iPod Philosophy: Anomie as Explained by Pop Music

The postmodern person values hygiene, quiet, civilized manners, and aesthetic niceties that our ancestors could scarcely imagine. This desire for things that used to be considered luxuries, coupled with irritation at the status quo, leads to innovation in all fields—one invents new ideas and technology only when one is dissatisfied, which is to say, anomic. Yet each new achievement in ideas or material goods leads eventually to ennui and a renewed desire to innovate. For Durkheim, this process is inexorable.

—Stjepan Gabriel Mestrovic, The Coming Fin de Siècle (London: Routledge, 1991), 205

In this previous post, I attempted to wade my way through the concept of ennui with a little help from my iPod. This time around, the concept up for dissection by pop music is ennui’s bedfellow, anomie. Often mentioned in the same philosophical breath, anomie has come to stand for the more active, angry side of ennui—which is to say, it is equally attributed to the modern condition and it is an affect or emotion that is equally hard to grasp due to the overarching yet hard to discern shadow it sneakily casts over alienated urbanites. But the shades annomie carries are slightly more sinister than the ones ennui does.

Most notably associated with the nineteenth-century sociologist Émile Durkheim (who identifies anomie as a cause of suicide. Yikes!), anomie is succinctly defined by the trusty Oxford Dictionary as a “lack of the usual social or ethical standards in an individual or group.” Rather than indicating some sort of society comprised completely of sociopaths, anomie is a condition caused, like ennui, by both the physical and social structures of modernity—that is to say, high-rises and robot cashiers.

In trying to understand the way anomie differs from ennui, it’s become apparent the task is a somewhat precarious one. The motivation to separate the two clearly has more to do with falling back on humankind’s love of binaries—boy/girl, male/female, hot/cold, up/down, good/evil, light/dark—than it necessarily does with there being any sort of opposition between the two concepts.

However, while I’m far from certain that discerning between ennui and anomie isn’t splitting hairs, the vivid depiction of anomie once offered by one of my professors is reason enough to delve in.

“Anomie,” he said in his professor voice, “is epitomized in the case of the opening of the first indoor shopping arcade in Paris. It is told,” he continued, “that the excitement for this scion of consumerism was so great that as they waited for the doors to open, women spontaneously orgasmed.”** Perhaps the best contemporary equivalent is found in those horrific Black Friday stories of people being trampled to death as crazed consumers stampede their way into Wal-Marts. A lack of the usual ethical standards, indeed.

(**note: not verbatim. Also, this particular professor was a pop culture specialist and of the easy breezy variety. However, it is a well-known fact that upon recollection, all professors look and sound like Ben Stein.)

Much more than ennui—which sees First Worlders listlessly lazing around their easy peasy lives, drowning in the stagnant waters of a completely effortless and thus unfulfilling life—anomie seems wrapped up in the darker, more sinister corners of modern existence. That is, at least so far as I can tell after trying to parse out the anomic from the ennuyed attitudes contained in my iPod.

Rather than two sides of the same coin, it’s more like anomie and ennui are two sides of the same Mobius Strip. But ennui is weepy while anomie is horny. Ennui longs for a way to reconnect to the world; anomie does not give a fuck—not about connection, not about you. Ennui sleeps because there’s nothing else to do. Anomie casually throws bottles of expensive champagne off the top of the Eiffel Tower, because it can.

And so, on that note, I present six songs to help develop the bratty, fatalistic side of your isolated, listless, and dissatisfied modern self.

MGMT, "Time to Pretend" (Oracular Spectacular, 2008)

Key lyrics:
I'm feelin' rough I'm feelin' raw I'm in the prime of my life
Let's make some music make some money find some models for wives
I'll move to Paris, shoot some heroin and fuck with the stars
You man the island and the cocaine and the elegant cars
This is our decision to live fast and die young.
We've got the vision, now let's have some fun.
Yeah it's overwhelming
But what else can we do?
Get jobs in offices and wake up for the morning commute?

Kurt Vile, "Society Is My Friend" (Smoke Ring for My Halo, 2011)

Key lyrics:
Society is all around
Aw, hear the beautiful sound Of all the high-pitched squeals
Ecstatic brilliance at its finest
That’s my friend
Society is all around
It takes me down
Society is my friend
He makes me lie down
In a cool blood bath

Dum Dum Girls, "Coming Down" (Only in Dreams, 2011)

Key lyrics:
I take as much as I can get
I don't take any regret
I close my eyes to conjure up something
But it's just a faint taste in my mouth
I think I'm coming down
I think I'm coming down

Lana Del Rey, "Born to Die" (Born to Die, 2012)

Key lyrics:
The road is long, we carry on
Try to have fun in the meantime
. . .
Cause you and I
We were born to die

Frank Ocean ft. Earl Sweatshirt, "Super Rich Kids" (Channel Orange, 2012)

Key lyrics:
Too many bottles of this wine we can't pronounce
Too many bowls of that green, no lucky charms
The maids come around too much
Parents ain't around enough
Too many joy rides in daddy's jaguar
Too many white lies and white lines
Super rich kids with nothing but loose ends
Super rich kids with nothing but fake friends
. . .
Close your eyes for what you can't imagine, we are the xany gnashing
Caddy smashing, bratty ass, he mad, he snatched his daddy's Jag
And used the shit for batting practice, adamant and he thrashing
Purchasing crappy grams with half the hand of cash you handed
Panicking, patch me up, Pappy done latch keyed us
Toying with Raggy Anns and mammy done had enough
Brash as fuck, breaching all these aqueducts; don't believe us
Treat us like we can't erupt, yup

(As appropriately set to the scenes of Rich Kids of Instagram, natch)

Jens Lekman, "Black Cab" (Oh You're So Silent Jens, 2005)

Key lyrics:
Oh no, god damn I missed the last tram
I killed a party again
God damn, god damn
I wanna sleep in my bed
I wanna clean up my head
Don't wanna look this dead
Don't wanna feel this dread
You don't know anything
So don't ask me questions
You don't know anything
So please don't ask me any questions
You don't know anything
So don't ask me questions
Just turn the music up
And keep your mouth shut

And last but not least, a very important bonus track that effortlessly walks the ennui/anomie Mobius Strip, summing up the entire investigation in less than five minutes

Shania Twain, "That Don't Impress Me Much" (Come On Over, 1997)

Key lyrics:
Oh-oo-oh, you think you're special
Oh-oo-oh, you think you're something else
Okay—so you're Brad Pitt
That don't impress me much