Development of Social Theory writing assignment 2
Alienation and Anomie are important concepts in the work of Marx and Durkheim. What did these authors mean by these terms? What are the sources of Alienation and/or Anomie for each theorist? How are Alienation and Anomie manifested in society, according to Marx and Durkheim? What solutions to these problems did each theorist suggest? Do you see evidence of Alienation and/or Anomie in the US today? Explain. Provide examples.
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Although Karl Marx and Emile Durkheim are theorists who embody, in some sense, opposing sides of the Functionalist-Conflict split, they both were responding to the rapid social changes that were sweeping across Europe and making diagnoses to the problems they perceived as resulting from these changes. The monarchies of the past were falling apart and Europe was industrializing. This change solved many old problems but brought about, perhaps, just as many new ones. The feudal system had ended and workers and owners found themselves in new relationships. The authority of the church diminished. Amid all this transformation both theorists perceived great human suffering and believed that something needed to be done. Their conclusions were quite different, however. Marx saw the capitalist economic arrangement of labor as inherently exploitative (this was the root of the problems) while Durkheim viewed society’s increasing lack of cohesion as the main source of conflict. These conclusions were rooted in their basic views on human nature, which determined their prescriptions to basic human problems.
Marx’s concept of alienation and Durkheim’s concept of anomie are similar and different in striking ways. Both phenomena are said to produce the same symptoms in society: depression, mental illness, violence, crime, suicide and war, among other things. This might suggest that the two theorists were in fact talking about the same sickness which was tormenting the modern world.
Alienation was said to result from the workers’ relationship to the products of their labor. The process of production in the modern capitalist system estranges workers from the products of their labor, making them into cogs in a machine. Whereas in the past a farmer would have reaped the benefits of his toil (by putting food on his own table) and a shoemaker crafted each shoe himself (taking pride in his work), the modern industrial laborer does a monotonous job (as he were a machine) and has little control over the commodities he produces; he does not in fact own these commodities any more than he owns the tools which he uses to make them. He is therefore estranged from his source of subsistence, a quite unnatural thing according to Marx. Alienation has even greater implications, though. The worker becomes estranged from his own consciousness, his body, his family, his society. In short, he becomes estranged from his human nature. He is no longer functioning as Marx thought the primordial humans functioned. He thought that by nature humans were free, creative and social. The alienated worker is none of these things.
Durkheim’s concept of anomie is not so focused on economic arrangements. Past, more “traditional” societies were more homogenous than modern societies and in them the power of the group to keep the individual in line was stronger. In a tribal society, for instance, when an individual deviates from the norm in some unaccepted fashion (and there is strong consensus on what is “right”), the negative sanctions are often swift and severe. Contrasted with more modern societies, the rate of social change is such that the norms are always changing. Who is a deviant and who is not a deviant? Consider the fact that, in the early 1980s the growing HIV epidemic was treated by many people in the US as a taboo subject because of its association with queer culture, and now there is a major television network dedicated to the LGBT communities. This indicates a remarkable degree of social change over only a couple of decades. Essentially, anomie is a state of normlessness. Many people are finding the uncertainty of old norms to be liberating and a call to exploration, but at the same time danger is present. Cut off from old certainties, people are experiencing vacuums of meaning.
Marx thought that the only meaningful solution would be to overthrow capitalism, as the source of alienation is the economic system itself. Any other changes would be superficial only; his prescription was economic and political revolution. Durkheim’s prescription for anomie is perhaps more complicated, because he was not against modernity and the changes it brought, but still understood that people needed more social cohesion in their lives to provide meaning and guidance. His study of suicide showed that religious people were less likely to commit suicide than non religious people, partly because the church anchors believers in shared values and provides them with an often strong network of social support. Durkheim’s concept of elective affinity is an integrative and yet modernistic answer to the anomie brought about by religious pluralism.
I see evidence of both alienation and anomie in the contemporary United States. It’s difficult to distinguish between the two, and my ascription of one phenomenon as an example of “anomie” and another as “alienation” has really to do with what I want to emphasize in an analysis rather than a strict either-or interpretation. A pretty clear indication of workers’ alienation from the products of their labor is the fact that I often (i.e. on an almost daily basis) hear people complaining about their jobs. Many people I know claim to hate their jobs, in fact. It is not good for either body or spirit to hate an activity that one spends a huge chunk of one’s waking life doing; that’s truly awful. An indication of anomie, perhaps, is the spiritual quest that many people (including myself) are on these days. What does all this shit mean and why are we doing it? Not so long ago, growing up in Southern Louisiana, I would have known that I was here because the Christian god put me on this planet and I’m supposed to obey him. Now-because of all the different ideas I’ve been exposed to-I can’t have old-fashioned certainty. I’ve tried on so many perspectives that I’ve decided to go entirely beyond any conceptual answer. Through dissociative states I’ve found that, absent thought, everything is one, included any supposed beings either divine or mundane. But that’s an answer I’ve come to in an idiosyncratic, anomic way. Durkheim would not be surprised.
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Although Karl Marx and Emile Durkheim are theorists who embody, in some sense, opposing sides of the Functionalist-Conflict split, they both were responding to the rapid social changes that were sweeping across Europe and making diagnoses to the problems they perceived as resulting from these changes. The monarchies of the past were falling apart and Europe was industrializing. This change solved many old problems but brought about, perhaps, just as many new ones. The feudal system had ended and workers and owners found themselves in new relationships. The authority of the church diminished. Amid all this transformation both theorists perceived great human suffering and believed that something needed to be done. Their conclusions were quite different, however. Marx saw the capitalist economic arrangement of labor as inherently exploitative (this was the root of the problems) while Durkheim viewed society’s increasing lack of cohesion as the main source of conflict. These conclusions were rooted in their basic views on human nature, which determined their prescriptions to basic human problems.
Marx’s concept of alienation and Durkheim’s concept of anomie are similar and different in striking ways. Both phenomena are said to produce the same symptoms in society: depression, mental illness, violence, crime, suicide and war, among other things. This might suggest that the two theorists were in fact talking about the same sickness which was tormenting the modern world.
Alienation was said to result from the workers’ relationship to the products of their labor. The process of production in the modern capitalist system estranges workers from the products of their labor, making them into cogs in a machine. Whereas in the past a farmer would have reaped the benefits of his toil (by putting food on his own table) and a shoemaker crafted each shoe himself (taking pride in his work), the modern industrial laborer does a monotonous job (as he were a machine) and has little control over the commodities he produces; he does not in fact own these commodities any more than he owns the tools which he uses to make them. He is therefore estranged from his source of subsistence, a quite unnatural thing according to Marx. Alienation has even greater implications, though. The worker becomes estranged from his own consciousness, his body, his family, his society. In short, he becomes estranged from his human nature. He is no longer functioning as Marx thought the primordial humans functioned. He thought that by nature humans were free, creative and social. The alienated worker is none of these things.
Durkheim’s concept of anomie is not so focused on economic arrangements. Past, more “traditional” societies were more homogenous than modern societies and in them the power of the group to keep the individual in line was stronger. In a tribal society, for instance, when an individual deviates from the norm in some unaccepted fashion (and there is strong consensus on what is “right”), the negative sanctions are often swift and severe. Contrasted with more modern societies, the rate of social change is such that the norms are always changing. Who is a deviant and who is not a deviant? Consider the fact that, in the early 1980s the growing HIV epidemic was treated by many people in the US as a taboo subject because of its association with queer culture, and now there is a major television network dedicated to the LGBT communities. This indicates a remarkable degree of social change over only a couple of decades. Essentially, anomie is a state of normlessness. Many people are finding the uncertainty of old norms to be liberating and a call to exploration, but at the same time danger is present. Cut off from old certainties, people are experiencing vacuums of meaning.
Marx thought that the only meaningful solution would be to overthrow capitalism, as the source of alienation is the economic system itself. Any other changes would be superficial only; his prescription was economic and political revolution. Durkheim’s prescription for anomie is perhaps more complicated, because he was not against modernity and the changes it brought, but still understood that people needed more social cohesion in their lives to provide meaning and guidance. His study of suicide showed that religious people were less likely to commit suicide than non religious people, partly because the church anchors believers in shared values and provides them with an often strong network of social support. Durkheim’s concept of elective affinity is an integrative and yet modernistic answer to the anomie brought about by religious pluralism.
I see evidence of both alienation and anomie in the contemporary United States. It’s difficult to distinguish between the two, and my ascription of one phenomenon as an example of “anomie” and another as “alienation” has really to do with what I want to emphasize in an analysis rather than a strict either-or interpretation. A pretty clear indication of workers’ alienation from the products of their labor is the fact that I often (i.e. on an almost daily basis) hear people complaining about their jobs. Many people I know claim to hate their jobs, in fact. It is not good for either body or spirit to hate an activity that one spends a huge chunk of one’s waking life doing; that’s truly awful. An indication of anomie, perhaps, is the spiritual quest that many people (including myself) are on these days. What does all this shit mean and why are we doing it? Not so long ago, growing up in Southern Louisiana, I would have known that I was here because the Christian god put me on this planet and I’m supposed to obey him. Now-because of all the different ideas I’ve been exposed to-I can’t have old-fashioned certainty. I’ve tried on so many perspectives that I’ve decided to go entirely beyond any conceptual answer. Through dissociative states I’ve found that, absent thought, everything is one, included any supposed beings either divine or mundane. But that’s an answer I’ve come to in an idiosyncratic, anomic way. Durkheim would not be surprised.