anomie

For the psychology and the sociology, the anomie It is a state that arises when social rules have been degraded or directly eliminated and are no longer respected by the members of a community. The concept, therefore, can also refer to the lack of laws. This name is given to all those situations that are characterized by absence of social norms that restrict them and it is also a language disorder that makes it impossible for a person to call things by their name.

Anomie is, for social Sciences, a defect in society that is evidenced when its institutions and schemes fail to provide some individuals with the essential tools to achieve their objectives within their community. This means that anomie explains why certain antisocial behaviors and far from what is considered normal or acceptable.

On medicine, for its part, the term is used to express those language disorders that prevent some individuals from being able to call things by their name. The simple explanation given for this disorder is that it involves constantly having the sensation of having words on the tip of the tongue. It receives this name because it is characterized by the lack of laws in the rules of language.

As we speak, we search for each term in a own lexicon in which fifty to one hundred thousand words coexist. It is an almost instantaneous but absolutely complex process. We have acquired this ability through practice and for this we must have the cognitive system always attentive and prepared, however sometimes it fails and that is why we have gaps when we are expressing ourselves, some terms or expressions are seen, etc. Anomia occurs when this difficulty becomes chronic and it is impossible to recover the words when speaking; It is common during aging, when suffering from brain injuries or degenerative diseases (Alzheimer's).

Returning to what the social sciences understand by anomie, we will say that it is a violation of the norms, although not of a law: if a person breaks the law, he incurs a violation. crime. Typically, the lower classes of society are under greater pressure and have a greater propensity to move away from shared social norms.

Anomia, ultimately, creates a problem for the rulers since their control mechanisms are not enough to reverse the alienation that reflect the people or groups in this condition.

The main promoters of the concept were sociologists Emile durkheim Y Robert merton. This last specialist indicates that anomie appears when the objectives of a culture and the possibility of access of some population groups to the necessary means are dissociated. The association between means and ends, therefore, begins to weaken until the breakdown of the social network.

According to Emile Durkheim, when a group is highly united, it develops a certain number of norms to regulate behavior and maintain order within it, which establish limits for aspirations and achievements as well as the actions of each individual to provide a certain security to the whole. It was not possible for him to think about the social action in an absolutely free way, because without norms there cannot be agreements for harmony in a society and guides that collaborate with a linear behavior that is favorable for the whole of society. community. Through group expectations, relationships can be updated and shared in a cultural setting.

For his part, Robert K. Merton, stated that anomie is synonymous with lack of laws and control in a society and its result is a great dissatisfaction with the absence of limits as to what can be desired.