Nevertheless, membership of the activity gives rise to a specific form of behaviour which has been created and refined over a lengthy period of time in such a way as to cause people to follow precedents and to punish mavericks who try to break the norms or even change them. These forms of behaviour are interiorized by people to the extent that they may not even be aware of them or question why they should be followed. This is called habitus by Bourdieu. Habitus mean existing power structures are maintained and recreated in new generations and iterations. The uneven distribution of capital leads to a pyramid form of hierarchy and the interiorized behaviours mean the only way to climb up the pyramid is to follow the habitus, the rules of the game.

Bourdieu further argued that it is the constant struggle between different fields of activity that provide the differing nature of various states at different periods of history. A country such as France, for example, is more strongly influenced by philosophical discourse and practice than are the Anglo-Saxon countries, where the field of economics is dominant and therefore provides the principal means of rising to the top of society.

Inevitably, therefore, people and organisations at the top of the pyramid have powerful incentives to maintain the existing power relations and, to do that, they need to persuade people below that there is something ‘natural’ or even ‘virtuous’ about the system they inhabit. Rich people in America, for example, claim that they work harder than other people, create jobs and so forth and that poor people are feckless, lazy, incompetent and so forth (which is why the American people sends so many poor people to prison, so as to back up the lies that support the rich). Clerics in religious-dominated societies demonstrate that they are (often literally) holier than thou and that some invisible big brother living in the sky has appointed them to positions of power and instructs everyone else to do as they are ordered or else going to hell forever.

First, a sociology essays should have a sociological perspective. What exactly does it mean? It involves the use of sociological theories to understand and explain the social world; it allows the writer to question assumptions and look at the social world as an object of scientific study; and it uses sociological concepts and terminology in the discussion. A sociological perspective, when used in the essay translates to being able to stand outside of one’s social world and look at it from a different point of view in order to look at it objectively as one does in a scientific study. In order to achieve this, the student will be applying the three previously mentioned characteristics of a sociological perspective because:

• Sociological theory is referred to in order to understand social phenomena. There are three main strands in sociological theory: Functionalism, Marxism and Critical Theory, and Symbolic Interactionism. These are further branched out into various combinations and subgroups. One of the functions of sociologists is to examine social interactions and institutions in terms of the social power and political forces influencing it. Politics is involved because it explains who has the power over others, who controls what, who does not have it. These social factors then shape or determine to some extent the behaviors of a group or individual.

• The student will have to question his or her own preconceived notions, ideas and assumptions. In order to better understand the sociological nature of other groups to which the researcher does not belong, he or she needs to be able to momentarily step outside his or her own ideological framework and see everyday and ordinary things to him as unfamiliar so the student can make it an object of a scientific study.

• The student will apply sociological concepts and terminology into familiar phenomena. Every field of study has its own jargon, which experts in this field use to describe or give meaning to phenomena. Students will have to familiarize themselves with the terminologies used in the study of sociology before they are able to explore a particular question. In addition to terms used exclusively in Sociology, there are also common words which are assigned different meanings when used in the context of Sociology.

Sociology Movie Analysis

By Jason Toby

What does society define as success? For many, it’s the “American Dream,” a happy vision of a healthy marriage, a nice house, kids, and of course, lots of money. It’s this shared value of financial success that drives the consumer based society of America.  In the movie Fight Club, based on a novel of the same name, we are quickly introduced to the negative side of this intrinsic lifestyle through the unnamed narrator, played by Edward Norton. His character is a depressed, upper-middle class, office worker who spends his time on earth working to buy things that he doesn’t need. He has no close relationships with anyone. He simply goes to work to buy more things. The film follows his story through a dark, sinister portrait of our consumer based society, and carries a very clear anti-establishment message. The movie also touches on concepts from sociology, mainly crime and deviance, but also on the very nature of our social structure. Despite an overall violent tone, with emphasis on the negatives of society and humanity, the message in The Fight Club is to follow your heart and be who you want to be, not what society tells you to be. Or else, as the narrator describes: “The things you own end up owning you.”

The story begins with the main character, played by Edward Norton, narrating his life working for a large automotive firm, taking pictures of car accidents. He lives a bleak, unsatisfying life, and goes to support groups for testicular cancer although he doesn’t have the condition, because it helps him overcome his insomnia. Through that, he meets a strange woman named Marla, who he becomes acquaintances with. He soon meets a man named Tyler Durden on a plane flight, who he briefly talks to before returning back to his house. The narrator finds out that his apartment has been burned down, and he goes to a local bar with Tyler. Tyler tells him that he shouldn’t be so focused on his material possessions. They then decide to start a fight outside the bar. They decide to do this every week, with the main character staying at Tyler’s house. This quickly turns into a large club, which they call The Fight Club. Members of the club aren’t allowed to discuss the club with anyone, but new members come in constantly. Tyler starts to have a sexual relationship with Marla, after a late night call to the main character is picked up by him instead. Members of The Fight Club start coming to the house, to train for some unknown cause, and Tyler starts to commit random acts of deviance. He claims that it’s for the good of society, but the narrator grows suspicious. Tyler starts to disappear a lot, and when he finally is gone for good, the main character goes to find him. After chasing him for a couple weeks in various locations, he finds out that Tyler is actually an imaginary character of his own psyche, his alternate personality. At night, he becomes Tyler, and is powerless to control it. Tyler informs him that The Fight Club has evolved into “Project Mayhem,” a cult which extremely devout members commit acts of crime against society.In horror, the main character tries to stop this plan, ultimately ending up in the police center, which he finds out has been taken by Project Mayhem as well. He escapes from his own club members, and tries to sabotage the Project’s final mission, which is to blow up the offices of several large credit card companies, which he (as Tyler) actually planned himself. After a long fight with Tyler, he finally holds him at gunpoint, and tries to kill Tyler by shooting himself in the mouth, since they are the same person. Tyler is shown to fall to the ground, dead, while the main character lives. Marla and the gang members come, and they stand, holding hands, while the buildings around them explode and the movie ends.

The Fight Club is about many things. However, the first thing that struck me in the movie was its use of deviance. Deviance is described as behavior that violates cultural norms. The movie revolves around the deviant character of Tyler and his influence on society. Even before the fight club, Tyler is a mischievous member of the working class. He frequently pranks people in his various jobs, putting sexual images in children’s movies, peeing in food served at the hotel he works at, and stealing the fat that he uses to make in his soap. This behavior does not adhere to our social norms. He believes in chaos and the imperfections of humans, and he says “only after disaster can we be resurrected.” Despite this contrary social behavior, members of the Fight Club accumulate quickly. Tyler starts to assign them on missions of their own. This is an example of differential association, a part of the symbolic interactionist perspective that says being around deviant people causes an individual to become more deviant. This is evident in the first mission Tyler assigns the Fight Club members, where they have to go out and start a random fight in the streets, something that they probably wouldn’t have done on their own. The loyalty of the club members is similar to that of The Wave, from the movie we watched in class, and the idea of being part of something bigger gets them obsessed with what Tyler is saying. The movie explains this with a focus on a generation of unsatisfied young people, told they would be successful by mainstream society, and ending up in dumpy jobs they find little happiness in. They take out their rage about this through the fights in Fight Club, and committing acts of deviance.

The Fight Club itself is a prime example of a group, and eventually, a gang. When The Fight Club starts out, it is merely a secondary group. This is a group where a member only fulfills one function of their life, and doesn’t know the members intimately. This is illustrated in a scene when the main character starts to see club members in his day to day life, but only acknowledges their presence, never talking to them outside the club itself. In fact, the Fight Club is not allowed to be talked about. In one of the first official meetings of the club, Tyler states “The first rule of fight club is:  don’t talk about fight club. The second rule of fight club… don’t talk about fight club.” With an emphasis on secrecy, the club starts off as only fulfilling the function of giving the members an outlet to vent their rage and insecurities, and feel that they are in control of their own lives. However, it quickly evolves into something more. The Fight Club evolves into Project Mayhem, and the individuality of the club quickly disappears. They form an organization that shares a common identity and is dedicated to criminal activity, also known as a gang. The members of Project Mayhem are all extremely dedicated, and do whatever their leader says. They have very little social activity in their own lives, and find a new identity for themselves as part of this gang. The gang mentality illustrates irony in the movie; the gang members join to rebel against their lack of independence in society, but they lose their independence even more once they are part of the gang. Fight Club illustrates another sociological concept in the way the characters decide to rebel. Acts of rebellion, or a refusal of obedience and order, is another common theme of Fight Club. The people in the Fight Club, and later Project Mayhem, feel wronged by society, because they are all at the bottom of the social ladder and feel the higher status people are trying to keep them down. This also illustrates a common part of the conflict theorist perspective of sociology. This is illustrated when the gang is blackmailing a government worker who is threatening to investigate and shut down Project Mayhem, and Tyler says, “Look, the people you are after are the people you depend on: we cook your meals, we haul your trash, we connect your calls, we drive your ambulances, we guard you while you sleep. Do not f—k with us.” The tension between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ is a large part of the conflict theorist perspective, and of The Fight Club.

The Fight Club is a dark, bleak movie, where characters struggle to make their existence significant by beating the heck out of each other and committing acts of crime. However, in this desolate world, the emphasis is not on the violent nature of the plot, but the freedom of the human spirit, and overcoming society’s pressures so that you can be yourself.  The Fight Club is a breeding ground for deviance and crime, and illustrates many of the concepts I’ve learned in sociology. My knowledge of these concepts have allowed me to better understand the main themes of the movie. These characters are deviant because they are unsatisfied with the life they are living, and decide to break their cultural norms in order to achieve their desired lifestyle. Through this realization, I believe there is an overall positive message in the movie, that violence and destruction won’t bring you salvation, and you have to find the right balance of rebellion and conformity in order to truly find yourself.

On the economic update by Richard Wolff aired on  December 25, 2011 and on the article by Naomi Wolf titled “Is pornography driving men crazy?”; it was revealed the terrible impact of capitalist pornography and the effect on the people who consume and abuse this "products".

Basically it was said that pornography companies have one to extreme practice in order to maximize profits by attracting more costumers.  The individual who consume this pornography have become so dependant to this artificial sex that at the moment of have intimacy with an actual human, they cannot be effective in the sexual act.  The economic update went a step further into the problem of extreme pornography consumption.  It looks like men have an additional incentive to get hooked into extreme pornography.  The economic state has taken away the masculinity of many men, either by abusive employers, or even by underpayment or unemployment.  Therefore, these men feel that they feel taking some control by watching movies where women are subjugated and humiliated.

From my part, I have to say the economic problem with pornography affects also the movie performers themselves.  Women, finding themselves in a situation where there are no jobs, and the few jobs they find allow them just to live from pay check to pay check.  In this situation, some young women, and even experienced women  find very attractive the idea of working in porno movies. Afterwards, porno allows them the opportunity of working little time but for big income although this implies the lose of dignity.

In the case of the US, pornography also has social consequences.  In the US, pornography is legal, but prostitution is illegal, which makes no sense.  It is like here you have a pie, you can see the pie, you can smell the pie. but you cannot have the pie.  On top of that, in my opinion there is also a moral problem with the problem of allowing teenager performing in these movies.  If porno is going to be legal, the minimum age should be 23, or in the worst of the cases 21.

Tourism studies – because they think they would be able to travel to Hawaii or the Maldives for work

Design – because they are lazy and want to make things even lazier for themselves

Engineering – because they think they would be able build a Lightsaber

Management -because they want to get a job and earn money while sitting on their butts while telling people what to do

Accounting -because they want to do math but are still struggling with adding and subtracting

Finance – because they want money, lots of money

Computer science and information systems -because they watched the movie hackers, or because they think were good with computers thanks to daily uses of Facebook or MSN

Medicine – because they want to save the world and be rich and respected

Dentistry – because they want to be rich and respected

Physical therapy -because they could not get into medicine

Optometry – because they think the job is easy and makes them rich and respected

Nursing – because they are wanting to go to medicine or wants a job straight after graduating

Veterinary Science – because they want to be rich and respected but hate dealing with patients that can complain

Pharmacy – because they love drugs and they can get more drugs and make more drugs and consume more drugs. Oh and the money is pretty good too.

Public health – because they think they can save the world and thinks doing it one person at a time is too slow

Medical and health sciences – because they think they can get into medicine if they get a high enough GPA from this program

Kinesiology – because they are bullies and want to beat you at all sports

Architecture – because they want to build a building by sitting on their butts

Languages (any) – because they want to meet that cute girl or guy that speaks (insert language here)

Biology – because they think they can get into medicine if they get a high GPA in this program

Divinity and theology – because they have a calling (for little boys)

Religious Studies – because when they were little they saw something and is determined to find out what it was.

Linguistics – because they want to learn to speak

Film and television – because they watch too much film and television

Journalism – because they have lots to say about others

Literature – because they have too much to say about so someone told them to write a book

Library science -because they like collecting books but don’t really like to read

Music – because they think they could be the next famous musician

Music education – because they couldn’t be famous musicians

Drama – because they want to be the next Brad Pitt or Natalie Portman

Mortuary Science – because they are creeps

Philosophy – because they want to just sit, think, BS, be witty and sound smart while doing it

Psychology – because they think they can mess with people’s minds

Education – because they want to make other kids go through what they went through

Science with education – because they want to make other kids go through what they went through with hydrochloric acid

Forestry and agriculture – because mom and dad were farmers or lumberjacks

Political sciences – because they think they can become they next Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama

Economics – because they think they can learn about business with this major

Sociology – because they want to “people watch” for a job

Social work – because they want to help that hobo relative of theirs

Law -because they want to be a professional argue-person

Mathematics – because gambling becomes a lot more profitable

Urban and regional planning – because the government job deal sounds great and the thought of playing Sim City in real life is pretty awesome

Physics – because they think dungeons and dragons got boring

Chemistry – because they think making things go boom is fun

General – because they don’t know what to take

FAMILY

Of all the agents of socialization, the family is probably the most important. Although the form of the family varies from place to place in any society is primarily responsible for the socialization of children from birth to adulthood regardless. In the family, children develop physical skills such as walking, and intellectual skills of expression, mathematics and writing. The family is also important because it gives the child the location of the company. A child born to an aristocratic family are socialized in wealth, power and social acceptance, whereas a child born into a poor family to learn about daily survival, low wages and social rejection.

the school.

The school is the socialization agent responsible for the formal teaching of cognitive skills such as reading, writing, mathematics and history. The school is often the first introduction of children to a formal agent of socialization. While the family refers to the child as a unique individual, refer the school to the child as a student who is scheduled to meet objective standards, in accordance with common rules and behave like everyone else. The schools are training ground for their roles in the workplace, military and other bureaucracies where relationships are based on uniform criteria.

– Peer group

Sociologists have found that the group, which consists of friends who are about the same age and have the same status, is very influential in the development of the child’s behavior and values. Because children spend much time with their peers, giving the group a great deal of informal socializing. The influence of peers increases with age, peak during adolescence. Teenagers are forging their own identity and participation in a distinctive youth culture, to help them become independent from their parents and other adults.

Communication

The media refers to communication which is communicated to the public, without direct information or other contacts between the transmitters and receivers. While the cinema, radio, newspapers and books are part of the media, television is the dominant medium. Because the media is so widespread, many observers fear that children and adults socialized in a world that does not exist. The amount of violence on TV is a source of concern. At the time of adolescence for children who have witnessed thousands of murders of fiction, rape, armed robbery and assault. Current research tends to support the thesis that television violence contributes to aggressive behavior in children.
Although the media is easily criticized, saying their impact on behavior is not easy. We do not want to absorb everything you see or hear. Instead, choose a medium and the message to suit their own purposes and look for programs that appeal to our experience.

religion

In any society, religion is an important source of own address. Values ​​and moral principles of religious doctrine to provide guidance on the roles and behavior.

Workplace

Most of us spend a significant portion of our adult life working outside of the salary. Communities where we work, but they are very different. Some of us work with machines, some with ideas, some people work with others, much is impersonal, boring, and regulated by clocks, but some are very personal, ambitious and flexible.

Source: # Http: / / www.shvoong.com/social-sciences/sociology/2045398-agents-socialization/ ixzz1ik2XG9Qu

The Path To The Stars

By Dougal Mac Gregor

This booklet is a compilation of thoughts, reflections, and advices. This booklet is meant to help you understand the world around you better, arrive at better decisions, enhance the quality of your life, and ultimately find and complete your dreams. Please read each thought carefully, and take the time to mentally digest and understand it. Read them as many times as necessary for you to comprehend the message behind them. But most importantly; question everything, including that which is written here, and that which you take for granted or fact. You must never accept any one idea as the ultimate truth or fact; you may arrive at being 99.99% sure about an idea, but never accept it as 100% fact.

11. Objective or Subjective?

Something is subjective when it is based on personal interpretation, in other words, an opinion. Opinions are often things that cannot yet be measured.

Something is objective if it is not dependent on people’s perception, in other words, a fact. Facts are usually measurable in one way or another, and they are always perceived by everyone.

An example of a subjective thing is “cuteness”, because something can be attractive to person A but not to person B. This may change if we develop a means of categorizing and measuring things by how attractive they are based on some kind of rule or condition.

An example of an objective thing is “weight”, because weight is the same regardless of how it is perceived by each person. Additionally, weight can be measured and categorized regardless of people’s perception.

Advice: It may be difficult, but always remember the difference between objectiveness and subjectivity, and consider whether something is subjective or objective.

Taken from Dougal Mac Gregor’s “The Path To The Stars”.

The Path To The Stars

By Dougal Mac Gregor

This booklet is a compilation of thoughts, reflections, and advices. This booklet is meant to help you understand the world around you better, arrive at better decisions, enhance the quality of your life, and ultimately find and complete your dreams. Please read each thought carefully, and take the time to mentally digest and understand it. Read them as many times as necessary for you to comprehend the message behind them. But most importantly; question everything, including that which is written here, and that which you take for granted or fact. You must never accept any one idea as the ultimate truth or fact; you may arrive at being 99.99% sure about an idea, but never accept it as 100% fact.

10. Illusion; Perception Makes Reality.

An illusion is something one or more people believe to be true, when in fact it is likely to be false or deceiving. To understand illusions better, we can make reference to the analogy of the realities in topic 9;

You are inside your house in your living room which has a window with a view of huge grasslands and mountains far away. Your neighbor is also inside his house in his living room which also has a window looking in the same direction. The view that you have of the outside may be very similar to the one your neighbor has, but it can never be identical. Say for example, that you are watching a large beautiful tree, which your neighbor can also see but from a slightly different angle. The tree happens to cover from your sight an ugly windmill that stand further behind. Your neighbor can see the windmill because the tree does not cover it from him as it does for you. This means that your neighbor is aware of the existence of the ugly windmill, while you are oblivious to it because you can’t see it, because the tree is on the way from your perspective.

Here the illusion is the tree blocking your view of the windmill. Although usually an illusion represents something that is real in your head but is not real in the external world, in this case the illusion is based on the tree which is a real object. For you, there is no ugly windmill because you cannot see it; therefore you have the illusion that there is only a beautiful panorama. However, your neighbor can see the windmill, so he is aware that the panorama is not as beautiful as you perceive it. The tree represents an illusion to you, but not to your neighbor, and because you cannot see the windmill, even if your neighbor tells you about it, you are unlikely to believe him it is there.

People often think that if something is not perceived by anyone it means it does not exist. Much like the question of “If a tree in a forest falls but no one is close by to hear it, does this mean that the sound of the collapsing tree does not exist? ” This is flawed thinking; and it goes hand in hand with the topic of Illusions. We perceive the external world with our senses, but people mistakenly think it works the other way around and assume that the only things that exist are the ones he can perceive through his senses. It is much more accurate to say that things exist whether we perceive them or not, the external world is independent to our perception, while our perception is totally dependent on the external world.

However, today’s human society is so unaware of this structure that people live in mirror worlds rather than the real one, and you can be easily judged insane by people who do not perceive something that you may be perceiving. For this reason, even if your senses are more developed, or if you can somehow perceive things that others cannot, it is safer for you to pretend that something that you perceive but others don’t does not exist. Especially since it is now widely known that our brains can malfunction and our minds can trick us by creating things in our minds that are not really there in the external world (like schizophrenia), and for this reason people automatically think your brain is malfunctioning if you perceive something they don’t and they call you insane, even if that is not the case.

This is how society works:

If everyone can see, or hear, or smell, or taste, or touch, or feel it, then it is real. If it cannot be perceived by multiple people, then it is not real.

This is how it should really work:

If everyone can sense (see, hear, smell etc.) it, then it is probably real.

If only one person can sense it, then it might not be real, but it could still be.

If no one can perceive it, it might not exist, but it could still exist.

Advice: Be wary, people do not see the world as you see it, and vice versa. If you detect things others do not, you should seek methods of verifying that what you perceive is real in the external world, such as finding other people who can also detect it. Because if you remain the only person able to perceive something; you risk not only being tagged as insane, but being in fact tricked by your mind. By the same reason, always take into consideration what others perceive and not only what you perceive, because they might be able to perceive something you yet can’t (illusion).

Taken from Dougal Mac Gregor’s “The Path To The Stars”.

The Path To The Stars

By Dougal Mac Gregor

This booklet is a compilation of thoughts, reflections, and advices. This booklet is meant to help you understand the world around you better, arrive at better decisions, enhance the quality of your life, and ultimately find and complete your dreams. Please read each thought carefully, and take the time to mentally digest and understand it. Read them as many times as necessary for you to comprehend the message behind them. But most importantly; question everything, including that which is written here, and that which you take for granted or fact. You must never accept any one idea as the ultimate truth or fact; you may arrive at being 99.99% sure about an idea, but never accept it as 100% fact.

9. Realities

For each person, there are at least three kinds of realities; the one in their head, the external one in which we all live, and the one in everyone else’s head. However, most people live their daily lives convinced that there is only one reality, they claim it to be the one we all live in, usually unaware that the reality that they are referring to is in fact the one in their head rather than the external one we all live in. Because people do not put enough thought to the matter, they just go about taking for granted what happens in their head thinking that it is the external world.

To help you understand this very confusing topic, visualize the following:

You are inside your house in your living room which has a window with a view of huge grasslands and mountains far away. Your neighbor is also inside his house in his living room which also has a window looking in the same direction. The view that you have of the outside may be very similar to the one your neighbor has, but it can never be identical. Say for example, that you are watching a large beautiful tree, which your neighbor can also see but from a slightly different angle. The tree happens to cover from your sight an ugly windmill that stand further behind. Your neighbor can see the windmill because the tree does not cover it from him as it does for you. This means that your neighbor is aware of the existence of the ugly windmill, while you are oblivious to it because you can’t see it, because the tree is on the way from your perspective.

In this analogy we have several things happening:

There are three realities going on; the one you see from inside your living room, the one your neighbor sees from his perspective, and the external one outside. In other words; the one in your head, the one in your neighbor’s head, and the external reality which is in no one’s head. It is difficult to judge which reality is more real, because they may all be equally as real. However, it may be safe to assume that since the realities in our head cannot exist without the external one, perhaps we can say that the external reality is “the real one”, because the reality in our head is merely a projection of the external one that we get through our senses.

Another thing to point out in this analogy is that the tree that blocks your view from the windmill can resemble an illusion. See Illusion; Perception Makes Reality.

Subjective matters are usually making reference to the reality in our head, while Objective matters often make reference to the external reality. See Objective or Subjective?.

Advice: It is difficult, but try to always keep in mind that each head, including yours, is a different reality from each other and from the external one. It could be safe to assume that the external world is “the real one”, even though we may never be able to completely know what it is like exactly.

Taken from Dougal Mac Gregor’s “The Path To The Stars”.

            Suicide is the act of deliberately ending one’s life. This act has been examined in numerous settings and societies. Suicide is commonly defined by modern society as being deviant act. The act of taking one’s life or attempting to take one’s life is seen as contradictory to the concept of self-preservation. The causes for individuals to commit suicide have been attributed to reasons such as despair, mental disorders, alcoholism, drug abuse, financial difficulties, and troubles with interpersonal relationships.

Suicide, as with many other deviant acts, is more easily understood when examined in the context of the particular society that it occurs. The U.S. military can be seen as a unique society that is separate from the civilian society of the United States. The U.S. military has its own unique customs, courtesies, stresses, and norms. The mindset of an individual in the military is also greatly different from the mindset of an individual in the civilian society.

Scoville, Gubata, Potter, White, and Pearse (2007) found the rate of suicides per 100,000 persons in the military ranged from 9.0 to 15.0 between the 1980 and 2004. According to CDC (as cited in Martin et al., 2009), suicide was the third most common cause of death of individuals between the ages of seventeen and twenty-six in the military. In comparison, suicide is the eleventh leading cause of death among the civilian population. Since the military is a unique society, one can determine that the differences for suicide being more prevalent could be contributed to some of the sociological differences between the military and the civilian society. 

Military suicides during times of war show two particular trends that are embedded into the military culture. Some examples relate to the culture of honor that is associated with military service. These examples can be explained as suicides of self-sacrifice to allow many others the chance to live and continue living. This type of suicide can be seen in the example of an individual diving onto a grenade to save the lives of his comrades. Another type of suicide can be seen as an act of avoiding defeat. The Samurai warrior falling onto his sword instead of surrendering to an enemy demonstrates this type of suicide. The themes of gaining honor and avoiding dishonor emerge as trends in the examples of battlefield suicides. During peacetimes, suicide still occurs more often in the military culture than in the civilian society.

The tendency to preserve honor that is embedded into the military culture during wartime carries over into the peacetime military operations. Suicide during peacetime is seen as a more deviant act than suicide during combat. Death and loss tend to be expected more during war than peace. Due in part to the fatalism that is prevalent during war, military personnel are primed to consider suicide as a more logical choice than alternative choices. The higher rate of suicides in the military can be explained through Strain Theory and Labeling Theory. The two theories build on each other to provide an understanding of how service members decide to deviate by committing suicide.

The Strain of the Military

            Strain Theory explains how individuals will conform, innovate, retreat, rebel, or become ritualistic. The decision of what course of action to take depends on their acceptance of and their ability to achieve societal goals. Joining the military has been as an option for people when they have no place else to go. In relation to the goals of civilian life, joining the military can be seen as a method of innovation because it is different than the traditional methods of achieving societal goals. The young individuals perceive that they do not have access to the traditional means of effectively achieving the societal goal of being successful in civilian society through the routes of college or civilian employment. Due to this deficiency, recruits decide that they must join the military and separate themselves from the civilian society to achieve the goal of being successful. Due to this first experience of innovation, individuals have already experienced a state of frustration in relation to the goal that was provided by society.

The inability to conform causes the individuals to be more accepting of suicide as a solution to relieve the frustrations they experience in failing to become successful in the military society. The stress related to military goals pushes the individual to have to resort to more drastic measures if goals are seen as not capable of being obtained through the means that are provided by the military culture. As a result of these new stresses, the individual may develop a sense of hopelessness. Several individuals join the military due situations that are perceived as moments of desperation caused by the strain of goal attainment in the civilian society. If they feel that the military solution does not allow them to achieve societal goals, hopelessness occurs as a response to the repeated frustrations in goal attainment.

Martin, Ghahramanlou-Holloway, Lou, and Tucciarone (2009) listed two of the major factors that increased the risk of suicide as hopelessness and stress. The reactions to the stress of civilian society’s expectations of what is required to be successful can be explained by Strain Theory. The individuals will innovate by joining the military when a significant degree of stress is placed upon them in their civilian lives. In their military lives, similar stress occurs when the individual perceives that failure threatens their ability to achieve the goals associated with the military culture. Hopelessness results as a reaction to the later frustration because the individual believes that they have exhausted all their options to attain success if they do not achieve the goals required by the military culture. This is because they have experienced perceived failure to achieve goals in both the civilian and military cultures. The military served as the escape from frustrations caused by the individual’s inability to achieve the goals of the civilian culture prior to joining the military. In relation to the frustrations that the individuals later experience in the military, suicide serves as the escape from frustrations as opposed to reverting back to the means of goal attainment that was present in the civilian culture. A return to the civilian means would be perceived as a continuation of failure to achieve societal goals for the individual due to the prior experiences of the individual in the civilian society.

The individual was unable to conform successfully using the available means of civilian society. The individual was then unable to innovate successfully using the means made available through the military culture. As a result, he decides that he does not wish live without achieving the societal goals. Instead, the individual chooses to retreat from society by committing suicide. He discards all means provided by both cultures and discards the goals of both cultures. He feels hopeless in his situation and commits suicide. This is seen as his attempt to retreat from society and as a way of ending his frustrations with goal attainment.

The Labels of Weakness

In consideration of the hopelessness element, one could consider suicide to simply be a way of crying out for help to better one’s situation. However, attempts and threats of suicide are more often seen as being cries for help than the successful completions of suicide. Hoge, Auchterlonie, and Milliken (as cited in Martin et al., 2006) found that 1.3% of Marines returning from Iraq anonymously reported having ideations of suicide. This means of the 1,300 per 100,000 had ideations of suicide. Unfortunately, many of these service members did not seek help due to the stigma associated with suicide. The stigma is seen as an individual who asks for help due to the stigma of their ideations being seen as weakness or incompetency. The person who asks for such help is labeled as being not worthy of acceptance in the military culture. This stigma magnifies the sense of hopelessness because the individuals feel that they have nowhere to turn for help.

Military officials have publicly made several attempts to remove the stigma associated with getting help. Educational programs on suicide prevention have been implemented to remove the stigma associated with getting help. These programs have aimed to reduce the occurrences of suicide by promoting opportunities for individuals to get help without fear of the associated stigma.  Unfortunately, the stigma of being label as weak still prevents individuals from getting the help that they need to cope with the stress and feelings of hopelessness that lead to suicide. This is because the label and stigma have been solidly embedded in the culture and thought processes of individuals.

The military does utilize Labeling Theory in their evaluation processes. Individuals are regularly evaluated based on their military performance. These evaluations for enlisted members are not simply evaluations of the end results of their work performance. They are evaluated on several dimensions of how they exist as a human being. These evaluations cross from evaluating the service members’ professional life to evaluating their personal behaviors such competency, personal hygiene, and their home life. The evaluations and reports serve to label the individual as being among the best, fully capable, or marginal. These labels tend to follow the individual for years and are very difficult to change. Therefore, someone that is evaluated as being marginal is labeled as being not only a marginal service member but a marginal human being. Therefore, the threat of living with such a deviant label creates stresses on the individual because the labels tend to be permanent. These stresses causes such turmoil in the individual that suicide comes into their thoughts as the only way of escape from the consequences of such labels.

Discussion

Strain Theory and Labeling Theory build on each other to magnify the risk of suicide in the military. The two theories complement each other in producing a combined view of how the military creates increased stress upon individuals. Both of the theories focus on stress as a cause of suicide. Stress is caused by society’s focus on success in the Strain Theory, and it is explained in Labeling Theory as the result of the labels caused by failing to achieve societal goals. The two theories combine to give a structured view of how an individual reaches the solution of suicide and how suicide appears as a better solution to frustrations created by difficulties in achieving goals than alternative options.

The theories have some differences in their explanations. The Strain Theory addresses how the pressures are originally created by previous decisions in the individual’s life to innovate away from the traditional civilian means of achieving societal goals. In doing so, this theory assumes that the individual comes from a society in which joining the military is not an action of conformity. This could be inaccurate if joining the military is a normal means of goal attainment. Labeling theory is different than Strain Theory because it addresses how the titles that are assigned to individuals who deviate from what is expected in military society affect the individual. These labels are possible threats to the individual’s concept of self that causing him to resort to patterns of thinking that lead to suicide. Labeling Theory also addresses why the individual chooses suicide instead of alternatives such as seeking help with stresses. Labeling Theory shows how the threat of a deviant label can lead one to commit other deviants in order to avoid certain labels. It serves to explain the consequences that result from the titling of individuals in a society as being marginal or unsuccessful in some way.

Conclusion

            In conclusion, Strain Theory sets the stage for what is expected of an individual and shows how an individual can be push into the stressful situations associated with suicidal tendencies in the military. Labeling Theory narrows the focus of the stress on the individual and makes it less likely for the individual to choose alternate options than suicide. The pressures of labeling result in the feeling of hopelessness that is the other primary feeling that is typically associated with suicide. The combination of the theories defines clear pathways that one must follow to be successful in society and not be labeled as being deviant. If the goals of the society cannot be reach once the individual has innovated by joining the military instead of utilizing the civilian means of success, the individual develops the feeling of hopelessness and resorts to suicide in order to avoid other labels of deviance that are perceived as perpetual titles for the individual.         

            To greatly reduce the numbers of suicides in the military, societal changes would need to occur. The stigma associated with seeking help would need to change to an acceptance of individuals who seek help. This would need to happen not just on the macro level of policy- making but also on the micro level that exists in the daily lives of individuals. The stigma of the military being a last resort has contributed greatly to the issue of suicide. If it is not seen as a last resort for individuals, the ideation of suicide as the solution to the failure of achieving military goals would decrease. This decrease in the ideation of suicide would also reduce the number of successful suicides in the military.