Anomie

In sociology, anomie or anomy () is a social condition defined by an uprooting or breakdown of any moral values, standards, or guidance for individuals to follow. Anomie is believed to possibly evolve from conflict of belief systems and causes breakdown of social bonds between an individual and the community (both economic and primary socialization). The term, commonly understood to mean normlessness, is believed to have been popularized by French sociologist Émile Durkheim in his influential book Suicide (1897). Émile Durkheim suggested that Protestants exhibited a greater degree of anomie than Catholics. However, Durkheim first introduced the concept of anomie in his 1893 work The Division of Labour in Society. Durkheim never used the term normlessness; rather, he described anomie as "derangement", and "an insatiable will." Durkheim used the phrase "the malady of the infinite" because desire without limit can never be fulfilled; it only becomes more intense. For Durkheim, anomie arises more generally from a mismatch between personal or group standards and wider social standards, or from the lack of a social ethic, which produces moral deregulation and an absence of legitimate aspirations, i.e.: [A]nomie is a mismatch, not simply the absence of norms. Thus, a society with too much rigidity and little individual discretion could also produce a kind of anomie ...