family. An example would be if the best friend of a man were told to carry his ashes and bring it to the family on the other side of town when he dies. The best friend will go and do what his friend told him to do but on the way there he gets jump by a bunch of thieves. They knock over his friend ’s ashes. The best friend will feel ashamed and will feel that he shamed his friend family. So the honorable thing is to kill him self. The family members will not say anything to comfort him, to make him feel that it wasn’t his fault. Instead they feel that dying is the honorable thing to do. In war times kamikaze was perform by Japanese soldiers. They could not come back to their homes during war because they taught it was dishonorable and they will go straight to heaven if they died during combat.

3.Why does New Jersey have a high rate of teen suicide, use some of Durkheim’s notions?

One reason why New Jersey has a high teen suicide rate because of Individual Isolation. New Jersey is entirely urban and suburban so the loss of community is there. The feeling of you walking around lonely in a crowd in Jersey is a common thing. I can’t lie when I was in my early teens even though I went to high school and hanged out with friends I still felt alone. My family for one wasn’t a big family. My father was always at work breaking his back to feed us. Just by observing my dad, he worked all his life without a single enjoyment. I felt like is that what life has to offer. On top of all that my brother and sister were quarreling all the time. My sister ran away from home at the age of 16. We used to live right by the Housing Projects were crime and drugs were a norm. So everything was terrible. Living in an environment where you can’t talk to somebody about your problems, noticing everywhere you go it looks dirty and filthy. People not talking to you but always looking for problems. That and drugs can lead to Individual Isolation. I felt at times not being here because it wasn’t worth living at that type of environment.

4.Durkheim and Weber on religion:

A. Why is religion important?

Durkheim believed religion was important because, “Durkheim then moved from the definition of religion to its function in society, which is to create a set of sacred collective beliefs and practices which, through their unification of individual actions and beliefs, created cohesion in society” (pg. 81). America is a Protestant country that is deeply rooted in its Christianity beliefs. We go to church to get married and our work ethics also deals with our religion. Like the older generation they say stop being lazy and work hard for the things you want. Weber ask the existential questions:

A. Why are we born?

B. Why do we die?

C. What should our moral code be?

D. What is the meaning of the universe of our existence?

Weber also studied Calvinism and Puritanism. He believed that capitalism was rooted deeply into religion, especially Calvinism and Puritanism. The rules of not having any flesh pleasures, luxurious owned property. They taught that accumulation of wealth was God way of given you his blessing. They couldn’t spend their money on churches, houses, personal belongings, so they just accumulated money and made other people work for them. They figured that if they can help the next man work and get money, it will be a step to go to heaven.

B. How does religion differs?

What was different in Durkheim view was, “Of course Durkheim’s obverse point was that where the religious collective conscience became weak, the cohesiveness of society declined, yielding to an anomic crisis and social disorganization” (pg. 81). Back in the 1920’s till the 1050’s women wear dresses not jeans. The movies did not have any sex or violence in those times but now it the 1990’s it holds our attention and we crave for it. The anomie is in effect in modern times going into the next millennium. Every generation there has been a culture revolution. Of course religion is different because Puritanism and Calvinism is different from Protestantism. The Roman Catholic Church was corrupt. They were taking money from parishioners and telling them that there soul would be saved and sent to heaven if they gave a donation. Durkheim saw all this and said it was wrong but he realizes as well as Weber that there will be a decline of religion. Disenchantment with the world will happen. With the decline of religious belief in the modern world came both intellectual freedom and moral malaise.