Theory and concept of anomie. Anomie is a special state of society

Anomie is a term derived from the French word anomie, which literally translates as "lack of law and/or organization". As a result, anomie in sociology and psychology is understood as such a moral and psychological state of consciousness (both of an individual and society), in which the value system is destroyed. This disintegration is caused by a social crisis, with it the impossibility of achieving the set goals, the contradiction between expectation and reality, is clearly traced.

Terminology

The concept of anomie was introduced in 1897 by Emile Durkheim, who first applied it in his work entitled "Suicide".

The term is also associated with the ancient Greek ἀνομία, which, however, also denoted lawlessness, and the particle ἀ meant "absence, negation, etc.", and νομία, respectively, "law".

Anomie is a state of society in which most of its members ignore or even deny the norms accepted in it.

The theory of anomie was developed not only by Durkheim, but also by Merton and Sraul. For each of the scientists, the concept of "anomie" is slightly different.

According to Durkheim

In his book, by "anomie" Emile Durkheim meant, first of all, a contradiction. The one that arises between organic and mechanical solidarity.

What does it mean?

Organic solidarity is the norm (of an individual or group) created under the influence of the natural. In the course of the development of society as a structure and / or the formation of an individual as such.

Mechanical solidarity, in turn, is inertial norms, and they are generated by an industrialized society.

Durkheim himself believed that anomie is the result of the formation of a capitalist society. Indeed, just at that time, traditional norms were losing their strength, and the bourgeois ones did not yet have sufficient influence on society.

According to Merton

Robert King Merton, developing the theory of the concept introduced by Durkheim, reached the following conclusions.

First, that anomie is the inability to satisfy what the majority of society needs in the ways that society itself accepts.

Secondly, that the ends not only do not justify the means, but also contradict them.

Thirdly, that the influence of the norms established in society becomes less and less, until it begins to tend to zero.

And fourth, that adaptation to anomie occurs through life strategies such as accepting conformity as ends and means, but rejecting innovation and reformism as a means to achieve goals, and as the very end results, they are accepted. Conversely, ritualism can be a means, but it cannot be an end. Retreatism and rebellion are not accepted either as a method (method) of bringing ideas to life, or as ideas themselves.

According to Srowle

Before that, only social anomie was considered, and only Leo Sroul first proposed positioning the term in terms of psychology. It is with his light hand the definition began to include not only the state of society, but also a single individual, whose characteristics include the weakening or absolute destruction of social cohesion, the tendency of the individual to self-destruction by various physical and moral means.

Factors in the development of social anomie

The essence of social anomie is the violation of public order. The following are the factors "thanks" to which social anomie can develop as a phenomenon:

• Natural, political, economic or other kind of shocks, which led to the fact that most of the population stopped focusing on established norms, rejected the usual statuses and roles in favor of physical survival.
• Corrosion of values, that is, the blurring of the boundaries between good and evil, the foundations of moral norms. As a result, criticism towards still recently important things rhetorical questions from the society "Are they as important as you thought?". The collapse of social integrity.

Features and consequences of anomie

Anomie is a detrimental effect on society and on individuals in it. It alienates one from the other, reduces the whole structure to "no". Desociality, which is one of the features of anomie, leads to the loss of the skills to regulate members of society with the help of norms and rules, traditions and attitudes. Connections and relationships - mandatory conditions existence of society cease to reproduce and self-reproduce, which leads to its unequivocal disintegration. Depending on the degree of penetration of anomie into social life, it becomes more difficult to restore its structure.

Manifestation this process in the modern Russian Federation is closely connected with mental attitude population and its social condition: instability and uncertainty about the future makes the situation precarious, the alternating dominance of attitudes very clearly characterizes the anomie of today. The unsteady mismatch is emphasized by the inability of the authorities to put in order the connections of social principles.

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Social anomie as a value-normative vacuum

Although any social structure must resist too vigorous attempts to transform it, nevertheless, if this resistance develops into conservatism and ossification, the disease of the social structure immediately manifests itself. The absolutization of resistance, the principle of “survival for the sake of survival” leads to a loosening of the system of norms and values ​​and, ultimately, to the “disease” of the social structure. It decays, starts to fail in certain institutional segments. This general inconsistency of the social structure in the field of normative-value parameters of social behavior is called anomie.

social anomie- a painful state of social life associated with the loss of the significance of social values, social norms and laws ( social values- socially significant and approved in a given society features of human relations and behavior of people; social norms- behavioral standards and expectations that govern the actions of people in society and privacy). This is the mismatch of the value world, the dispersion of basic and derived values, leading to a mixture of norms and ideals, legal and illegal, proper and real, a violation of the network of regulatory and controlling coordinates of society and the loss of responsibility for one's social actions. Anomie is expressed in the growth of crime, the loosening of the moral foundations of society, the deepening of the conflict between generations, the lack of mutual understanding between different social groups.

Simply put, anomie is the mismatch of the main regulators (values) of the social structure (of any social community, organization, group).

It can be objected that values ​​are something ephemeral, not visible to the naked eye, and all the problems of society stem from the problems of politics, economics, and social life. Apparently, you can say so (although it would be too general and trivial answer). But the fact is that behind all these “big” problems of society, sociologists have discovered problems of human regulators or values ​​that are invisible without a microscope, which, as if at the cellular level, carry deviations and, accordingly, all our social diseases.

Thus, we see that social anomie is one of the main causes of social diseases.

The disease of the entire social structure (and anomie is one of the manifestations of this state) does not crowd out other problems of society, but, on the contrary, places them in a wider social context in which all other problems are perceived as progressive anomie brought to its personal result. If earlier society reacted most sharply to the discord of the individual with the system (and, accordingly, the resulting loneliness), now the main disease of society has become the emptiness of the value world, in other words, its “vacuumization”, which has one of its possible consequences and loneliness, and filling social space with deviant values.

One should not think that anomie is something alien and therefore unknown to us. On the contrary, in the modern world, it is Russia, perhaps, that provides the most striking examples of anomie.

It is true that for many decades the theory of anomie did not have any success in Russia, being known only to narrow specialists in the field of theoretical sociology and criminology. Indeed, the realities of the authoritarian system, with its established social structure, which did not leave an unfilled vacuum of social relations within itself, did not provide vital material for attracting the theory of anomie as a theoretical and practical tool knowledge. Anomie either existed only in the deep layers of the social structure, or was completely eliminated.

However, the degeneration and subsequent collapse of the social structure of Soviet society dramatically changed the whole picture. From the maximum occupancy of social spaces Russian society passed into a state of complete vacuum of cultural goals and institutionalized means. And here came the hour of the theory of anomie, which turned out to be the most effective means of analyzing the new situation of the transitional period of Russian society,

The diffusion of basic and derivative value orientations in society and the complete shattering of ideas about what is allowed or not allowed have led to a surprising and at the same time tragic effect: in modern Russian society, the initial reaction of solidarity for any society is almost completely absent. No one wants to enter into even primitive alliances with anyone. All interactions are limited to short-term, direct and narrowly focused contacts. This applies to economic, political and cultural institutions.

Complete confusion about goals public system at the macro level (inclusion in the world global community, the preservation of the empire, the creation of an Orthodox theocratic state, the revival of the monarchy, etc.) leads to disassociation at the micro level. The latter gives particularly clear examples of anomie. Orientation to success, actively and largely declaratively propagated by supporters of pro-Western modernization, collides with a directly opposite value trend - the desire to consolidate the traditional values ​​of Orthodox sacrifice, spirituality (non-materiality), suffering in the name of a higher goal. However, it is quite remarkable that even this seemingly irreconcilable struggle of ideas and motives does not lead to the solidarity of parties and social groups and the generation of conflict on a national scale. On the contrary, at the individual level, most people live in a state of simultaneous orientation to all these values ​​at once, changing them depending on the situation.

This, apparently, can be characterized as "total, or capillary, anomie", which covers not only social institutions, but also the "capillary" structures of everyday life.

Anomie asserts itself primarily through the presence of a diverse and ever-expanding range of social deviations. Strictly speaking, such mass phenomena that seem to have nothing in common with each other, such as non-payment of fares in public transport, tax evasion, cheating on exams, in fact, indicate the presence of anomie. The same goes for any type of crime. Moreover, the point is not that these deviations take place, which can occur even in the most “correct” and stable societies. The main thing is that these deviations are taking on a mass character and, under various pretexts, are quite forgivingly perceived by society. This is the real anomia.

Easily observed and defined “indicators” of anomie include an increase in crime, social chaos, “confusion of souls”, vagueness of life goals (“the main thing for us is to survive”), a sharp decrease in the predictability in time of certain phenomena associated with a given social system (“we live only for today”), an increase in the importance of material orientations as opposed to moral and spiritual ones (“we are not up to spiritual demands now”), etc. In this sense, anomie is revealed as a uniquely deviant, anomalous state of the social structure.

Without finding stable long-term guidelines, a person falls into a state of fatigue from his own existence. Moreover, this fatigue takes on the color of inevitability, irresistibility. No rational efforts aimed at overcoming the anomie (search for a job, a new partner, psychotherapeutic treatment, etc.) do not lead to the desired result (if the anomie is all-encompassing). There is an anomic self-destruction of the personality.

Anomie received its first truly theoretical understanding in the sociology of Emile Durkheim, in particular, in his famous study “Suicide” (1897).

In this work, E. Durkheim considers anomie as one of the explanations for suicide, and anomie is a state in which society plunges in times of sudden drastic changes and social upheavals. Not all social crises lead to anomie and an increase in the number of suicides.

For example, being in a state of war, the people acquire common goals and objectives that unite society and ensure the mobilization of its solidarity. This also applies to social revolutions, which, on the one hand, increase the solidarity of certain social groups, while weakening, on the other hand, the solidarity of groups that lose their footing in the course of a social cataclysm.

However, sluggish social conflicts and crises accompanied by economic depression (say, the post-war states of society, characterized by a massive sobering up of relatively genuine driving forces that involved society in a military conflict), create, one might say, ideal conditions for the formation of “lost generations”, anomie and, accordingly, loneliness.

In Suicide, Durkheim rejected explanations of suicide in terms of individual psychological motives. For Durkheim, the main explanatory factor is the purely social circumstances of suicide. It became, in his vision, a function of several social variables: religious, family, political, national and other forms of social relations. With this approach to the problem, the French sociologist rejected theories that explained suicide by hereditary causes, cosmic factors, the psychological phenomenon of imitation, and so on. The most valuable feature of Durkheim's analysis of suicide was precisely the disclosure social entity this phenomenon, which follows from the crisis state of society.

For normal human life, continuous regulation and regulation of both its external (social) and internal (biological) nature is needed. When society unduly weakens its control over the individual, a state of abnormality arises, leading to the disintegration of the individual. Individual desires, arising from the biological nature of man, increase exorbitantly, society and the individual are disintegrated.

In Suicide, anomie is viewed as a moral crisis, in which the system of moral regulation is violated on the basis of social upheavals. human passions, which leads to such a moral state in which deviant behavior occurs, the extreme manifestation of the latter is suicide. “At the moment of social disorganization, whether it occurs due to a painful crisis or during a period of favorable but too sudden social transformations, society is temporarily unable to exert the desired effect on a person, and in this we find the explanation for the sharp rises in the suicide curve ...”

Social anomie develops when rapid social and economic changes disrupt the existing system of social relations, which leads to the formation of “lost generations”, anomie and, accordingly, loneliness. As a result of these violations, the expectations of a person are not destined to be realized, and this becomes obvious to the person himself. The overturning of traditional norms, the loss of restrictions lead to the appearance in people of a feeling of existence in an empty space without any guidelines. Not finding the “coordinate axes”, some people get tired of existence and loneliness. Their purposeful rational efforts become useless, life loses its value, and anomic self-destruction can become a consequence of this - suicide as an extreme degree of anomie.

Durkheim tried to find out to what extent deviant behavior depends on culture, understood as a system of norms and values. Anomie is caused by the weakening of the meaning and weight of moral norms that regulate human activity, and the weakening of respect for existing morality is caused by the fragile mechanisms for regulating social goals.

The situation is different with social needs, the manifestations of which Durkheim saw in the desire for wealth, power, luxury. The boundaries of their satisfaction are indefinite, the thirst for social rewards is boundless. These passions are never fully satisfied. The question arises about the optimality of their development and implementation. To what extent can and must human activity develop in order for these needs to be fully realized? Isn't the increasing increase in needs leading to a real disaster, the essence of which is in the contradiction between growing needs and realistically achievable goals? How should differentiation of needs take place according to the profession, social status?

These questions were in Durkheim, in fact, rhetorical. If the “passions of the soul” are not curbed in some way, then they lead to the reign of anomie in society. The only alternative could be a moral transformation of the entire community - a kind of moral revolution.

Economic anomie- this is a violation of the established order, which fixes with relative accuracy the maximum level of material well-being of each social class and establishes certain limits on the scale of accessible, possible and permissible accumulation of material goods. The destruction of this previously established scale and the emergence of new relationships on it, as well as the emergence of new social groups of “leaders” and “outsiders,” is immediately accompanied by the emergence of anomic states. Along with the macro level (economic institutions of society), Durkheim also considered micro-level institutions, in particular the family.

Family anomie- violation of the balance and discipline provided by the family and family morality. In the family, roles and value orientations, the relationship between generations, the determinants of power, etc. are destroyed.

The state of anomie occurs both in the case of a sharp and obvious deterioration in the economic situation, and in the case of a sudden onset of prosperity. In both cases, the habitual way of life is lost, the social order is disintegrated, its regulatory functions are weakened. The social balance is disturbed, some individuals rise rapidly, others lose their position in society, the social structure itself fluctuates and disorganizes. The individual loses the ability to adapt to social transformations and new social requirements. Clear rules and norms of morality and behavior are disappearing, the old hierarchy of values ​​is collapsing, and the new one has not yet taken shape. To the question of how the degree of integration of the social structure can cause suicide, Durkheim answered with a reference to the psychological constitution of a person, which requires a goal that is higher than him, and in a poorly integrated society there is no such goal, and an individual who has too sharp a perception of himself and value, strives to be his only goal, and since such a goal cannot satisfy him, he drags out an apathetic and indifferent existence, which seems to him devoid of meaning. To characterize the moral consciousness and psychological state of individuals, Durkheim constantly used the following expressions: an eternal state of dissatisfaction, torment, persistent disappointment, uselessness, disorientation, morbid anxiety, anxiety, meaninglessness, intolerance, greed, competition, the search for one's place in the social structure, a sense of rights without responsibilities, focus on consumption and pleasure, lack of a sense of solidarity with others, the output of human desires and aspirations beyond their possible satisfaction, lack of experience in performing useful functions and serving a goal greater than one's own interests, denial of human abilities for an orderly and balanced life in which everyone knows his place and duties.

An alternative to the anomic state of society can only be a deep moral transformation of all spheres of society. Durkheim believed that only morality can force a person to self-control, bring his needs in line with their possible satisfaction. Both physical and social needs depend in their origin "only on the individual." Society is considered by him not as a producer and source of needs, but as their limiter and means of satisfaction. In the normal state, society sets limits on the needs for luxury, which, under conditions of anomie (absormism), become insatiable. "A regulating force of a moral character is needed." This is how his conception of the regulating force of society beneficial to the individual arises.

Durkheim believed that in the moral consciousness of society there is intolerance for luxury. Society would have to ensure equality and class justice through its moral authority, which plays a major role in all social affairs. But in the event of a sudden imbalance, primarily in the economic sphere, the normal moral regulation is violated.

In times of economic crisis, human needs must be reduced, and adjusting to this can be long and painful. If the crisis is replaced by an upswing, the needs increase beyond measure, the established moral rules partially lose their strength, the individual seeks the maximum benefits for himself personally, and at the expense of others. A person, being involved in the struggle for goods, loses all the scope of what is permitted. During crises, social revolutions, etc. some individuals suddenly rise to the top, others fall into the lower rungs of the hierarchy. All this together deprives the individual of a reliable support, which is social connection, discipline, a sense of belonging to a group. Analyzing exceptional situations and crises of social organization, Durkheim drew a conclusion about the need for moral and cultural regulation of social goals and the establishment of flexible restrictions dictated by real social possibilities.

E. Durkheim's consideration of anomie, which included the classification and analysis of various forms of this phenomenon, had as its ultimate goal the creation, even in theory, of such conditions that would destroy the basis of the normlessness and devaluation of social value regulators. In conclusion to the “Division of Social Labor”, the French sociologist expressed his dream of a society in which individual individuals would be guided by a system of norms and principles (that is, morality) that calls them (individuals) once and for all to be satisfied with this position in the system of division of social labor and not strive for more. So, somewhat simplified and obviously not without the influence of socialist sentiments, to which Durkheim was no stranger, he saw ways to remove social and personal anomie and establish genuine solidarity. Public morality, a harmonious division of labor and solidarity would have to absorb the egoism of individual individuals and destroy the basis of anomie, as well as loneliness, which would contribute to the improvement of society as a whole, individual social groups and individuals.

Along with E. Durkheim, the American sociologist Robert King Merton made an invaluable contribution to the development of the theory of anomie as a deviant state of the social structure of society. He wrote fundamental works, largely focused on the problem of the decomposition of social values.

For a better understanding of Merton's theory of anomie, let's consider the general foundations of his theory of social structure, since it is precisely the “falling out” of the social structure, the inconsistency with its requirements, that, according to Merton, leads to the emergence of anomic phenomena.

The concept of structure, according to Merton, implies stability, orderliness, “purposeful rationality”, and predictability as its main properties. All these characteristics express Merton's fundamental mindset - willingly or unwillingly to move away from the detailed definition of social structure as such, attaching more importance to the deviations of the social structure from its "normal" state, described above. Anomia is one of these deviations.

Moreover, it seems that R. Merton uses anomie as a means of negative definition of social structure. In other words, with the help of the analysis of the “disease”, he seeks to recreate a picture of a functionally healthy “organism” of society. This method is quite acceptable and has been used many times in the social sciences.

R. Merton significantly modifies Durkheim's concept of anomie. The latter emphasized the normlessness, aimlessness and disintegration of the social order. Merton, on the other hand, explores the social situation in terms of an imbalance between the culturally conscious goals of behavior and the requirements of the social structure, which, for certain reasons, prevents their implementation.

Social structure is revealed by Merton as a set of "institutionalized norms" and related "legitimate institutionalized means" to achieve goals. Simply put, it is assumed that goals can be achieved and ideals realized only within the framework of the social structure, that is, legalized, generally accepted, social institutions-related means of achieving goals and embodying ideals. Ignoring the institutional side of society would lead to anarchy and the collapse of solidarity, because in this case each individual or each group would play the “game” according to heterogeneous rules.

Since the social structure has two interrelated aspects - cultural goals and institutional means - then we will dwell on their consideration in more detail.

Merton refers to the field of culture as "organized normative values" and related "cultural goals". In other terms, the area of ​​culture (according to Merton) can be defined as the world of human ideals that guide the behavior of the individual. On the one hand, culture sets the goals of behavior, on the other hand, it determines values. Together, goals and values ​​create a coordinate grid within which self-development and self-realization of a person takes place.

In the very general view the cultural aspect is the world of the desired, the world of aspiration; the institutional aspect is a system of restrictions, however, absolutely necessary to maintain solidarity in a particular social community. In turn, anomie becomes the result of a mismatch (if not a conflict) between culture and the institutional structure, expressed primarily in the impossibility of achieving culturally determined goals by normal, legal, socially established means. The degree of such impossibility is determined by a variety of factors - the socio-psychological type of personality, the social status of the individual, the amount of pressure on him from the social structure.

The most diverse kind of imbalance in the relationship of cultural goals and institutionalized norms lead to the emergence of anomie. The reaction of the social structure, which prevents, in relation to one or another individual, his goal achievement and encourages another, can cause a spontaneous explosion of nonconformism, the collapse of norms and the development of a situation of normlessness and lawlessness, dysfunction of social institutions and general disorganization of the social structure. The reverse, reflected reaction can boomerang destroy the system of beliefs and ideals for which the individual voluntarily or involuntarily came into conflict with the institutions of society, causing a conflicting opposition of values ​​and goals, difficulties in identifying individuals in the value diversity (difficulty in answering the question: who is who?) , the unpredictability of the reaction of others, the decomposition of moral value systems and the lack of ideals.

Anomie need not always and under all circumstances be total. It has its own dynamics. It can be episodic (change of disappointment by periods of violent purposeful activity) or segmented (that is, cover separate “zones” social activities individual, say, family relationships or professional environment). But in its developed form, anomie covers most or all areas of the individual's social life, which, after all, is the meaning of anomie. Real anomie occurs precisely when the remaining "islands" of social stability and rationality are absorbed by a value vacuum and moral nonsense. The profound drama of anomie lies in the fact that the individual no longer has the ability to change either himself (by abandoning his former goals and ideals) or his institutional environment.

The concept of “value vacuum” requires special attention. In principle, it means not so much the complete absence of value regulators of behavior (such a situation is simply difficult to imagine even theoretically), but rather their fragmentation and mismatch. In various behavioral episodes, an individual may obey value guides of a local or lower level. But in general, these episodes do not add up to a single system of behavior, they are easily divided into components, constantly changing. In practice, this means behavior characterized by a frequent change of beliefs (moreover, a change that is actively and “proveniously” argued).

The discovery of anomic adaptations gave Merton the opportunity to explain not only suicide (just as Durkheim did), but also delinquency, crime, mental disorders, alcoholism, and drug addiction.

According to Merton, the main means of resisting anomie lies in the correct family upbringing, which directs the child along the appropriate channel of adaptation to the requirements of the structure. The interaction of the child and parents is a complex process that can either predispose the child to future anomia, or eliminate it to the extent possible. The child learns the dominant type of adaptive reaction characteristic of his parents, and makes it, as it were, the starting point of his own socialization. It does not at all follow from this that the child copies or will copy his parents in everything, but in any case he will develop his own reaction to the behavior of his parents.

The deliberately theoretical perspective of considering loneliness and anomie does not at all exclude a brief consideration of applied areas, where these theories acquire their real practical sound. One of these areas is associated with entrepreneurial activity, more precisely, with corporate business.

The American researcher Robert Seidenberg very skillfully, from a sociological point of view, analyzed the problem of loneliness in the families of representatives of large corporate businesses in the United States. The institution of the family, in this case the family of a businessman, has become a kind of “magic crystal”, which reflects the state of loneliness and its dynamics in the structures entrepreneurial activity generally.

The initial position of R. Seidenberg, which he formed in the course of preliminary observations of the private and business life of American entrepreneurs, was the recognition of the high level of anomie and loneliness characteristic of this environment. Frequent trips around the country and the world, a feeling of constant business risk and business insecurity, the need to act in order to hide true emotional states, increased caution in establishing any contacts with people, concern for keeping business secrets even from wife and loved ones - all this, according to According to Seidenberg, leads to the socio-psychological isolation of the businessman and the formation of his loneliness.

The family is actually a weak defense against the distress described above. According to the lifestyle of the average entrepreneur, the family plays a by and large secondary role, filling his free time when it occurs. The role of the main compensators of distress is played by other factors - the growth of a service career and the excitement of a competitive player. It is these two factors (but not the family) that oppose loneliness and can be subjectively considered by a businessman as something that reduces his loneliness.

As for the wives of big businessmen, despite their apparent outward well-being, for the most part they experience the most severe loneliness, not least due to their “non-inclusion” in the semantic value chain of their spouse. This leads to the loss of the “corporate wife” of her I, that is, personal self-identity.

As a result, according to the American sociologist, the family of a corporate businessman has become a generator of loneliness in society, giving rise to numerous problems, such as divorces, single-parent families, children without parents, etc.

The development of the theory of anomie in “post-Mertonian sociology” shows that the most influential social structures and institutions (primarily political and economic) do not contribute to the reduction of these phenomena, but, on the contrary, make them even more widespread. Since the world is now dominated by several very convincing eschatological models (environmental danger, global warming, the thinning of the ozone layer of the atmosphere, the population explosion, the depletion of the earth's resources and its fertility, the spread of AIDS and its transformation into a pandemic, etc.), it seems quite possible to add to the sad alarmist list and anomie. She is here, she is among us, she is also where, according to the logic of things, progress should prevail and reasonable goal-oriented rationality should prevail. Anomie is becoming more and more closely associated with the most powerful economic and political institutions (private enterprise and legal democracy), to which, in theory, the future should belong.

And although society reacts to the coming anomies with various therapeutic programs (psychotherapeutic counseling, establishing “human relations” in production, playing the “human card” in the media and socially oriented advertising, etc.), they seem to be even in the first approximation cannot play any significant role in neutralizing the destructive impact of anomie. It is rooted in the basic structures of society.

To explain deviant behavior (suicidal ideation, apathy, frustration, illegal behavior).
According to Durkheim, anomie is a state of society in which decomposition, disintegration and disintegration of the system of values ​​and norms that guarantee social order occur. Necessary condition the emergence of anomie in society - the discrepancy between the needs and interests of some of its members, on the one hand, and the ability to satisfy them, on the other. It manifests itself in the form of the following violations:

1. vagueness, instability and inconsistency of value-normative prescriptions and orientations, in particular, the discrepancy between the norms that define the goals of activity and the norms that regulate the means of achieving them;
2. low degree of influence of social norms on individuals and their weak effectiveness as a means of normative regulation of behavior;
3. partial or total absence regulation in crisis, transitional situations, when the old system of values ​​is destroyed, and the new one has not developed or has not been established as generally accepted.

Further development of the concept of anomie is associated with the name of Robert Merton.

The concept of anomie expresses the historically conditioned process of destruction of the basic elements of culture, primarily in the aspect of ethical norms. With a rather sharp change in social ideals and morality, certain social groups cease to feel their involvement in this society, they are alienated, new social norms and values ​​(including socially declared patterns of behavior) are rejected by members of these groups, and instead of conventional means of achieving individual or social goals put forward their own (in particular, illegal). The phenomena of anomie, affecting all sections of the population during social upheavals, have a particularly strong effect on young people.

According to the definition of Russian researchers, anomie is "the absence of a clear system of social norms, the destruction of the unity of culture, as a result of which people's life experience ceases to correspond to ideal social norms."

Notes

Literature

• Vazha Gorozia, Shorena Turkiashvili The concept of anomie and attempts to modify it
• Kovaleva A. I. Anomie // Knowledge. Understanding. Skill. - 2005. - No. 4. - S. 155-156.
• Merton R.K. Social structure and anomie // Sociology of crime (Modern bourgeois theories). - M.: Progress, 1966. - C. 299-313.

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See what "Anomie" is in other dictionaries:

anomie- (gr. a negative particle, nomos law) a concept introduced by E. Durkheim to explain deviant behavior (suicide, apathy and disappointment) and expressing a historically determined process of destruction of the basic elements of culture ... Great Psychological Encyclopedia

- (French anomie lack of law, organization, from Greek? negative particle and law), the concept of bourgeois. sociology. Expresses the attitude of individuals to the norms and moral values ​​of the social system in which they operate, and means: 1) ... ... Philosophical Encyclopedia

Anomie- (French anomie - zan, ұyymdasudyn zhoktygy) - қogamnyң құndylyқtar zhүyesіndegі tubegeilі daғdarystardy bіldіretіn ұғym. Anomiya asirese ötpelі қoғamdard zhiі kezdesedі. Buryngy, detke ainalgan bagdarlar zhana talaptarga saikes құndylyқtarmen zhyldam ... ... Philosophical terminderdin sozdigі

- (from the French anomie the absence of law, organization), a concept denoting the moral and psychological state of individual and social consciousness, which is characterized by the decomposition of the value system due to the crisis of society ... Modern Encyclopedia

- (Greek). Iniquity. Dictionary of foreign words included in the Russian language. Chudinov A.N., 1910. anomie i, pl. no, w. (… Dictionary of foreign words of the Russian language

anomie- and, well. anomie f. lack of law philosophy The moral and psychological state of individual and social consciousness, characterized by the disintegration of the system of moral, social, etc. values. Krysin 1998. The concept introduced by E ... Historical dictionary gallicisms of the Russian language

Anomie- (from the French anomie the absence of law, organization), a concept denoting the moral and psychological state of individual and social consciousness, which is characterized by the decomposition of the value system due to the crisis of society ... Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary

Violations in the psyche of the individual, expressed in low social self-esteem and non-compliance with legal norms. Dictionary of business terms. Akademik.ru. 2001 ... Glossary of business terms

- (from French anomie the absence of a law of organization), a sociological and socio-psychological concept denoting the moral and psychological state of individual and social consciousness, which is characterized by the decomposition of the system ... ... Big encyclopedic Dictionary

- (Greek a negative particle, nomos law) a concept introduced by E. Durkheim to explain deviant behavior (suicide, apathy and disappointment) and expressing self ... Psychological Dictionary

Causes and main types of deviant behavior

Deviant behavior and forms of its manifestation

Basic elements of social control

The essence of social control

Topic 10. Social control and deviant behavior

1. Revealing the essence of social control, it is important to understand that the presence in society of certain cultural institutions and requirements, social expectations does not in itself guarantee their fulfillment by all social subjects. Most people and groups without external pressure conscientiously and constantly observe public order, norms and rules of work and community life. However, this happens primarily due to their successful socialization and the social regulation carried out through it, and also because people realize that society and the state are monitoring their behavior and, in the event of a serious deviation from the normative prescriptions, are ready to give this an appropriate assessment and apply adequate measures. sanctions.

No society can successfully function and develop without a system of social control.

Social control is a system of ways in which society influences an individual or groups in order to regulate their behavior and maintain public order.

Social control can be external and internal.

External control is a set of institutions and mechanisms that guarantee the observance of generally accepted norms of behavior and laws. It is divided into formal and informal.

Formal control is based on the approval or feeling of official authorities and administration, while informal control is limited to a small group of people. In a large group of people, it is ineffective.

Internal control is called self-control. In this case, the individual independently regulates his behavior, coordinated it with generally accepted norms. In the process of socialization, norms are assimilated so firmly that people, violating them, experience a feeling of embarrassment or guilt.

Approximately 70% of social control is carried out through self-control. The higher self-control is developed among members of a society, the less this society has to resort to external control, and vice versa, the weaker self-control, the tougher external control should be. However, strict external control often hinders the development of self-consciousness, dampens internal volitional efforts. Thus, a dictatorship is born. Pay attention to the fact that the probability of establishing democracy in a society is high only with developed self-control, and with undeveloped self-control, the probability of establishing a dictatorship is high.

Considering the concept of social control, it is necessary to pay attention to a number of fundamental points.

Social control is an integral part of a more general and diverse system of social regulation of people's behavior and public life. Its specificity lies in the fact that such regulation is of an orderly, normative and rather categorical character and is provided by social sanctions or the threat of their application.

The problem of social control is a certain cut of the main sociological question about the relationship and interaction of the individual, social group (community) and society as a whole. Analyze various ways of implementing social control both through the socialization of the individual with the primary social group, its culture (group control) and through the interaction of the group with society as a whole (social control through coercion).

Social control involves constant and active social interaction, in which not only the individual is affected by social control, but also social control is reversed by the individual, which can even lead to a change in his character.

The direction, content, and nature of social control are determined by the character, nature, and type of the given social system. Determine the difference between social control in a totalitarian society and in a democratic one, as well as in simple, primitive societies, in comparison with social control in complex modern industrial societies. In the latter case, use the criterion of formalized control.

2. Social control includes two main elements − social norms and social sanctions.

Social norms are rules of conduct, expectations and standards that regulate people's behavior, social life in accordance with the values ​​of a particular culture, aimed at strengthening the stability and integrity of society.

The repetition, stability and regularity of certain social interactions cause in society the need to consolidate such general rules, norms that would uniformly determine the actions of people and the relationship between them in appropriate situations. Thanks to this, the subjects of social interaction get the opportunity to anticipate the behavior of other participants in social relations and, in accordance with this, build their own behavior, and society - to control and evaluate the behavior of everyone.

According to the scope of application, social norms are divided into the following types:

1) Norms that arise and exist only in small groups (youth, friendly companies, families, work teams, sports teams). These are called "group habits".

2) Norms that arise and exist in large groups or in society as a whole. They are called "general rules".

TO " general rules» include customs, traditions, mores, laws, etiquette, manners. Each social group has its own manners, customs and etiquette (secular etiquette, manners of youth, etc.).

Compliance with the norms is regulated by society with varying degrees of rigor. If we arrange all the measures in increasing order, depending on the measure of punishment, then taboos and legal laws are most severely punished, then mores, traditions and customs follow, and after them habits (individual and group).

However, there are group habits that are highly valued and for the violation of which severe sanctions follow. These are the so-called informal group norms. They are born in small rather than large social groups, and the mechanism that controls the observance of such norms is called group pressure.

Pay attention to the fact that social norms are classified on various grounds, but their division into legal and moral is especially important for the value-normative regulation of society. Legal norms are manifested in the form of a law, other state or administrative normative act, contain clear dispositions that determine the conditions for the application of this legal norm, and sanctions implemented by the relevant authorities. Their implementation is ensured by the power of state coercion or the threat of its application. Compliance with moral norms is ensured by the power of public opinion, the moral duty of the individual.

Compliance with norms is ensured in society usually through the use of social rewards and social punishments, i.e. positive and negative sanctions, acting as the most specific, direct and immediate element in the structure of social regulation.

Social sanctions – it is an operational means of social control aimed at ensuring the proper implementation of social norms.

Social norms and sanctions are combined into a single whole. If a norm lacks an accompanying sanction, then it ceases to regulate real behavior. It becomes a slogan, an appeal, an appeal, but it ceases to be an element of social control.

Analyzing the nature of social sanctions, it should be borne in mind that they can be legal, moral, religious, political, economic, spiritual and ideological, etc.; by content - positive (positive, encouraging) and negative (negative, condemning, punishing); according to the form of fixing - formal, i.e. fixed, for example, in a law or other legal act, and informal; scale - international and domestic. The application of legal sanctions is ensured by state coercion; moral - by the force of moral encouragement or condemnation by society or a social group; religious - by the authority of religious dogmas and church activities. Various types of social sanctions and the norms themselves are interconnected, interact and complement each other. So, if a legal law or other legal act, the legal sanctions contained in it, are based on the moral foundations and requirements of society, then their effectiveness is greatly increased.

In conclusion, summing up, determine what is the role and significance of social control. Please note that he:

1) makes a significant contribution to ensuring the reproduction of social relations and social structure;

2) plays an important role in the stabilization and integration of the social system in strengthening the social order;

3) aimed at making a habit of behavior standards in certain situations that do not cause objections from a social group or the whole society;

4) is designed to ensure that human behavior conforms to the values ​​and norms of a given society or social group.

3. Even in a highly organized and civilized society, it is not possible to achieve a situation where absolutely all of its members would strictly and strictly follow the norms and rules established in it. As a result, more or less serious violations of these norms and rules occur. Such social deviations are called deviant behaviour.

Deviation (deviant behavior) (from Latin deviatio - avoidance) is a social action (behavior) of people or their groups that deviates from generally accepted norms, causing a corresponding response from society or a social group.

In a broad sense, the concept of "deviant behavior" covers any deviations in behavior from social norms - both positive (heroism, self-sacrifice, etc.) and negative (crimes, violations of morality, traditions, alcoholism, drug addiction, bureaucracy, etc.). ). However, most often this concept is used in a narrower sense, as a negative deviation from established legal, moral and other norms. This is due to the fact that it is the negative deviation that threatens to undermine social stability, and therefore sociologists and psychologists pay special attention to it.

There are various forms of manifestation of deviation:

Hidden, latent(for example, bureaucracy, careerism, etc.) and open, explicit(for example, hooliganism, crimes, etc.).

Individual, when an individual rejects the norms of his subculture, and group, considered as conformal behavior of a member of a deviant group in relation to its subculture.

Primary, when the deviations are insignificant and tolerable, and secondary, i.e. deviation from the norms existing in the group, which are socially defined as deviant.

Based on the goals and direction of deviant behavior, its destructive, asocial and illegal types are distinguished. The destructive type includes deviations that harm the personality itself (alcoholism, suicide, masochism, etc.); the asocial type includes a command that harms primary groups and communities (violation of labor discipline, petty hooliganism, etc.). The illegal type of deviant behavior is associated with serious violations of not only moral but also legal norms and leads to serious negative consequences for society (robberies, murders, terrorism, etc.).

Thus, we can conclude that the boundaries of deviations are mobile, and they themselves are able, one way or another, to modernize and adapt to changes in social conditions and even reproduce in new generations. Evaluation of deviant behavior occurs from the standpoint of the culture adopted in a given society.

4. Considering the main types of deviant behavior, it must be emphasized that the causes of deviant behavior are ambiguous. Regarding the definition and study of the main causes of deviations, there are three types of theories:

1) Theory of physical types (C. Lombroso, E. Kretschmer, V. Sheldon), according to which people with a certain physical constitution tend to commit social deviations condemned by society. However, practice has proved the inconsistency of theories of physical types;

2) Psychoanalytic theory (Z. Freud), based on which deviation is caused by intrapersonal conflicts, violations in the structure of the human Self. But the diagnosis of such violations is extremely difficult, and besides, not every person experiencing internal conflict becomes a deviant;

3) Sociological theories (E. Durheim, R. Merton and others), who analyze the social and cultural factors that cause deviation. Thus, E. Durkheim associated deviant behavior with the weakness and inconsistency of social norms and values, and R. Merton with the gap between sociocultural goals and socially approved institutionalized means of achieving them.

It is important to note that most researchers proceed from the fact that the emergence and existence of deviant behavior is usually caused not by any one reason, but by a diverse set of conditions and factors, both objective and subjective.

The main types of deviant behavior are crime, alcoholism, drug addiction and suicide. Analyze the social factors that contribute to the emergence and development of such deviations, and determine what is the danger of their manifestation for the individual, group and society as a whole.

5. The development and spread of deviations, social upheavals lead society to an abnormal state - social anomie, and it, in turn, becomes the basis for new deviations. T. Parsons defined anomie as “a condition in which a significant number of individuals are in a position characterized by a serious lack of integration with stable institutions, which is essential for their own personal stability and the successful functioning of social systems. The usual response to this condition is unreliable behavior."

Social anomie (from French anomie - lawlessness, disorganization) is a crisis state of social life, in which the majority or a significant part of its subjects violate established social norms or treat them indifferently, and normative social regulation is sharply weakened due to its inconsistency, inconsistency and uncertainty.

This concept was introduced into sociology by the famous French sociologist E. Durkheim, who considered social anomie as a manifestation of the absence of “organic solidarity” in society. Anomie, according to E. Durkheim, is a state in which a person does not have a strong sense of belonging, reliability and stability in choosing a line of normative behavior. The development of the concept of anomie was continued by the American sociologist R. Merton. He considered anomie as such a state of consciousness, which is associated with the impossibility of achieving individual goals by legitimate institutionalized ways and means, which leads to an increase in deviant behavior. R. Merton used this concept to characterize the corresponding state not only of society, but also of the individual, when it is disorganized, experiences feelings of anxiety and alienation from society. R. Merton developed a typology of personal behavior in relation to goals and means and identified the following main types of behavior:

1. conformism(when a person accepts both normative goals and normative means);

2. Innovation(when there is positive attitude to ends and the denial of limitations in the choice of means);

3. ritualism(in which goals are denied and the main emphasis is shifted to means);

4. Retreatism(when any ends and means are denied);

5. rebellion(the rejection of normative goals and means is accompanied by their simultaneous replacement with new goals and means).

It is important to know that today the concept of social anomie is most often used to characterize the state of society in transitional, crisis situations, when the alienation of the individual from society, disappointment in life, crime and other negative phenomena sharply increase. Modern Russian society has the following features of social anomie:

1. many old values, norms and ideals have collapsed, and the new ones have not yet been determined and established,

2. ideas about what is permitted and what is not permitted are seriously shaken,

3. there is a sharp surge in social tension and social conflicts,

4. the growth of shadow and criminal business, crime, drug addiction, corruption, prostitution and many other types of deviant behavior.

the absence of norms of behavior, when nothing is sacred and not necessary for a person (E. Yu. Solovyov). A similar situation was typical, for example, for France during the religious wars. Wild military bands ravaged the country ruthlessly. Agriculture was abandoned in many places. The manufacture of silk and cloth, factories of the art industry, glass and faience fell into decay. The best printing houses in France were closed, the famous firm of the Etiennes, who themselves were outstanding humanists, was forced to move to Geneva due to religious persecution. This situation was typical not only for the 70s of the XVI century, but also for the 90s. “A mass of land has been abandoned; cities, villages and farms lay in ruins; part of the population fled; robber gangs were formed everywhere, in which soldiers who remained idle after the end of the war took part ”(Vipper P.). At the same time, it should be noted that, as a rule, mercenaries participated in religious wars, selling their sword to the one who pays the most. Thus, the troops of Philip II, who ruthlessly destroyed the Protestants in Flanders, included a large number of German landsknechts, Lutheran in their religion. An example of such anomie is presented in Dumas' Three Musketeers. The servant of Porthos Mushketon tells about his father, who, when meeting on the "high road" with a Protestant, turned out to be a Catholic, and with a Catholic - a Protestant. In both cases, the traveler's purse passed into Father Musketon's pocket. No wonder Montaigne, describing the situation of his time, wrote that the worst thing in these strife is the inability to distinguish the enemy; everything is mixed, all norms are shifted, and depending on the utilitarian calculation, certain guidelines in behavior are accepted. There is a well-known story of the Bishop of Trois, who managed to serve in the Huguenot cavalry, and during the siege of Orleans in 1563 defected to the side of the enemy. The most interesting thing is that this act did not cause condemnation in the warring armies. A similar anomie arose already during the Renaissance. A.F. Losev wrote about this as a phenomenon of the “reverse side of titanism”. The testimony of F. Sacchetti, who tells in his short stories about the life of the Italians of that time, is interesting. In Novella 52, he talks about the trick of Sandro Tornabelli. Sandro was an elderly man, very rich and famous in Florence. In his time he was a prominent citizen and held various public positions in Florence. Once Sandro found out that a certain young man wanted to put him in prison for an old obligation, according to which his father had long been paid, which the young man did not know, while Sandro kept a receipt for the money. Sandro conspires with the bailiff and invites him to put himself in jail, dividing the bribe from young man. After the usual court procedure, Sandro waits until the bailiff receives the promised bribe and produces a receipt. At the same time, he seeks additional money from the young man for having suffered damage while sitting in prison. Such frank unscrupulousness of a rich and respected citizen suggests that the generally accepted norms of behavior and relations between people turned out to be disintegrated and cultural chaos arises in society, where considerations of momentary profit are higher than cultural values ​​and norms. The emergence of anomie in a socio-cultural crisis leads to the "barbarization" of society.

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