Anomie

1800s: Martineau · Tocqueville · Marx · Spencer · Le Bon · Ward · Pareto · Tönnies · Veblen · Simmel · Durkheim · Addams · Mead · Weber · Du Bois · Mannheim · Elias In sociology, anomie or anomy (/ˈænəmi/) is a social condition defined by an uprooting or breakdown of any moral values, standards or guidance for individuals to follow.

[4] The term, commonly understood to mean normlessness, is believed to have been popularized by French sociologist Émile Durkheim in his influential book Suicide (1897).

He contrasted this with the self-regulating behaviour of a division of labour based on differences in constituency, equated to organic solidarity, whose lack of inertia made it sensitive to needed changes.

More specifically, its resistance to change causes disruptive cycles of collective behavior (e.g. economics) due to the necessity of a prolonged buildup of sufficient force or momentum to overcome the inertia.

Conversely, he states that the Catholic faith binds individuals together and builds strong social ties, decreasing the risk of suicide and alienation.

[12] The term anomie—"a reborrowing with French spelling of anomy"[13]—comes from Ancient Greek: anomía (ἀνομία, 'lawlessness'),[14][15] namely the privative alpha prefix (a-, 'without'), and nomos (νόμος, 'law').

In the original city state democracy, the majority rule was an aspect of arché because it was a rule-based, customary system, which may or may not make laws, i.e. nomos.

However, as used by Émile Durkheim and later theorists, anomie is a reaction against or a retreat from the regulatory social controls of society, and is a completely separate concept from anarchy, which consists of the absence of the roles of rulers and submitted.

Furthermore, he argued that the division of labor that had been prevalent in economic life since the Industrial Revolution led individuals to pursue egoistic ends rather than seeking the good of a larger community.

According to Soltero and Saravia, the rise of Protestantism is conversationally claimed to be caused by a Catholic failure to "address the spiritual needs of the poor" and the Protestant "deeper quest for salvation, liberation, and eternal life".

Indeed, Peterson (2001:30) argues that in El Salvador, "progressive Catholic communities offer many women support, both material and moral, for their efforts to cope with domestic problems such as a husband's departure or alcoholism.

Indeed, faith healing seems to be an important aspect of Protestant churches' attraction to believers (Chesnut 1997; Vizquez 1998), as well as the provision of a more traditional kind of medical assistance to the public (Smith 1998).

[21][22] Using Émile Durkheim's concept of social solidarity and collective consciousness,[21] Adler defined synnomie as "a congruence of norms to the point of harmonious accommodation".

In Albert Camus's existentialist novel The Stranger, Meursault—the bored, alienated protagonist—struggles to construct an individual system of values as he responds to the disappearance of the old.

In The Ink Black Heart of the Cormoran Strike novels, written by J. K. Rowling under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, the main antagonist goes by the online handle of "Anomie".