Anomie

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈæn.ə.mi/

Definitions

1. A state of social instability and personal unrest resulting from a breakdown of standards and values in society
2. A condition of social disorganization characterized by the absence of clear norms, values, and regulatory standards that leaves individuals feeling disconnected and purposeless
3. The psychological and social disorder arising when established moral codes and collective guidelines dissolve, leaving people without meaningful direction or belonging

Etymology: Émile Durkheim did not invent the word anomie, but he gave it the meaning it carries today. The term reached French from ancient Greek, where "anomía" meant "lawlessness," built from "ánomos" ("lawless"), which combines the negating prefix "a-" ("not") with "nómos" ("law"). The Greek sense was blunt: a state of having no laws or no respect for them. Durkheim, the French sociologist, took the word into the social sciences in the late nineteenth century. In his work on suicide and social cohesion, he used it to describe a condition in which a society's norms break down, leaving people without clear guidance on what is expected of them. Individuals in such a state can feel adrift, their desires unbounded and their sense of purpose eroded. Durkheim's usage turned a fairly ordinary Greek word into a technical concept, and the English sense of "lack of social rules" follows his lead. The shift is from a judgment about lawbreaking to a description of a whole society losing its shared standards.

Synonyms: alienation, normlessness