Anomie

Anomie is a condition delineated by Émile Durkheim (1858–1917). It is closely related to his thinking on the collective conscience. The collective conscience, for Durkheim, represents the common morality, or more specifically, shared understandings, beliefs, norms, and values. In mechanical solidarity, it was strong and was a powerful binding force on people, but it has come to be weakened with the transition to organic solidarity. When this common morality is weakened, one of the things that happens is that people become unclear as to what is appropriate and what is inappropriate behavior; they feel a sense of normlessness and rootlessness. In other words, this lack of clear moral guidelines leaves people with a sense of anomie. Thus, anomie is a condition associated with organic solidarity and with the decline in the power of the collective conscience.

Durkheim's ([1897] 1951) most practical application of the concept of anomie is found in his classic study of suicide. Durkheim argued that there are four types of suicide—egoistic, altruistic, anomic, and fatalistic—which are determined by the individual's level of integration into and regulation by society. Anomic suicide is most likely to occur when the regulative ability of society is disrupted, when the level of regulation by society on the individual is reduced or is low. During such times, the collective conscience, or the level of collective moral restraint, is weakened, and the passions of the individual are allowed to simply run free with little or no constraint. These individual passions then come to rule the lives of individuals, leading them to a wide range of destructive actions, including suicide, that they might not otherwise commit.

A negative event, such as an economic depression, can lead to heightened levels of anomie. For example, losing one's job for a lengthy period of time, with little prospect of ever recovering it or one like it, can obviously lead to anomie. However, it is important to note that anomie is not precipitated only by negative events. “Positive” events can also lead to a sense of normlessness for individuals who experience them. For example, an economic boom can also radically alter one's sense of what is normal and hence leave one struggling to adjust to a new lifestyle and a new set of norms. Thus, because times are so good, one might change employers, jobs, or even careers, and such changes can also lead to anomie.

Durkheim viewed anomie, and the other problems of the modern world, as pathologies that are not permanent, but rather temporary abnormalities of the social world. Unlike the revolutionary attitude taken by many more radical theorists such as Marx, the far more conservative Durkheim was more concerned with “curing” society than he was in revolutionizing it. This role of a social reformer led Durkheim to propose a number of potential solutions to the social pathology of anomie. He believed that the most important of these involved the role to be played by occupational associations. He saw these associations as being able to bring workers, managers, and owners together into a single, unified group and thus help to restore the collective sense of a common morality. This strengthening of the collective conscience would lead to a decline in the condition of anomie and hence offer a potential “cure.”

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