Opinion Sur
Anomie means deregulation. It is an important concept because the deregulation of human behavior at almost all levels of interaction – daily, national, and international – multiplies and enhances conflict. This article describes that dynamic and points out its causes.
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85 years have passed since Robert Merton presented his analysis of anomie.[1] At that time, Merton could refer to a dominant and fairly homogeneous ideological-cultural matrix in American society that was the hegemonic power. In the decades that have elapsed since then, his outline of adaptation forms continues to be useful for analysis but has experienced some great changes.
The first is globalization, which today transcends all physical and mental boundaries. It no longer presents a single matrix but a motley and unstable coexistence of ideologies and values of all kinds and colors. In the current period, what passes for “de-globalization” is nothing more than the relative loss of American hegemony in favor of a plurality of powers and cultures. Many countries are seeing the end of the globalizing neo-liberalism – including the United States. However, the crisis of neoliberalism has not been followed by a fairer and more rational global system but by a proliferation of ethnic nationalisms and populisms of different signs, cultural cracks, and armed conflicts. Globalization today is a fact but it has ceased to be an ideology. It coexists with a generalized culture war. We have merely exchanged one evil for another worse. In short: there is globalization without hegemony.
The second change is the vertiginous acceleration of new technologies beyond those material (transport, energy, material industry) but also immaterial accumulation and dispersion of data and information through the Internet and in particular social networks. In short: we have entered the domain of immateriality.[2]
The third is the increasing alienation of the operations of the human brain towards artificial intelligence systems, and especially algorithmic calculation. In short: we have attained supra-human rationality.
The geopolitical impact of these three major changes is enormous. Let’s go back to Merton’s scheme and apply these changes to their respective cells to see how anomie and modes of adaptation of human behavior have evolved. Let’s do a review and see what happened.
MODIFIED MERTON OUTLINE
| Shared cultural purposes | ||||
| Accepted means | + | – | ||
| CONFORMIST | RITUALISTIC | |||
| + | (1) | Ancient Power Elites New/groundbreaking | (3) | Downward middle class, passive sectors, silent majority |
| INNOVATIVE | WITHDRAWN | |||
| – | (2) | Technicians, disruptive businessmen, demagogues, criminals | (4) | Lumpen proletariat, suicides, anarchists |
| Other ends and means | ||||
| (5) | REVOLUTIONARY | |||
| Organized and Disorganized | ||||
- Compliance has changed. Merton’s functionalist sociology was about adaptation to shared values and common aspirations (easier to achieve among the privileged) where both cultural goals and institutional means were accepted and shared. It was the “normal” non-deviant form of behavior. At that time (1950-1980), sociology spoke of “regulatory social system” (Parsons), “ruling class” (Marx), “power elite” (Mills), or “ideological hegemony” (Gramsci). Today, there is no more shared or forced conformity but an open cultural struggle between contrasting conformities, and different value systems. Instead of hegemonic consensus, there are normative cracks and polarization between fundamentalisms. The owners of power do not impose consensus but manage and manipulate the platforms of dissent and confusion among various tribes of remote-control users. They organize information markets in which they are always winners. They are not preachers but puppeteers.[3] The owners of power are manipulators indifferent to the content they circulate. Their “vision” is formal and quite poor, without exemplarity. Their goals are power for power’s sake and fame for fame’s sake. Theirs is an anomic power. It is based on the speed of innovation, which shreds and destroys all stable values. According to them, to get something, you have to take risks, and that means making mistakes, or “breaking things“.[4] The motto of Mark Zuckerberg, owner of Meta/Facebook is: “move fast and break things.”
- Innovation has changed: At this point in the 21st century this is the fundamental box that impacts all the others. Earlier he referred to the case when individuals accept the established goals (increasingly abstract) but modify the means to reach them. Technology is the most cited field of innovation (new machines for everything), but criminality is also (new gadgets to commit crimes). In this box there are fundamental changes. Although abstract goals are, as before, power and money, they reside less in physical possession than in perfecting virtual systems of behavior manipulation and in the invention of new ones. The speed of innovation is a fundamental variable, which determines winners and losers. There are no other ends than the most abstract ones, or means (either right or wrong) that are not tried to achieve them. The owners of power are the owners of that speed. A normative system has as its basic function to regulate behavior and make it predictable. Anomie occurs when a regulatory system does not exist because technological-social innovation is so rapid that it expires. Regulators (nation states and international treaties) lag behind innovation. When regulatory systems are discussed and enacted they are already obsolete. Attempts to control artificial intelligence (almost all late or futile) are the most notable current example.[5]
- Ritualism has become a setback: It is characteristic of individuals or groups who do not take risks or accept to make a decision where they do not have all the guarantees and, in addition, they are completely sure that they will get what they want. In a dynamic and post-modern society, they are increasingly left behind. In this box the main change is to the extent and speed of its relative recoil. A symptom of this change is the marked decline of the middle classes in formerly advanced countries (USA) or developing countries (Argentina).
- Withdrawal is increasingly pathological: The spread of this behavior increases as a corollary of the changes in the previous boxes. It is not an adaptation but perhaps a total maladjustment to the environment, since these strata have neither the goals nor the means to realize the proposed objectives. Self-destructive behavior spreads out of desperation. As early as the late 19th century, Emile Durklheim emphasized a new form of suicide, namely anomic suicide, which today takes more varied forms. [6]
- Rebellion spreads without organization: As I wrote in myprevious article, this box is out of the outline because it represents a new world: a vision of other values in both the ends and means of human existence on the planet. There are people who disagree both with the means and the current ends. Their objective is to create a new society or radically modify the current one by another. It has been characteristic of revolutionary attitudes. But this form of contestation is also impacted by the dynamics of innovation (second box). This does not allow time for the consolidation of effective protest organizations. The corollary is worrying. The current trend of many protest movements is violence and brevity.[7] Violence is an anomic form of communication in a society in continuous and rapid movement that leaves many strata behind. The brevity of this explosive form of rejection is due to the lack of time to develop an organization and the creation of an alternative society within the established society, which was once the secret of triumphant revolutionary movements.[8]
Provisional corollary
If my previous comments have a modicum of plausibility, we can predict the following human behaviors over the course of this century, or at least point out the following trends.
- Constant innovation of manipulation systems in the hands of elites who accumulate power and wealth.
- Multiplication and accentuation of political cracks from cultural struggles.
- Widespread use of violence as a means of communication.
- Multiplication of protest movements with little organization behind. The rapid spread of protest through social networks implies neither clarity of focus nor persistence.
- Multiplication of inter-state conflicts and regional wars.
- Accelerated technological evolution of both specific and mass means of destruction.
- Increased likelihood of a generalized, existential crisis of civilization sometimes referred to as the “end of the Anthropocene.”[9]
Each of these points raises a possible answer for those interested in contributing to avoid the end of the Anthropocene. I indicate the questions that can lead to these answers:
STUDY PROGRAM
- How to suture cultural and political cracks in times of polarization?
- How to design alternative media to violence?
- How to design and strengthen models of positive protest organization?
- How to avoid the outbreak of wars through collective strategies of pacification?
- How to regulate and moderate technological evolution and direct it towards peaceful and healthy ends?
- How to raise awareness among populations about a sustainable human destiny?
Eventually, we will have to move on from the How? to the Who? It is a whole program to develop.
[1] Robert K. Merton, Teoría y estructura sociales, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1960, trans. of the third edition in English. Original publication: 1938.
[2] The first to emphasize this characteristic was Jean (Bill) Baudrillard along with other French philosophers in 1985. See https://www.tate.org.uk/research/tate-papers/12/les-immateriaux-or-how-to-construct-the-history-of-exhibitions
[3] Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, aspires to colonize other planets but ignores his own (except to earn money) and the human destiny it contains.
[4] It is the logical consequence of a feature of modern capitalism that Joseph Schumpeter called “creative destruction.”
[5] See UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ intervention on this issue: https://news.un.org/es/story/2023/07/1522542
[6] https://www.sijufor.org/uploads/1/2/0/5/120589378/el_suicidio_-_durkheim_emilie.pdf
[7] The most notable case has been the “Arab Spring,” which erupted in many authoritarian countries in the Arab world from 2010 to 2012, and then vanished. See about it https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primavera_%C3%81rabe_(2010-2012)
[8] The paradigmatic case was the Chinese revolution (1927-1949).
[9] See https://es.unesco.org/courier/2018-2/antropoceno-problematica-vital-debate-cientifico
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