The Punk Movement and Anomie

When the Punk Movement emerged in the mid-1970s in both the United States and United Kingdom, it spanned into such areas as fashion, music, as well as youth mentality and thus became its own type of subculture. However, this movement can also be considered a form of social deviance when viewed through the lens of Robert Merton’s theory of anomie. This deviance stems from the anti-social and anti-conventional nature of the movement’s members in response to lower and middle class socio-economic strain. Therefore, the Punk Movement can be categorized as a combination of two of Merton’s types of adaptation to strain, including retreatism and rebellion, due to the subculture’s rejection of capitalist values, withdrawal from the workforce and apathetic attitude.

To begin, in application to Merton’s concept of anomie, the Punk movement can be explained as a type of adaptation to societal strain. According to Merton’s theory, anomie is a situation wherein “individuals are unable to attain the legitimate, institutionalized means to achieve socially approved cultural goals that connote success” (Palmer, 31). That is to say, there is a discrepancy between the societal need to achieve success, specifically the American Dream, and the means of achieving this success. This happens when the desire to achieve socio-economic success has become so strong and engrained in society, that the individual feels that this is what must attain at any cost.

At this point, the discrepancy between the means and the goal occurs as a result of factors including class, education, occupation and poverty or financial stability situation. In all of these cases, it is poverty or low economic status, lack of education, low level occupation that contributes t...

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