Anomie: The ultimate and most legitimate first world problem. 

      I have recently been reminded of my love of Emile Durkheim's writing. To be honest, I am often annoyed by sociology, it has a tendency to be impractical, characterised by battles of semantics. Nevertheless, Durkheim is a sociologist who's words tend to ring true and grow increasingly relevant despite that he died in 1917.

     My favourite concept of his is "anomie" - the ultimate and most legitimate first world problem.

     How is it that people constantly under the threat of death, barely able to survive, perhaps in deplorable living conditions, cling to life so desperately while people in first world countries commit suicides in their suburbs? How is it possible that depression is characterised as a predominantly western disease?

     We may think that it is because the first world encourages a culture of weakness, that we are not as strong as predecessors who faced World Wars and the Great Depression. We hear all too many jokes about "first world problems." I do believe this is partly true. We've developed a confusing admiration for beta mentality. We do forget that food, shelter, and security are actually difficult to attain. A large majority have grown bloated with luxury.
     However, I also believe that there are genuine ailments that can only be found in first world societies. Not weakness, but conditions that reduce our perceived value of life. Or put in more melancholy terms, cause us to impose a more realistic value on life.   I feel this is best described with Durkheim's word - anomie.

As Durkheim describes in The Division of Labour in Society,  anomie is a condition of derangement that arises when social bonds are broken between individuals and communities. People are left with only their ego as guidance because there is a gap between cultural promises and structural realities.  It is where the individual “aspires to everything and is satisfied with nothing” (Durkheim's Suicide). When not tempered by the struggle to survive, societal norms, or become detached from the illusions of religion, people are faced with the challenge of confronting the reality of our loneliness. The fact that our consciousness is ultimately our own - that collective consciousness is external - can be comforting, but it can also be terrifying.

 It's not academic at all, but here is something I wrote that is related to this:

 Anomie: Where I am

I live on the verge of tears, often for months at a time, never knowing when I might slip into some chasm and lose my way out.

Through some cruel coincidence, it is in this place, along this verge, that I feel the most clarity. Inspiration emanating from fissures of the broken earth, stinging with a profound illumination as I fall in, tumbling into depths where simple pleasures cannot reach.

Here, impossibly, inescapably, I grow blisters from pains inflicted on others. Vicariously, I feel the harm inflicted upon reason and upon those I do not know. It is only once falling into this miserable depth that I can become more than myself; where I can feel the consciousness of the world resonating through the walls of this place I have fallen into.

Although I should escape, it is by a morbid fascination that I remain. Being more than an individual, despite reality, is my choice. Consequently, I know this place along the verge will be one I frequent for the rest of my life.