Anomie
Etymology
Comes through French from Greek anomía, "lawlessness": a- ("without") + nomos ("law, custom"). The literal idea is "without a governing norm." The sociologist Émile Durkheim borrowed it to name a society whose common rules and expectations have broken down, and that sociological sense is the one we use today.
noun · /AN-uh-mee/
A condition in which shared social norms weaken, leaving people feeling disconnected, directionless, or unsure of the rules.
What it names
A name for the specific unease of societies going through rapid change — when the old expectations no longer hold but nothing has clearly replaced them.
Example
The town’s sudden boom bred a kind of anomie: everyone was richer and no one seemed to know how to behave anymore.
Related idea
Alienation — feeling estranged from work or society. Anomie is about the rules dissolving; alienation is about feeling cut off from them.