Word Of The Week #71

[ajax]

Word Of The Week -- anomie
Definition: an·o·mie or an·o·my (ān'&-mē)
n.

1. Social instability caused by erosion of standards and values.
2. Alienation and purposelessness experienced by a person or a class as a result of a lack of standards, values, or ideals.

Etymology: [French: from Greek anomiā, lawlessness, from anomos, lawless: a-, without; see a-1 + nomos, law; see nem- in Indo-European roots.]

Obscurity: 95% (Come again?)

Usefulness: 5% (Anybody using this word is trying to confuse you, impress you, or both.)

Examples:
(def. 1) "Many social conservatives are reluctant to credit the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s and '70s with being of any net benefit to American society, viewing it instead as a period of anomie that has morally crippled us as a culture and a people."
(def. 2) "Commentators and pundits continue to debate whether the French riots of 2005 had more to do with institutionalized French discrimination against non-natives, or the anomie of young Muslims who have failed to properly integrate into pluralistic Western societies."

Coined and popularized by Émile Durkheim in The Division of Labour in Society, published toward the end of the 19th century, anomie was his term for "normlessness" -- a condition wherein people in a society do not understand how to relate to each other:Anomie thus refers to a breakdown of social norms and it a condition where norms no longer control the activities of members in society. Individuals cannot find their place in society without clear rules to help guide them. Changing conditions as well as adjustment of life leads to dissatisfaction, conflict, and deviance. He observed that social periods of disruption (economic depression, for instance) brought about greater anomie and higher rates of crime, suicide, and deviance.
Durkheim thus postulates that human societies are essentially conservative at the core, broadly preferring stability and structure to maximal openness and individual liberty.

--- Ajax.