Expound Durkheim's theory of anomie, bringing out the acute and chronic types. Evaluate Durkheim's view that the main source of the malaise of modern society lies in this phenomenon. How could it be minimised?

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Sociological Thinking        SLSP1020

Student I.D. – 200194793

Essay 6. - Expound Durkheim’s theory of anomie, bringing out the acute and chronic types. Evaluate Durkheim’s view that the main source of the malaise of modern society lies in this phenomenon. How could it be minimised?


Along with Marx and Weber, Durkheim outlined the characteristics of the transition of society to modernity and what was problematic with this shift. This essay will explain Durkheim's ideas on this transition, concentrating on the division of labour and social cohesion. I will explain how this path to modernity may lead to a state of anomie and outline the difference between acute and chronic forms of anomie. Finally, I will look at whether or not the general sense of depression (or ‘malaise’) of modern society is due to anomie and discuss how anomie could be minimised.

In understanding the transition to modernity, Durkheim, like Marx, took a holistic approach and argued that society cannot be reduced to individuals…'society' was,  Durkheim argued, a phenomenon in its own right. It did not depend upon the intentions and motivations of individuals for it’s continued existence. In his aim to establish sociological autonomy, to establish Sociology as a discipline sui generis, Durkheim sees society as more than just the individuals who constitute that society, believing in the ability to explain individual action in terms of society as a whole.

Thus, in outlining the evolution of social phenomena, Durkheim saw a fundamental difference between pre-industrial and industrial societies. In the former there is relatively little social differentiation: the division of labour is comparatively unspecialised. Social solidarity in pre-industrial societies is based on similarities between individual members - they share the same beliefs and values and, to a large degree, the same roles. This uniformity binds members of society together in a close-knit communal life. Durkheim refers to unity based on resemblance as 'mechanical solidarity'. Individuals feel moral obligation to others because others are like themselves. Society is built around 'repressive law' and thought and morality are dominated by the collective conscience, i.e. by beliefs and sentiments that everyone shares.

Durkheim thought that the division of labour in modern societies created a new basis for social integration, which he called 'organic solidarity'. Where traditional societies, primarily through religion, successfully taught people to control their desires and goals, modern industrial societies separate people and weaken social bonds as a result of increased complexity and the division of labour. As a functionalist, Durkheim argues that the division of labour, in fact, fulfils the need or function in modern society of creating social solidarity.

The growing complexity and differentiation of society created a new basis of reciprocity arising from socio-economic specialisation rather than from commonly held beliefs. Just as in a physical organism, the various parts are different yet work together to maintain the organism (for example the heart, liver, brain so on in the human body), so in industrial society occupational roles are specialised yet function together to maintain the social unit. Individuals feel moral obligation to others who are not like themselves, based on a sense of reciprocity, interdependence, and respect for the unique contributions of diverse individuals. In such societies the collective conscience becomes less dominant, allowing for the development of a multitude of individual expressions of belief and ethical sentiments. Legally, it is characterised, not by repressive criminal sanctions but instead by those of a contractual or restitutive character.

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What was problematic with the shift to modernity? Durkheim argued that society had not reached organic solidarity and that society was in a transitional stage. The problem of this transitional stage was 'anomie'. Anomie is widespread because the development of organic solidarity lags behind the growth of the division of labour. Old forms of moral regulation have lost their authority, but new forms are not yet fully developed. Thus Durkheim believed that the specialised division of labour and the rapid expansion of industrial society contained threats to social solidarity. They tended to produce a situation of 'anomie', which, literally translated, ...

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