Sociological study
The main irony in Durkheim's Suicide is that he studies suicide in a social light. Suicide, which is an extremely personal act triggered by various reasons, such as shattering of goals, breaking of social relations, is instead studied in the context of social factors. Durkheim does not attribute suicide to personal factors in the book, but rather discusses these as a result of social functioning. He did not study individual suicides, bath rather studied a society's aggregate tendency towards suicide, i.e. he identified the social causes behind the act of suicide.
For instance, in his book, he observed the rates of suicide between the Catholics and Protestants, and found that due to the higher rate of social cohesion, order, stability, regulation, the suicide rates amongst Catholics were lower than that of the Protestants, which offers less regulation when compared to the Catholics. He did not study the orientations and teachings of these religions and how these effect suicide, rather, he studied the social phenomenon of integration in both these religions. and how this effected suicide rates.
Suggestions
In his book Suicide, which discusses the different types of suicide and its causes, Durkheim has been criticized for not providing any probable solutions to curb the rate of suicide. This is seen as ironic, for the book discusses suicide, but fails to provide any solutions to the act.
Findings and examples
Another ironic element in Durkheim's Suicide is the contradiction of his findings to general common sense. While studying suicide, Durkheim studied the rates and patterns of suicide between men, women, people of different religions and peace and war time rates of suicide.
These findings contradict what the reader would generally believe before reading this book. For instance, Durkheim found that the rate of suicide is higher amongst Protestants than Catholics and Jews. This is because Catholics have a stronger and more rigid structure and set of rules. This is ironic for one is most likely to believe that Protestantism, which allows more individuality and freedom leads to less suicide as people can be as they like. However, he found that due to the strong sense of belonging and abidance by the rules, Catholicism produces lesser suicide rates.
Another such finding is that of countries during war time and peace. Durkheim found that during war time, the suicide rates are lower compared to when the people are at war. This is because the people have a common objective and a stronger "we-feeling" during war-time. This is ironic because we assume that during times of peace, suicide would be less due to less death and destruction.
