Anomie

The Earliest Use of the Concept

In its earliest form,anomia, it is perhaps first found in the writings of the Sophists in ancient Greece of the 5th century BC. These writings draw attention to the breakdown of traditional norms or rules of behavior in the society as well as the attempts of philosophers and others to find systematic answers to the social problems that resulted. The Sophists argued that the breakdown of norms was a condition of anomia, which led to distrust and asocial feelings at the individual level and civil strife and war at the societal level. Opposed to the moral relativism that characterized Sophistic teaching, Plato, around the same time, also argued that anomia was undesirable; indeed, in the world of moral absolutes to which he adhered, he identified anomia with injustice, anarchy, and disorder.

Anomia reemerged in the Greek Old Testament around the 3rd century BCE as a translation for about 20 different Hebrew words that corresponded to English terms such aswickedness, evil, sin, andiniquity. Anomia was seen as a general moral term and the polar opposite of moral law. In the New Testament, the meaning of the term was extended to include unbelief and the rejection of Christ as the son of God. It was one half of the duality of good and evil.

Largely absent from writings in the Middle Ages, the term was taken up again in the Renaissance. In 17th-century England, the anglicizedanomy was discussed in the context of legal and religious matters. Its first use was by William Lambarde, an Elizabethan jurist who saw anomy as the outcome of the lack of normative standards and the absence of shared norms, which would result in disorder, doubt, and uncertainty. Renaissance English theologians were also discussants of the idea. Anglican thinkers argued that reason was the source of moral activity and that freedom of the will was the basis of morality. Anomy resulted when the human intellect was overcome by original sin. By the end of the 17th century, however, the concept of anomy was disappearing from religious discourse, and it was not until two centuries later that the moral dimension was appropriated, asanomie, by 19th-century French social philosophers.

Early Sociological Approaches to Anomie

Credit for the first use of the term in a sociological sense is commonly given to Émile Durkheim. However, it has been noted by Robert Merton, Marco Orrù, and Anthony Giddens that in his use of the concept, Durkheim drew upon and extended the work of the French philosopher and sociologist Jean-Marie Guyau. Guyau saw the increasing industrialization of social life of the 19th century as accompanied by an increasing autonomy and individualization of morality and moral rules as well as a decline in traditional religion. These changes led to increasing anomie, which was to be considered not as an evil or an illness of modern time but as its distinguishing quality. Whereas many social thinkers were concerned about the threat to the social order brought about by the Industrial Revolution, the risk of moral anomie was the challenge of the new era, rather than a threat to it, Guyau claimed.

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