The Connection Between Emile Durkheim And The COVID-19 Pandemic

Emile Durkheim and the COVID-19 Pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic had an effect on most Americans, whether they were immunocompromised, lost their jobs, the lack of resources, the uprise in Black Lives Matter protests after the death of George Floyd, the lack of social interaction due to quarantining, and social division amongst groups of people. All of these factors were major social issues that have not gone away, and have only increased as time goes on. There can be connects made through the sociologist Emile Durkheim, whose theories discuss topics of normlessness and the rise of suicide rates amongst other social issues that effected people during his lifetime. The purpose of this paper is to make a connection between the COVID-19 pandemic and the work of Emile Durkheim to explain some of the social issues that were happening

During the pandemic our society went into a state of anomie. Most people who wanted to get together with family and friends, attend church services, go to school or work, were all deemed as dangerous for society, which left many feeling isolated and separated from society. As stated by Katie Glanz (2020), with this lack of routine and loss of connection, it creates anomie, which is the state of normlessness, and is described as a condition in which members of society become unaware of certain established ways of thinking and or being (Glanz, 2020). Most of these activities involve a certain level of participation, and what happens is that society relies on technology, such as zoom, to be able to communicate with others. Anomie arises from a fall of generally accepted norms, principles, sense of instability, and isolation. Durkheim had proposed that this occurs due to modern societies and how there are social hierarchies based on the economy or relational merit, which results in criminal activity and deviance (Pattanaik,