Max Coleman Prof. Vuja!

i" Sociology Honors 25 November 2013

Anomie: Concept, Theory, Research Promise Annotated Bibliography

Bachnyski, K., Canham-Chervak, M., Black, S. A., et al. (2012). Mental health risk factors for suicides in the US Army, 20078. Injury Prevention, 18(6), 405412.

In my contemporary examples section, I wish to include a discussion of soldier suicide. The phenomenon has been worsening over the past decade, and more soldiers now die from suicide than from any other cause (including combat). This article interests me because of one chief finding: Over one quarter of soldiers who committed suicide had a diagnosis of adjustment disorder. Adjustment disorder is a nebulous term used in psychology to describe the difficulty coping with a major life change. The term is, in my estimation, psychologys attempt to name the concept anomie. While psychologists have attempted to describe anomie in other termsanomia being the chief example adjustment disorder is currently the term in vogue. ! ! Before investigating the phenomenon of soldier suicide, my guess was that anomie was a better explanation than psychological factors like PTSD. This turns out to be true. As other articles confirm, the vast majority of suicide victims (85%) had never been in combat, and only about 10% experienced PTSD. But if over 25% of soldiers were diagnosed with adjustment disorder, its likely that an even greater number experienced adjustment difficultiesperhaps the majority. The persistent focus of the military on medicalizationincreasing mental health resources, making screenings more rigorous, etc.will not solve the problem of soldier suicide. A Durkheimian analysis, understanding the shifting norms and constraints placed upon the individual, is needed to address this pressing epidemic.

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See also: LeardMann, C. A., Powell, T. M., Smith, T. C., Bell, M. R., Smith, B., Boyko, E. J., et al. (2013). Risk factors associated with suicide in current and former US military personnel. Journal of the American Medical Association, 310(5), 496506. Bellah, R., Madsen, R., Sullivan, W. M., Swidler, A., & Tipton, S. M. (1985). Habits of the heart: Individualism and commitment in American life. New York, NY: Harper & Row.

This classic work on individualism provides a crucial understanding of anomie in the United States. Although Bellah et al. do not explicitly mention anomie, they emphasize the suffering that comes from too much freedom. The authors write:

We live in a society that encourages us to cut free from the past, to define our own selves, to choose the groups with which we wish to identify. No tradition and no community in the United States is above criticism, and the test of the criticism is usually the degree to which the community or tradition helps the individual to find fulfillment (154).

Since meaning is socially produced, the authors argue, the do-it-yourself life course is ultimately vacuous. And the focus on individual fulfillment, far from bringing satisfaction, actually stokes the flames of unbridled desire. As Durkheim warned in Suicide, Our sensibility is a bottomless abyss that nothing can fill (1897/2006: 270). Drawing on Bellahs analysis, I will argue that individualism only exacerbates anomie in the United States, championing the very conditions that leave individuals unfulfilled.

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Boudon, R. & Bourricaud, F. (1989). Anomie. In A critical dictionary of sociology. London, UK: Routledge. This entry gives an excellent overview of anomie theory. Boudon and Bourricaud describe anomie as [existing] when the actions of individuals are no longer regulated by norms which are clear and constraining. In such a situation, they are likely to set themselves objectives which cannot be achieved, to abandon themselves to the whim of their emotions, to give way to despair (35). This definition is particularly useful since it traces the phenomenon from the social to the individual; it describes the destruction of constraints, the increase in desires/goals, the frustration of these desires, and the suffering that results. ! ! The authors also provide some criticism of Durkheims viewsthey call his conception of society simplistic and claim that he is too conservative, encouraging individuals to be satisfied with their position in the system of the division of labour (35). They reject his positivism, which assimilates society with organization, and even society with organism (36). Finally, they critique the teleological aspects of his argument, which sees society as moving toward some stable, integrated utopia. ! ! Boudon and Bourricaud also explore Mertons take on anomie, which includes the famous five modes of adaptation (now called strain theory). According to Merton, anomie arises when there is doubt and uncertainty about socially valued goals (36). Using Mertons framework, the authors propose a way to measure anomie: it is the extent to which [an] organizations members have the capacity to achieve set objectives (37). From my perspective, this is a far cry from Durkheims original intentions, but it is an intriguing metric nonetheless.

Cole, S. (Ed.) (2001). Whats wrong with sociology? New Brunswick: NJ: Transaction Publishers."

! One of the chief contentions of my thesis is that anomie is disappearing from the sociology literature. Several of these chapters provide theories about why that might be. Cole himself writes that anomie theory was abandoned for political reasons: Change in the political climate had more to do than empirical evidence with the fields ultimately losing interest in anomie theory and turning its attention instead to the more politically compatible labeling theory of the symbolic interactionists (12). ! ! James Davis writes that anomie is one of many old-fashioned and outmoded ideas. But why? Because they are wrong? I doubt it. The only sociological ideas that ever turned out to be demonstrably wrong are 'status consistency' and 'relative deprivation,' and both pop up regularly as true ideas. We neither refute nor conrm and expand ideas; we just become bored with them and move on to some 'cutting edge' novelty (101). ! ! I intend to contact these authors to learn more about the decline of anomie, but for now the book provides several intriguing theories.! Durkheim, . (1893/1997). The division of labor in society. New York, NY: Free Press.

The first of Durkheims works to discuss anomie, The Division of Labor emphasizes the economic factors that cause the anomic tendency. Richard Sennett writes, Here he treats anomie as a consequence of economic upheaval, people not knowing what rules apply across the business cycle of boom-bust-boom-bust. That said, Durkheim does hint at a more complex use of the term, one that he will elaborate more fully in Suicide. Any change in human existence, he writes, whether sudden or prepared in advance, always constitutes a painful crisis, for it does violence to acquired instincts, which offer it resistance. All the past holds us back, even when the brightest prospects tempt us to go forward. It is always a laborious operation to uproot habits that time has fixed and organised within us (186). In this work, anomie is primarily understood as the anomic division of labor, where specialization leads to an atomized, poorly integrated society. This Gesellschaft society gives the individual far too much freedom of movementshe experiences no normative constraints to reign in her desire. Inevitably, not all of these desires can be satisfied, and she is beset with anomie. ! ! On this point, Durkheim is emphatic: anomie is a social condition, not a personal symptom. Although the individual may experience anomie, he is merely feeling its effects: depression, aimlessness, lack of motivation, despair. Yet anomie is not just a macrosocial phenomenon: it can occur even among two individuals. Domestic anomie, for example, emerges in men when their spouses have died. (Oddly, he claims this is not the case for women.) Even within the dyad, the interruption of norms causes a painful drglement (unsettling). ! ! This work highlights the financial causes of anomie; Durkheims later writings will

complicate our understanding. Even so, one cannot read The Division of Labor without getting a sense of what is to come. The painful crisis he describes is more than economic; it is a social ill whose scope extends from the nation to the individual.

Durkheim, . (1897/2006). On suicide. London, UK: Penguin Books.

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Perhaps the most important work for this thesis, Suicide takes the normlessness of economic upheaval to a further personal extreme (p. xix). Rather than focus on the economyvia the anomic division of laborDurkheim takes up the question of suicide. Ever battling his rival, Herbert Spencer, Durkheim chooses suicide because it demonstrates that even the most personal act, taking ones life, is ultimately explained by social forces. ! ! Suicide is arguably the most significant work in sociology, not only because of its empirical focus but because of its theoretical basis. Here Durkheim shows that society is not merely a collection of individuals, but something greater. Individuals when they unite, he writes, form a psychic being of a new kind, which consequently has its own way of thinking and feeling. . . . Social life, having as it were crystallized itself in this way and fixed itself on material props, is by that very fact exteriorized and acts upon us from outside (p. 344, 348). ! ! After addressing the psychological causes of suicide, Durkheim elaborates his famous fourfold typology: egoisticaltruisticanomicfatalistic. There has been much confusion about the difference between anomie and egoism, but a close reading of Suicide is unequivocal: egoism is caused by a lack of social integration, anomie by a lack of social constraint. The two are obviously related, since well-integrated societies generally demand more from the individual. But anomie must not be described as a feeling of loneliness or isolation. The distress at not belonging to a group, as Richard Sennett describes it (p. xvii), causes egoism, not anomie. Put simply: ! ! Egoism: poor integration ! lack of social purpose Anomie: lack of constraint ! excessive desire ! frustrations of desire

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Durkheim summarizes this distinction as follows: Society is not only an object that draws towards itself the feelings and the actions of individuals, with more or less intensity. It is also a force that directs them (262). ! I wish to say much more about this, but I will restrain my excitement so as not to feel anomic myself. (And also because I will address it at length in my thesis.) Suffice it to say that this book is a crucial contribution to the understanding of anomie.! ! [Sidenote: In my contemporary examples section, I will discuss soldier suicide.

Durkheim actually brings this up in his own work, but claims that the cause is altruism, not anomie. As Richard Sennett explains, When not making war, this yearning to give oneself to others is frustrated, and likely to drive dedicated professional soldiers to despair (xviii, emphasis added). This may have been true in his own time, but I will argue that soldier suicide today is much more a result of anomie. For example, 25% of soldiers who commit suicide have adjustment disorder, which is essentially the psychological term for anomie. Also, 85% of suicides come from those who have never been in combat, which disproves Durkheims notion about giving to others.] Durkheim, . (1898/1973). Individualism and the intellectuals. In R. Bellah (Ed.), mile Durkheim on morality and society. (pp. 4357). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

This chapter refines Durkheims understanding of anomie in the Gesellschaft society. As always, he describes the anomic tendency that emerges in the modernization process: To the extent that societies become more voluminous and expand over vaster territories, traditions and practices, . . . [they] are obliged to maintain themselves in a state of plasticity and and inconstancy which no longer offers enough resistance to individual variations (51, emphasis added). Yet the solution Durkheim proposes here is not a return to Gemeinschaft, but an embracing of individualism! Indeed, since the communion of spirits can no longer be based on definite rites and prejudices, we can only appeal to our individual humanity to unite us. ! ! That is, as society becomes more globalized, and traditional values lose their currency, individualism is the only value that ties communities together. The argument must be properly understood: although individualism is sometimes associated with anomie, Durkheim believes that individualism is now the only buffer against anomie that modern society can offer! With the destruction of Gemeinschafts consensus of values, individualism becomes the only tenet that individuals share. And since these feelings are the only ones we hold in common, Durkheim writes, they cannot be weakened without disturbing the cohesion of society (53).! ! In light of the American attitude toward individualism, this claim is nonsense. How can individual desire possibly serve as a source of cohesion? So argued many of Durkheims contemporaries in the late 19th century. Yet this view conflates individualism with egoism, and the two are distinct: Individualism springs not from egoism but from sympathy for all that is human. . . . Some use it for their personal ends, as a means of disguising their egoism and of more easily escaping their duties to society. But this abusive exploitation of individualism proves nothing against it (49). ! ! Durkheim does admit that individualism needs to be expanded. For too long, we have championed the civil and political rights of man, but not his social rightsthat is, those rights that bind him to fellow citizens (see Reinhard Bendix, Nation-Building and Citizenship). Respect for the individual must necessarily mean respect for all individuals,

and it is here that individualism takes on its humanitarian flavor. Without individualism, there is no sense of mutual obligation; to take it away from us when we have nothing else to put in its place is, then, to precipitate us into that moral anarchy which is precisely what we wish to combat (55).

What, precisely, is Durkheim saying? His claim is that individualismfar from a natural tendency as the Hobbesians would have itis socially constructed. It is a common value! In reality, the religion of the individual was socially instituted, as were all known religions. It is society which fixes for us this ideal as the sole common goal which can rally our wills (54). Yes, even individualism is a social fact, and without it we have nothing to constrain our desires. Durkheim, . (1912/2008). The elementary forms of religious life. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Although not central to my thesis, this workone of the last Durkheim produced illuminates a solution to the anomic condition. Here (and elsewhere), Durkheim argues for a religion of humanity that will provide social solidarity while respecting the autonomy of the individual. As Durkheim writes in Suicide, Religion is the system of symbols through which society becomes conscious of itself; it is the way of thinking peculiar to the collective being (347). Although Durkheim declared himself an atheist at age 21 (On Suicide, p. xiv), he worried that modernizationand the loss of sacred values associated with Catholicismwould leave individuals aimless and unregulated. ! ! The elementary form for Durkheim is ritual: the process by which societies translate shared meaning. Modernity, with its emphasis on rationalization and utility (cf. Weber), sees ritual as anathema to progress. But this work emphasizes the consequences when ritual is abandoned: a lack of social integration (egoism) and a lack of direction (anomie).

Fromm, E. (1941/1966). Escape from freedom. New York, NY: Avon Publications.

This classic work explores the consequences of individuation and the price of new freedom. I am particularly interested in Fromms concept of moral aloneness, which relates to Durkheims concepts of egoism and anomie. Moral aloneness is not the same as physical aloneness: The monk in his cell who believes in God and the political prisoner kept in isolation who feels one with his fellow fighters are not alone morally (34). Rather, moral aloneness is the lack of of social patterns that give [the individual] a feeling of communion and belonging (34). ! ! Here Fromm beautifully traces the connection between social integration and social constraint, demonstrating (as Durkheim tried to) that egoism and anomie often come together. Fromm writes: Unless [man] belonged somewhere, unless his life had some meaning and direction, he would feel like a particle of dust and be overcome by his

individual insignificance. He would not be able to relate himself to any system which would give meaning and direction to his life, he would be filled with doubt, and this doubt eventually would paralyze his ability to actthat is, to live (36).! ! Escape from Freedom is also an excellent historical work, which explores the birth of individualism from the Renaissance to today. Though individuation produced new freedoms, it also created profound insecurity. For although a person [in feudal times] was not free in the modern sense, neither was he alone or isolated. In having a distinct, unchangeable, and unquestionable place in the social world from the moment of birth, man was rooted in a structuralized whole, and thus life had a meaning which left no place, and no need, for doubt (58). The modern world, by contrast, does not give individuals a role, and so their moral constraints are few.

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Greenfeld, L. (2013). Mind, modernity, madness: The impact of culture on human experience. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Liah Greenfeld is one of the only contemporary scholars to discuss anomie in her work. This recent bookwhich links mental illness with modernizationfeatures anomie as its central explanatory concept (8). Greenfeld calls anomie a cultural laxity . . . the inability of a culture to provide the individuals within it with consistent guidance (28). This is somewhat of a simplification: as Durkheim notes, anomie can emerge from a sudden change in social state, not just from a hands-off culture that provides too much choice. (The former is sometimes called acute anomie and the latter chronic anomie.) For example, domestic anomieresulting from the loss of a spousehas nothing to do with a lax culture. To be fair, Greenfeld is concerned with nations, not individuals, so chronic anomie is much more relevant for her.! ! And nowhere is anomie more apparent for her than in the United States. It was the pervasive anomie in American society, she writes, . . . which became starkly evident to me in the course of the examination of the American economy for The Spirit of Capitalism, which first made me think about its psychological implications (89). I was gratified to learn that Greenfeld and I are both interested in depression as it relates to anomie. Mind, Modernity, Madness will be a useful source in my contemporary examples section, where I explore the skyrocketing rates of mental illness in the United States and what can explain them. Merton, R. K. (1938). Social structure and anomie. American Sociological Review, 3(5), 672682.

The most famous adaptation of Durkheims work, Social Structure and Anomie may be more frequently referenced than Durkheim himself. Yet I take umbrage with Mertons interpretation of anomie. Merton famously argues that anomie is the gap between socially imposed goals and the socially approved means of fulfilling them. There are several reasons why this incorrect. First, anomie is about frustrations of desire. Like Freud,

Durkheim believed that desires were inherent in human nature. Our sensibility is a bottomless abyss that nothing can fill, he wrote in Suicide (Durkheim 1897/2006: 270). But Merton is not interested in biological desire; he cares only about socialization. ! ! This leads to the second and more egregious error. The gap between socially imposed goals and the means of achieving them causes tremendous suffering, but this suffering cannot be called anomic. It is the overbearing demand of society upon the individual, which he seeks to escape. This is not anomie, but its oppositewhat Durkheim called fatalism!! ! Which is not to say that strain theory is useless. Strain theory may be perfectly correct, and still have nothing to do with anomie. Yet it is Mertons typology that has carried the day: anomie theory has been relegated to the criminologists, who use his concept of innovation to explain social deviance. How troubling to think that anomie has not only declined in popularity, but is also entirely misunderstood! ! Me#trovi", S. (1987). Durkheims concept of anomie considered as a total social fact. British Journal of Sociology, 38(4), 567583.

This excellent article clarifies some of the misconceptions about anomie, and elaborates the term in light of Marcel Mausss work. In The Division of Labor, Me#trovi" notes, Durkheim worried that the compartmentalization of the sciences would prevent us from achieving a holistic view of the world around us. For according to Mauss, Me#trovi" writes, Durkheimian sociology presupposes the combined study of these three elements: body, mind and society (568). Separating these elements is unnatural and weakens the explanatory power of the discipline. ! ! This threefold understanding gives way to what Mauss calls the total social facta moral constraint that affects individuals at the social and psychological level. For Me#trovi", the total social fact par excellence is anomie. As I have argued above, anomie is a social condition: individuals do not experience anomie but rather its effects. Even so, Durkheim is very aware of how the social impacts upon the individual. As Me#trovi" notes, anomie brings about weariness, disillusionment, disappointment, pain and a tendency to grope at random (574). To claim, as Phyllis Puffer does, that Durkheim is only interested in society is a blatant misunderstanding.

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Although most translations describe anomie as normlessness, Me#trovi" believes this is a misinterpretation. The word Durkheim actually uses is drglement, which translates to derangement or madness. This notion is more helpful, Me#trovi" notes, because it shows the suffering that results from a lack of social constraint. He writes: For Durkheim, anomie is painful to the individual experiencing it and it hurts. In the Parsonian-Mertonian version, anomie has no feeling to it. . . . Even Sroles extension of the Mertonian reading, the understanding of anomie as a subjective

state of meaninglessness, is not correct. . . . For Durkheim, anomie has meaning precisely in the fact that the incorrect arrangement of social representations produces distressing psychological symptoms which eventually produce physical, organismic pain (571, emphasis added).

! Nisbet, R. (1965). mile Durkheim. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. !

In summary, this article seeks to unify the social and personal implications of anomie. It denies any fundamental division between sociology and psychology in Durkheims thought (570), and reveals Durkheim for the complex theorist he is: both sociologist and social psychologist.

This work explores not only Durkheims writings, but the historical milieu in which they were formed. He describes, in particular, the cataclysmic effects of the Industrial and French Revolutions on Durkheims thought. Writers like Durkheim, Toqueville, and others were profoundly startled by these events; each exhibit the same burning sense of societys sudden, convulsive turn from a path it had followed for millennia (20). These revolutions were not only shocking but disturbingthat is, they took on a profoundly negative character. Durkheim and his contemporaries were confronted with the coming of new powers, new insecurities, and new tyrannies that would be worse than anything previously known unless drastic measures were takenmeasures of revolution, reform, or science! (20).

! Schwartz, B. (2005). The paradox of choice: Why more is less. New York, NY: Ecco.! !

Durkheims writings must be understood in this context. Themes like anomie were not merely academic interests of his; they were social diseases exploding into being, threatening to destroy all that humanity held sacred. Although Durkheim was himself a liberal, most of his work has a conservative element; conservative not because he wished to restrict rights, but becauselike Toquevillehe was skeptical about the benefits of freedom. [Freedom] is a battle weapon, he once wrote. If those who wield it do not know how to use it in fruitful struggles, they soon end by turning it against themselves (Durkheim 1898/1973: 55).

The Paradox of Choice provides psychological support for what Durkheim observed over a century ago: more options usually lead to more suffering. Although Schwartz is not concerned with social facts (i.e., moral constraints), he does note that constraint serves an important function. The book contains fascinating examples that illustrate this point. In one scenario, individuals who had completed a survey could choose between a mug and a pencil. Another group was simply given either one, with the option of switching with a friend. Those who were given their gifts were much more likely to be satised, and were not interested in switching. But those who had to choose were unhappy, and were constantly lamenting the item they could not have. (Economists call this the opportunity cost.) In another situation, shoppers were given the option to sample either six or

twenty-four avors of jam. Those who sampled only six were much more likely to make a purchase; the group who sampled twenty-four rarely bought anything. ! ! Schwartzs solution is not to increase social constraint, but to impose arbitrary restrictions on choice. He encourages individuals to be satiscers, not maximizers: that is, to choose the rst thing that satises some explicit criteria. For a pair of jeans, this might be tighttting and under $30. In the social realm, it might be a job that is less than 40 hours/ week and not in a cubicle and includes dental care. Though their approaches are different, Durkheim and Schwartz agree that some constraint is necessary and desirable. !

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Wrosch, C. & Miller, G.E. (2009). Depressive symptoms can be useful: self-regulatory and emotional benefits of dysphoric mood in adolescence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96(6), 118190. This study was cited in an Economist article with the subtitle, Depression may be linked to how willing someone is to give up his goals. As diagnoses of depression continue to skyrocketthe United States may have the highest rate in the worldand individuals seek out therapy and medications, the sociological perspective is often lost. By linking depression with goal-attainment, this study illuminates its social origin. In particular, it highlights Mertons analysis of anomie. (Just to clarify, this is my interpretation; nowhere is anomie mentioned in the article.) Merton wrote that anomie is the gap between socially imposed goals and the socially approved means of fulfilling them. This study provides good evidence that Merton was right: the more strongly we cling to goals we cannot achieve, the more depressed we are likely to feel. ! ! My theory is that depression in the US is not a psychological epidemic, but a social one. Given how likely Americans are to cling to goalswhat Dominick LaCapra calls achievement valuesthey are poised for very high rates of depression. This 2009 study suggests that depression may serve an evolutionary purpose: pulling individuals away from aims they cannot fulfill. If so, Durkheim would be relieved: It is not human nature that can set the variable limit to these needs that they demand, he worried. Consequently, to the extent that they depend solely on the individual, they are limitless (Durkheim 1897/2006: 270).! ! This study will be a useful addition to my contemporary examples section, where I will take up the issue of depression and other mental health concerns.

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