Emile Durkheim's,"anomie" as the Curse of our Times

The tyranny is replete when everything that should matter doesn't.

Emile Durkheim, French Sociologist (1858-1917). His theory of “anomie” and how suicide is also sociocide.

If only Durkheim and Burke were here to advise us, they might tell us we are the lost children of the present, indifferent to the wise tutelage of the past, our very own History slandered and corrupted.

Diving into history has taught me two very essential lessons. First, that we must reference it often, as it is definitive of who we are and where we are going. Secondly, we are very complex social animals with both constructive and destructive behaviors, rendering history a multidisciplinary pursuit, including sociology, psychology, anthropology, and whatever else comes along.

We might even create a whole new discipline titled "Societal Impact Studies" (SIS). Where the impacts, the foot prints, the chains of evidence, we leave behind are more deftly and humanely defined, unless of course the future is not a matter of serious concern.

The reason being, we are at a historic turning point where the decisions we make, the values we hold, and how our societal structures are formed are more existential than ever. In other words, in governance and the management of human affairs we are very much behind the times. With science and technology we barge ahead with reckless abandon.

Like never before the horse of technology and the carriage of governance must move forward in unison. Where the carriage becomes “uncaring-rage” we must strike a better deal for ourselves and the planet, proving ourselves worthy custodians.

We must consider the holistic perspective that the past, present, and future are three inseparable facets of our being. They are interconnected and collectively shape who we are and where we are going. This, in turn, ties in with the conservative philosophy of Edmund Burke, who argued that society should evolve gradually and naturally, rather than through abrupt or radical transformations. We are in a cauldron of "abrupt and radical transformation" that is ultimately self-destructive. Both Durkheim and Burke are critically important messengers, as are many other voices from the past and present that go unheeded.

If Durkheim were around today, he would be astounded to see how an entire civilization is destroying itself. His studies started by investigating suicide, and the social disorientation, alienation,and isolation leading up to it. He referred to this phenomenon as “anomie.” He also realized this same pattern of disintegration applies to societies, such that suicide becomes sociocide, where whole societies are weakened and destroyed by war, ruinous ideologies, social repression of long-held mores and values, and the negligence and corruption infiltrating a society’s institutions.

For people, as with countries, the disintegration is incremental and too often controlled by secrecy, propaganda, false prophets and the manufacture of cultures of fear and indifference. Gaslighting can be directed at individuals as well as whole societies, where chaos, innuendo, and endemic mendacity are weaponized and become the new normal.

In other words societies are the end product of the interests that control them. These interests can be altruistic, or malevolent. Where there is no altruism social disintegration, up to and include sociocide come into play. This is what is happening in the West today where malevolent forces have established an oligarchic autocracy, that is freewheeling out of control with no regard for cost or consequences.

It is as if, after five hundred years of naked imperialism the free booting gatekeepers of the West have woken to the stark reality the planet is occupied by a few billion others who insist on their place under the sun. They are panic-stricken and wars, chaos, social degeneration and sociocide are their only responses. We are drowning in the symptoms, and are unprepared to name the “disease”.

The drugs of demagoguery and autocracy

Dirkheim’s anomie can ripple through societies with many negative consequences, dropping birth rates, shorter longevity, higher incarceration rates, excessive use of prescription as well as illegal drugs.

There are also the “drugs “of fear, passivity, lack of empathy and denialism.

In its latter stages, we are fed massive doses of demagoguery and autocracy, as these are the last gasp of the free booting gatekeepers in their grande finale of desperation. They are beyond repentance.

We have to ask ourselves: how is it that we build such grand societies, only to leave them to fools, buffoons, and war criminals to destroy? As societies have become more advanced and precocious, they have also become more vulnerable to collapse at the hands of those who would defile and destroy them.

If Durkheim dropped by as the dutiful sociologist, he might take an inventory of the social impacts we have suffered over the last twenty,thirty forty,or fifty years, depending on how decisive he felt his analysis needed to be. Given our present state of affairs, he might choose to ease the pain and limit it to five or ten years. He might just go on the internet for a few hours and recommend immediate “hospitalization” purges, social transfusions, and mass immunizations against kakistocracy.

He might also recommend putting together a panel of historians, psychologists, anthropologists, psychoanalysts and criminal lawyers, to follow the various sordid and bloody chains of evidence.

He might also recommend the setting up of a new academic discipline of Societal Impact Studies for the sole purpose of detecting and analyzing social impacts and their net benefits to society vs their ability to reek social devastation.

Politicians headed for high office would have to under go psychological screenings to detect dormant, and all too often explicitly obvious pathologies.

A higher and essential level of societal consciousness knowing and controlling the impacts and vulnerabilities that can and will destroy our socities

Impact studies and panels become an important part of the mix. Where politicians are making critical decisions, especially regarding warfare, there should be expert review panels that advise and even veto major decisions. This addresses the critical reality that there is too much power in too few hands. It is unaccountable, especially when the legislatures of the West have been completely neutered by the executive branches of government and the vested interests that bribe them; who in turn are neutered by the corporate lobbyists and oligarchs who control the whole system.

America and its satellites have become acutely anomic societies as a result of too many negative social impacts over too many decades. The outstanding question is how many more are to come and what is their magnitude? More war, more genocide, continued social chaos, economic collapse, a new self-induced Dark Age?

Durkheim might also agree anomic societies are the by products of imperial hubris where elites are running from the realities of their failures and the edicts of history. They refuse to accept we live in a temporal world where they have had their fifteen minutes of infamy and now must heal themselves. They are so cowardly they compulsively scapegoat and vilify other countries to mask their own failings and treacheries.

He might also conclude that anomic societies are the by product of neocolonization where societies give away their sovereignty and independence and in doing so lose the ability to think for themselves. They suffer the dictates and treachery of their imperial masters as Europe is doing now. It was mindlessly lured into a war in Ukraine that never should have been fought.

It says nothing about the blowing up of the Nord Stream pipelines that destroyed their flourishing economies. Where they are entitled to reparations from Washington for this hideous sabotage, they say nothing and continue bankrupting their societies paying for the empires endless wars.

Where Europe was liberated in 1945 it immediately walked blindly into another colonization, now it has to decolonize and reconstitute— Charles de Gaulle was one of the few who saw the perils of having foreign troops based on French soil.

Where we are urgently in of need rational political continuity and equilibrium, there are the endless ruptures of political corruptions and incontinence.

The road back starts with us.

What do you think?