As we noted last week, an armed robber
and a pacifist have something in common:
They're both social deviants.
But they're obviously also really different.
It's hard to imagine that some people resort
to armed robbery for some of the same reasons
that other people reject violence.
That’s why there are many different theories of deviance that can give us some perspective on how and why both the armed robber and the pacifist become deviant.
Through sociology, we can explore how the
deviance of these two very different people
relates to society at large.
[Theme Music]
To understand where deviance comes
from, we have to go back to the three major
sociological paradigms.
And, as you might expect, structural functionalism,
symbolic interactionism, and conflict theories each
offer a different perspective on the matter.
Way back in episode 5, we touched on Emile
Durkheim’s structural-functionalist approach
to deviance.
His basic insight was that, since deviance
is found in every society, it must serve some
function.
And Durkheim argued that deviance serves four
functions in particular:
First, he said, deviance helps define cultural
values and norms.
Basically, we can only know what’s good
by also understanding what’s not good.
He also argued that society's response to
deviance clarifies moral boundaries.
This means that when society reacts to
deviance, it’s drawing a line,
saying that when behaviors cross a certain
moral threshold, they can be sanctioned, either
formally or informally.
So this can range from a bank robber being
sent to jail, to someone being made fun of
for the way they dress.
Durkheim also said that these reactions bring
society together.
By reacting in similar ways to something that
seems not-normative, we’re basically affirming to each
other that we’re an “us,” and the deviants are “them.”
And this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
In the more serious instances of deviance
– like, school shootings, for example –
you see people uniting around that moral boundary
that’s been breached, and supporting each other.
The spontaneous outpourings of outrage, grief, and
charity that you see in response to school shootings
are all examples of this pattern in action.
And finally, Durkheim pointed out that deviance
can actually encourage social change.
We talked in episode 5 about Rosa Parks’ civil
disobedience, which was by definition deviant,
and it was a factor setting off major
changes in American society, in the form
of the Civil Rights Movement.
Now, while deviance might be necessary, some
societies can have more or less of it than others.
To help explain the difference, American sociologist
Robert Merton proposed, in the 1930s and ‘40s,
what he called strain theory.
Merton argued that the amount of deviance in a
society depends on whether that society has provided
sufficient means to achieve culturally defined goals.
In the US, financial success is one of the
strongest culturally defined goals.
And the means of achieving it include things
like getting an education.
So what we call “the American Dream” – the
idea of working hard to achieve financial stability –
is a prime example of what Merton called
conformity: achieving culturally set goals by
way of conventionally approved means.
Go to school, get good grades, graduate, get
a good job. Work hard. Get rich. Success.
Right? Well, of course, even if wealth is your goal,
this approach isn't an option for a lot of people.
Many who are raised in poverty, for instance,
lack a realistic path to prosperity.
And if you don’t have access to the means – like
money for an education or good-paying job
opportunities – then the goal will be elusive, too.
So one response to the lack of acceptable
means is to use unacceptable means – that
is, deviant ones.
Merton called this innovation, but here,
innovation means something a little different
from what you’re used to.
Merton used it to describe deviant solutions
that people come up with to reach their goals.
In this case, it could include everything
from petty thievery to organized crime.
The goal is still financial success, but the
illegitimate means used to get there make it deviant.
Now, you might also respond in the opposite
way, by giving up on the goal – in this case,
economic success –
and instead committing
totally to following the rules.
You might decide that you may never be rich,
but at least you’re not going to be deviant.
Merton called this ritualism, a deep devotion
to the rules because they are the rules.
Of course, your other option is to reject
the whole system altogether – the means,
the goals, all of it.
In this kind of response, which Merton labeled
retreatism, a person basically “drops out” of society,
rejecting both the conventional means and goals.
Merton classed drug addicts and alcoholics in
this group, because he saw these addictions as a way
of escaping the pressures of the goals and means.
But rejection can also be constructive:
Rebellion is a rejection of goals and means, but in
the context of a counterculture – one that supports the
pursuit of new goals according to new means.
The artist who doesn’t want financial
success, but instead pursues recognition from
their peers is an example of this.
So the structural functionalist perspective
on deviance provides some useful ways of thinking
about how deviance works on a macro scale.
But it works on the assumption that everyone
who does deviant things will be treated as deviant.
The other paradigms of sociology call
this into question:
They point out that social status impacts
how deviance is punished.
Or whether it’s punished at all.
For example, a symbolic interactionist understands
deviance through what’s known as labeling theory –
the idea that things like deviance
and conformity are not so much a matter of
what you do, but how people label it.
Let’s go to the Thought Bubble to see how
labels can make a deviant.
Imagine a student skipping school.
This is an example of primary, or minor, deviance.
On its own, the transgression isn’t going
to affect the student’s self-concept.
That is, it’s not going to cause her to
think of herself, or label herself, as a deviant.
And if she’s an otherwise good student,
then her teacher might just write it off as
a one time thing,
and the fact that she cut classes would just
remain a minor, primary deviance.
But if the teacher responds more strongly, and
punishes her, then that same infraction of the rules
can escalate into secondary deviance.
In this case, a strong sanction could make
the student start to think of herself as a truant.
And this can lead to what Erving Goffman
called a stigma:
a powerfully negative sort of master status
that affects a person’s self-concept, social identity,
and interactions with others.
One of the most powerful effects of stigma
is that it leads to more labeling, especially of
what a person has done, or might still do.
For example, a stigmatized student could be
the subject of retrospective labeling,
where her past is reinterpreted, so that
she’s suddenly understood as having always
been irresponsible.
Likewise, she could be subjected to prospective
labeling, which looks forward in time, predicting
her future behavior based on her stigma.
Thanks Thought Bubble.
As you can see, the whole process of labeling
can be extremely consequential.
And it affects not only how we think of ourselves,
but also who responds to deviance, as well
as how they respond, and how the deviant person
is understood in society.
Drug abuse, for instance, has largely been
understood as a moral failing.
But it’s increasingly being seen as an illness.
And as that perception has changed, so too
have the people who respond to drug abuse.
Instead of just being a job for law enforcement,
today, instances of drug abuse often involve
both police and medical professionals.
And instead of getting jail time, in some
places, violators are given medical and
psychological treatment.
In other words, how people respond is beginning
to change.
And finally, instead of being judged as
personally culpable for some moral failing,
addicts are increasingly seen as suffering from
a disease, freeing them, in part, from some degree of
personal responsibility for their behaviors.
So the very way in which they’re understood
is also evolving.
There are a couple other symbolic interactionist
approaches to deviance that don’t focus
on the power of labels.
Differential association, for example, argues
that who you associate with makes deviance
more or less likely.
And control theory focuses on a person’s
self-control as a way of avoiding deviance,
as well as their ability to anticipate and
avoid the consequences of their actions.
All of these symbolic interactionist approaches
highlight the interpersonal responses to deviance.
But a Conflict Theory approach links deviance
to social power.
If we look at society, we find that the socially
deviant are not necessarily the most dangerous.
Rather, a conflict-theory perspective points
out that they are often the most powerless.
Conflict theory can explain why this is so
in a few different ways:
For one thing, conflict theory posits that
norms and laws reflect the interests of the
powerful.
So the powerful can defend their power by
labeling as deviant anything that threatens
that power.
For instance, in capitalist societies, deviant
labels are often applied to those who interfere
with the way capitalism functions.
And since capitalism is based on the private
control of wealth, stealing is clearly labeled
as deviant.
But there are also different rules for when
the rich target the poor:
Petty thieves are treated as deviant in a way
that corporate criminals are not, even though
they both steal from other people.
An employee taking goods out of the backroom is
hauled in by the police, while the boss who withholds
overtime pay often doesn’t even pay a fine.
And this is the case, according to conflict theory,
because the powerful are able to defend themselves
against labels of deviance,
so deviant actions are less likely to lead to a
deviant label and thus reactions to that deviance.
Finally, conflict theory points out that norms
have an inherently political nature,
but the politics tend to be masked by the
general belief that if something is normative,
it must be right and good.
So while we may take issue with how a law
is applied, we much more rarely ask whether
the laws themselves are just or not.
Conflict theorists see these explanations
at work wherever the inequality of social
power can be found –
across gender, among races, and between
groups of different socioeconomic status.
Ultimately, structural functionalism, symbolic
interactionism, and conflict theory all give
us useful tools for understanding deviance.
Each of these paradigms is powerful, and we'll
be making use of all three next week, when
we look specifically at crime.
Today we learned about how the three major
paradigms in sociology approach deviance.
We talked about structural functionalism and
how deviance can fulfill a function in society.
Then we turned to symbolic interactionism
and looked at how deviance is constructed.
Finally, we discussed conflict theory and
how deviance is connected to power and inequality.
Crash Course Sociology is filmed in the Dr. Cheryl
C. Kinney Studio in Missoula, MT, and it’s made
with the help of all of these nice people.
Our animation team is Thought Cafe and Crash
Course is made with Adobe Creative Cloud.
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