The French sociologist Emile Durheim used the concept 'anomie' to talk about the dangers that people in modern societies experienced. He constructed this French word 'anomie' (meaning without 'norms' or social laws ) to describe the dysfunctional aspects of modern societies - that change might occur so quickly, and individualism might be so strong - that people feel as though they are living in a society that has lost its social rules, its norms. This feeling of 'anomie' makes us feel as though we don't belong to society, that there isn;t really even a society out there that we can belong to, and even that we have no 'self' . So it causes a high level of psychological uneasiness.
He used his study of suicide to argue that some modern societies were placing more of their citizens at this risk because of this 'loss of norms' or 'anomie'. He measured the levels of suicide in different countries and argued that the more tradtional countries had lower levels of suicide. …show more content…
Instead he argued that new 'functional alternatives' to the traditional religious and traditional forms of government had developed to provide people with a sense of normative security. These functional alternatives, (a) education and (b)professional associations, were the basis of new modern systems of social rules or norms that were more flexible but still provided sufficient psychological normative security for modern populations.
If there are communities in any modern society that are more subject to alcoholism, petty criminality, suicide, drug taking, family breakdown, then Durkheimians (ie Functionalists) would argue that there is too high a level of anomie in that
He used his study of suicide to argue that some modern societies were placing more of their citizens at this risk because of this 'loss of norms' or 'anomie'. He measured the levels of suicide in different countries and argued that the more tradtional countries had lower levels of suicide. …show more content…
Instead he argued that new 'functional alternatives' to the traditional religious and traditional forms of government had developed to provide people with a sense of normative security. These functional alternatives, (a) education and (b)professional associations, were the basis of new modern systems of social rules or norms that were more flexible but still provided sufficient psychological normative security for modern populations.
If there are communities in any modern society that are more subject to alcoholism, petty criminality, suicide, drug taking, family breakdown, then Durkheimians (ie Functionalists) would argue that there is too high a level of anomie in that