How do history and culture fit into the development of these theories?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Merton’s classical statement of strain theory emerged in the years following the Great Depression (1929–1939). However, the history of these ideas goes back much further. As discussed in previous chapters, Emile Durkheim was a French thinker who first defined anomie as a normlessness state that characterizes unstable societies. In anomic societies, key institutions such as the family, church, education, and political systems often break down or weaken. According to Durkheim, a breakdown in institutional control may lead to increased levels of deviance, crime, and other social pathologies. Older societies tend to think and act in similar ways and have common customs and traditions. Such societies are connected through primary relationships (e.g., ties of kinship and friendship). In these societies, the law tends to be quite repressive and religion plays a great role in everyday life. As societies become more technologically advanced and industrialized, customs, traditions, and beliefs in these societies tend to diversify; these societies are held together more by contractual relationships than by kinship and friendship ties. Without a common basis to arrive at mutually agreed norms, fragmentation would lead to social strife and crime. For Durkheim (1895/1938), crime was viewed as a social fact.