Social Anomie

A state of uncertainty and alienation in a society resulting from the absence of values and standards of behavior. Deriving from the Greek anomos (a, “lacking in” + nomos, “law”), anomie (or anomy) in its current use comes from the sociologist Émile Durkheim, who in Suicide (1897) describes an anomic society as lacking the norms, consensus, and goals exhibited by integrated societies. It results in feelings of alienation from the community and from oneself and feelings of helplessness. Any sudden change in social circumstances (good or bad) brings on a crisis and the disruption of prior value systems and shared expectations. Poverty at least protects individuals by forcing them to partially align their aspirations with their reduced resources. Affluence, however, lifts all the restraints on desires and goals inculcated by social means and conditioning. With infinite goals, no progress ever seems to be made, and disenchantment is inevitable. Anomic suicide removes the study of the phenomenon from the domain of individual moral weakness or illness and into structural terms as an indication of societal dysfunction or abnormality. In his analysis of society as the external regulative force that defines the individual's moral horizon of proper aspiration and desire, Durkheim adopts a Hobbesian view of human nature, which claims that because there is no “natural” term for human aspiration, it must be socially constructed and regulated. For Durkheim, earlier societies enjoyed solidarity through shared religion, the need for cooperation owing to the relative low density of the population, and fear of reprisal from repressive laws, but in the wake of secularism, economic materialism, and industrialization, anomie pervades modern society. Unfair division of labor alienates individuals even further, rendering any sense of the common good a meaningless abstraction. Edvard Munch's painting The Scream (1893), contempora neous with Durkheim's work, visualizes the wordless horror, distorted vision, and alienation of modern exist ence. Samuel Beckett's play En Attendant Godot (Waiting for Godot, 1948–1949) sums up the dislocation between individuals, between humans and their environment, and between actions and meaningful goals.

The American sociologist Robert King Merton builds on the ideas of Durkheim to measure the reactions (from conformist to deviant) to anomic conditions brought about by the unbridgeable gap between desired goals (whether individual or common) and the means for achieving them. Faced with such discrepancy, individuals respond variously: by conforming to legitimate available means to attain goals; by retreating from both means and goals; by rebellion against the means, the goals, or both; by resorting to crime or other illegitimate means to achieve goals; by ritual conformity to acceptable means and simultaneous forfeiture of one's goals. The last two responses express anomie most purely in that in both cases the discrepancy between means and ends is at its bleakest. For more information, see Beckett (1954/1994) and Durkheim (1897/1997).