Anomie

Anomie (/ˈænəˌmi/) is a 'condition in which society provides little moral guidance to individuals'. This evolves from conflict of belief systems and causes breakdown of social bonds between an individual and the community (both economic and primary socialization). In a person this can progress into a dysfunctional ability to integrate within normative situations of their social world e.g., an unruly personal scenario that results in fragmentation of social identity and rejection of values. Most sociologists associate the term with Durkheim, who used the concept to speak of the ways in which an individual's actions are matched, or integrated, with a system of social norms and practices … anomie 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 ...But on the contrary, if some opaque environment is interposed ... relations rare, are not repeated enough ... are too intermittent. Contact is no longer sufficient. The producer can no longer embrace the market at a glance, nor even in thought. He can no longer see its limits, since it is, so to speak limitless. Accordingly, production becomes unbridled and unregulated. Anomie (/ˈænəˌmi/) is a 'condition in which society provides little moral guidance to individuals'. This evolves from conflict of belief systems and causes breakdown of social bonds between an individual and the community (both economic and primary socialization). In a person this can progress into a dysfunctional ability to integrate within normative situations of their social world e.g., an unruly personal scenario that results in fragmentation of social identity and rejection of values. The term is commonly understood to mean normlessness, and believed to have been popularized by French sociologist Émile Durkheim in his influential book Suicide (1897). However, Durkheim first introduces 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 term 'the malady of the infinite' because desire without limit can never be fulfilled; it only becomes more intense.