An effort has been made to catch up the psychological and sociological
concepts in a distinction between ‘simple’ and ‘acute’ anomie. Simple
anomie refers to the state of confusion in a group or society which is
subject to conflict between value-systems, resulting in some degree of
uneasiness and a sense of separation from the group; acute anomie, to the
deterioration and, at the extreme, the disintegration of value-systems,
which results in marked anxieties. This has the merit of terminologically
ear-marking the often stated but sometimes neglected fact that, like other
conditions of society, anomie varies in degree and perhaps in kind (1968,
p. 217).