Anomie

Catherine Zeta-Jones checked into a mental hospital yesterday to receive treatment for Bipolar II Disorder. On The Today Show Matt Lauer explained that this is a recent offshoot of plain every day Bipolar, which used to be called manic depression when I went to school. Matt went on to explain the symptoms: a chronic depression punctuated by only occasional and not very intense highs.

It was then that I realized that I was a border line Bipolar II sufferer! It explains so much. I get up in the morning and either go to the Y where I have come to realize that I will never look like the guy in The Fighter (Depression), or I sit in the kitchen, drink some coffee, and read the morning paper (Major Depression). Then I discover that it is raining, or snowing, or too cold, or too hot to really do a thorough job of working on that deck I've been meaning to build (Still More Depression). After that, I might go and read Wolf Hall which reduces my erstwhile hero, Thomas More, into a blood thirsty, unforgiving fanatic (Sigh). Or I might pick up my guitar and realize that after some thirty years of dabbling on and off I will never play like Les Paul (Figures). Yeah, yeah, I know you're thinking "but what about your beautiful wife?" You've got a point, but she doesn't play like Les Paul either.

It seems to me that Bipolar II Disorder is a reasonable reaction to the world. Maybe it's the people who are not rushing to hospitals to have their meds adjusted we should be worried about.

This, of course, brings me to Emile Durkheim, sociology, and the five institutions of society.

Okay, we have FAMILY, EDUCATION, RELIGION, GOVERNMENT, BUSINESS. According to Durkheim (I think, but since this is a blog post, who cares?), these five form a pentagon of sorts enclosing/constraining/defining all those within the boundaries. Someone who doesn't measure up to the requirements of one or another of these institutions can be found outside the pentagon, an outcast.

As society progresses, these institutions take turns being the strongest. Right now BUSINESS seems to be in the vanguard, with RELIGION close behind. In the 60's EDUCATION was king, or at least it seemed that way. GOVERNMENT proclaimed its postwar power by building a plethora of pillored temples to anchor town squares everywhere. (The alliteration in that last sentence was purely accidental.)

Sometimes however, none of the institutions seem to work. This is such a time. And the feeling you get when you look around and see all of your institutions falling is called anomie. It is the feeling of having lost your moorings, of being set adrift.

To illustrate, I started weeping one morning last week when I read that the Civil Union Bill died in committee. There was a picture of a fat, old, white male looking askance at a lesbian couple holding hands next to him. I wasn't weeping so much at the failure of the bill as I was at the fact that not a single republican had the courage to buck his party and do the right thing. It was a disillusioning moment.

I think the five institutions allegedly holding up this crumbling society of ours are so universally held in contempt that all a comedian would have to do is walk on stage at a comedy club and open his act by saying, "Hey any of you guys involved in EDUCATION?" - the house roars. "Hey, are there any honest BUSINESSmen here tonight?" - the house roars louder - a gentleman at a corner table chokes on his olive. "Take my FAMILY, please."

That's what I'm feeling, anomie. I like the sound of it better than Bipolar II Disorder. They both spring from the same cause: paying attention.