d with a new culture or about the identity crises which often erupt during the age transition from youth to adult. Durkheim's use of the term -'lack of social regulation'- remains the standard definition
             Emile Durkheim
             Emile Durkheim was the first French academic sociologist. His life was dominated throughout by his academic career, even though he was intensely and passionately involved in the affairs of French society at large. In his well-established status he differed from the men dealt with so far, and his life may seem uneventful when compared with theirs. Undoubtedly their personal idiosyncrasies had a share in determining their erratic course. But in addition, they were all devoted to a calling that had not yet found recognition in the university. In their attempts to defend the claim to legitimacy of the new science of sociology, they faced enormous obstacles, which contributed in large measure to their personal difficulties.
             In 1893, Emile Durkheim inserted the term "anomie" into cultural discourse. In his book The Division of Labour in Society he described anomie as a condition of confusion caused by the breakdown of social norms, thereby putting a distinctly negative spin on the concept by linking this confusion to a loss of productivity. A few years later he made it sound even worse: with the 1897 book Suicide, Durkheim used anomie to describe the state of self-destructive moral deregulation of societies in a state of rapid change.
             Other definitions of anomie have been based on Durkheim's original destructive view of social disintegration, some definitions even more mechanistic than his. Such as the idea of a human heat death analogous to the second law of thermodynamics, except (in the spirit of Soylent Green) energy... is people!
             But not all technophiles have been so dogmatic about the negatives of decentralization. Dr. Vannevar Bush -- even came up with an idea ...