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Émile Durkheim
Anomie, in societies or individuals, is a condition of instability resulting from a breakdown of standards and values, or from a lack of purpose or ideals. The term was introduced by the French sociologist Émile Durkheim in his study of suicide. He believed that one type of suicide (anomic) resulted from the breakdown of the social standards necessary for regulating behavior.
When a social system is in a state of anomie, common values and common meanings are no longer understood or accepted, and new values and meanings have not developed. According to Durkheim, such a society produces, in many of its members, psychological states characterized by a sense of futility, lack of purpose, and emotional emptiness and despair. Striving is considered useless, because there is no accepted definition of what is desirable.
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Anomie suicide
Anomie suicide reflects an individual’s moral turmoil and lack of social orientation associated with dramatic social and economic upheavals. It is the product of a failure to define legitimate aspirations through moral deregulation and restraint of social ethics that can impose meaning and order on an individual’s conscience. Anomie suicide is a sign of the failure of economic development and the division of labor to create organic solidarity, as mentioned by Durkheim.
In this condition, people do not know whether they are suitable for society. Durkheim explains that anomie suicide is a state of moral disability in which people are unaware of the limits of their desires and are always in a state of disappointment. Anomie suicide can happen when they experience extreme wealth changes due to economic or natural phenomena. In either case, the expectations of the previous life are set aside, and new expectations are needed before assessing the situations associated with the new frontier.
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