He argued that the common factor behind
all these observations was that those groups who were most suicidal
were also less well socially integrated and experienced greater ambiguity
about how to behave and what is right and wrong. He theorized that one
of the explanations for suicidal behavior was a sense of normlessness a disconnectedness of individuals from their social world. Of course,
there may have been other ways of accounting for these observations but
at least Durkheim's explanation was consistent with the facts.