THE STATE OF VALUE SYSTEM AS A FACTOR OF ANOMIE IN THE CONTEMPORARY RUSSIAN SOCIETY

Abstract

The article considers main approaches to the concept ‘anomie’ and its manifestations in the contemporary society, analyzes the system of values of different generations in Russia and their influence on the state of anomie. The maturing of a number of Russian generations was influenced by the radical changes in the country’s social-economic and political structure, which forced generations to adapt and to accept other values than those formed in the process of socialization. Today we can identify a generation whose value orientations were formed in the new economic and political conditions. Moreover, the Russian society has not yet overcome the transformational upheavals of the post-Soviet period, thus, it continues to serve as a good empirical base to study anomie and its concomitant phenomena (rejection of socially approved goals and/or ways to achieve them). The empirical basis of the article is the data of the 2017 authors’ survey and the Russian data of the World Values Survey. Empirical data show that anomie manifests itself in the increasing priority of material and pragmatic values, growing individualization of social practices, socially determined experiences of loneliness and anxiety, persistent doubts about the value and necessity of honesty, loyalty, modesty and conscientiousness, uncertainty or lack of strategic orientations, and in accepting different formats of R. Merton’s retritism as a way to overcome negative social-psychological consequences of the anomic state of society. Empirical data allowed the authors to confirm the hypothesis of the social-typical nature of anomie, describe some phenomena and interconnections related to the anomic situation, and identify instrumental possibilities of the empirical study of anomic tendencies. The authors also emphasize relevance of the available empirical data to the theoretical principles of the sociological study of anomie.

Keywords

• anomie
• social values
• value orientations
• social norms
• contemporary Russian society
• loneliness
• trust