For Durkheim (The Division of Labour in Society, 1893; Suicide, 1897) anomie is a state of deregulation: human desires have no natural limit, society is what sets it, and when society changes too fast —in a crisis, but in a boom as well— its norms stop giving direction and everyone is left not knowing what to expect. For Merton (1938) anomie is a permanent mismatch between the goals culture imposes and the legitimate means the structure hands out. In Durkheim desire is natural and society restrains it; in Merton desire is manufactured by society itself.
| Anomie (Durkheim) | Anomie (Merton) | |
|---|---|---|
| Author and work | Émile Durkheim, 1893 and 1897 | Robert K. Merton, "Social Structure and Anomie", 1938 |
| What anomie is | Absence or weakening of the norms that regulate desire | Strain between cultural goals and institutional means |
| Where desire comes from | Human nature: it is insatiable | Culture: it is taught |
| When it appears | In moments of abrupt change, prosperity included | Steadily, as a feature of the social structure |
| What it explained | Suicide and the pathologies of industrial society | Crime and deviance |
| Who it affects most | Those most freed from limits, the rich included | Those whose access to the means is blocked |
// What they shareThe common ground
Merton took the term from Durkheim and with it the most important thing: the idea that deviance is not explained by looking at the individual, but at the society around them. For both, crime is a social fact, with social causes, and a certain amount of it is normal in any society. Both are also writing, at bottom, about the same thing —what happens to people when modernity breaks the frameworks that told them what to expect from life— and both reject the biological explanation that was dominant when they began to write.
// Where they partThe differences that matter
The origin of aspirations. This is the underlying difference. Durkheim thinks human beings desire without measure by nature and that only an external moral authority can contain them. Merton turns it round: aspirations are not natural, culture instils them. The American does not want to get rich because he is human, but because he has been taught to since childhood.
Too little norm or too much. In Durkheim the problem is that norms do not reach: there is a vacuum. In Merton there is one very clear and very strong norm —succeed— and what fails is the norm about how. It is not a society without rules, but one that underlines the ends and neglects the means.
The timing. Durkheim's anomie is acute: it arrives with transitions and recedes when new norms settle. Merton's is chronic: it is part of the ordinary working of American society. Hence sudden prosperity is anomic for Durkheim and need not be for Merton.
// One villain, two readingsTyler Durden
Tyler Durden is best understood with both at once. The narrator of Fight Club is not poor and has nothing blocked: he has a job, a flat and a furniture catalogue. His is Durkheim's anomie in its version of abundance: limitless desires that consumption promises to satisfy and never does, and no norm to tell him when it is enough or what any of it is for. Merton explains what comes next. Tyler is the fifth adaptation, rebellion: he accepts neither the goals nor the means, and proposes replacing them with others. Durkheim tells why that man cannot sleep. Merton, what shape his answer takes when it finally arrives.
The mistake everyone makes
Defining "anomie" without saying whose. It is the most repeated trick question in the subject, because the correct definition of one is the wrong definition of the other. Absence of norms is Durkheim; a mismatch between goals and means is Merton. And a second mistake: crediting Durkheim with the five modes of adaptation —conformity, innovation, ritualism, retreatism and rebellion— which are Merton's.
Which villains each one explains
Case files the archive analyses with each theory. The number is the total; the list shows the first ones.
Sources · further reading
- Durkheim, É. (1893). De la division du travail social. Alcan.
- Durkheim, É. (1897). Le suicide: étude de sociologie. Alcan.
- Merton, R. K. (1938). "Social Structure and Anomie". American Sociological Review, 3(5).
Theory questionsFrequently asked questions
What is the difference between Durkheim's anomie and Merton's?
For Durkheim, anomie is the lack of norms able to limit desires that by nature have no end, and it appears in periods of abrupt change. For Merton, it is the mismatch between the goals of success that culture imposes on everyone and the legitimate means that social structure distributes unequally.
Who coined the concept of anomie?
Émile Durkheim introduced it into sociology in The Division of Labour in Society (1893) and developed it in Suicide (1897). Robert K. Merton reformulated it in 1938 to explain crime in American society.
Why can prosperity produce anomie according to Durkheim?
Because rapid enrichment breaks the limits society had set on each group's aspirations. Desires surge before there are new norms to order them. Durkheim observed that suicide rose in economic booms as well as in crises.