Preview

Do You Think Durkheim Allege That If We Didn T Have Deviant

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
322 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Do You Think Durkheim Allege That If We Didn T Have Deviant
After reading Chapter Three of the text, Introduction to Sociology and the article, Durkheim’s Classic Contribution, consider the following question, why do you think Emile Durkheim allege that if we didn’t have deviants, we would create them? Support your answer with detailed examples.
Within the context of the functionalist perspective, Durkheim made a real interesting point. You must have deviants in society in order for society to know where or what their values and norms will tolerate. If not then how can a society put laws in place or determine the rules. It also reaffirms the existing values and norms (Vissing, 2011). From my perspective, It's a chicken or the egg conundrum. If not one single person ever committed assault in a society

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Durkheim looks at how crime and deviance is inevitable and needed in society as it performs two important positive functions: boundary maintenance and adaptation and change, he says that boundary maintenance is when society reacts to crime and there is social cohesion, and this leads to society condemning the criminal and the punishment given by the social agencies is a way of reaffirming societies shared rules and reinforce social solidarity. The media portrays the court case and the punishment; this acts a way of informing members of society and discourages others from rule breaking. Adaptation and change for Durkheim is when an individual has an idea or belief which is seen to be deviant by rest of the members of society, they fight and challenge the existing norms and values, in time there values may give way to a new culture and morality and not seen as deviant anymore such as cohabiting couples would be seen as deviant due to the couples not been married but in current times it is not deviant as it is more popular in society. These changes in values and in society allow society to progress and evolve. Furthermore Durkheim acknowledges that crime and deviance are inevitable because not everyone is socialized in the same way with the same norms and values. Functionalism is useful as it…

    • 905 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The problem with Durkheim’s theory of social deviance is that his idea that a society needs deviancy to change is only looking at the “good” sort of deviant behaviour which leads to a more desirable type of social change. This leaves out the kinds of deviancy such as murder, theft, rape and other sorts of deviancy which damages society. With Durkheim leaving out the sort of deviancy that would cause damage to society he has left himself open to criticism.…

    • 755 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Durkheim argued that a certain amount of crime was ‘healthy’ for society and that it is deviant behaviour that provided a catalyst for social change. He said that crime and deviance are functional because the ritual of punishment is an expressive experience that serves to bind together members of a social group and establishment a sense of community; also known as re-affirming boundaries as the resulting media coverage publicly reaffirms the existing values. They are useful in introducing necessary changes and preparing people for change – as Durkheim argues all social change begins with some form of deviance; certain crimes when prosecuted illicit public sympathy and affect change in legislation policies – Kiranjit Ahluwalia, Rosa Parks. Durkheim also put forward social cohesion, this is when certain horrific crimes are committed the entire community are drawn together in shared outrage, such as September 11th Twin Towers, often resulting in public accepting legislative changes which severely impact upon out civil liberties. However Durkheim also seen negatives aspects of Crime and Deviance named ‘Anomie’ the point when crimes becomes dysfunctional. This is a condition characterized by the breakdown of norms governing social interaction. Durkheim argues that people can only be happy when their wants are commensurate to their means. He thought that humans are basically selfish in nature and if left to their own devices would in order to satisfy their own needs, commit crime if they could get away with it. A state of anomie would therefore occur where there are insufficient social controls to ensure conformity from individuals. He argued that this would normally occur in periods of great social change or stress, where the collective conscience may be weakened.…

    • 922 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Functionalist approach towards crime & deviance is seen as a top down approach as it looks at society as a whole, stating that criminal behaviour is caused by society itself except from being caused through an individual’s biology & psychology. Durkheim sees deviance as inevitable also being necessary for our society, however other perspectives such as Marxist & Feminist may state otherwise.…

    • 550 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Jones, R.A. 1986, Emile Durkheim: An Introduction to Four Major Works. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications, Pp 24 – 28…

    • 1696 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Opportunity structures can be described as a factor, situation or pathway which can lead towards or away from deviant or criminal behaviour, for example if someone does not gain access to the legitimate opportunity structure of education to achieve goals they may look to other, illegitimate opportunities and which can lead to them committing crime or engaging in deviant behaviour. One theory that supports the role of access to opportunity structures in causing crime and deviance is, arguing that unequal access to legitimate opportunity structures is the cause of this behaviour is Merton’s Strain Theory. Merton’s ‘Strain theory and anomie’ argues that deviance arises from the structure of society. He has developed the functionalist theory of deviance to attempt to explain why deviance occurs in the first place. He argues that people engage in deviant behaviour because they are unable to achieve socially approved goals by legitimate means. Most people share goals – for example, financial success, having their own home and possessing consumer goods – and most conform to the approved means of achieving them, like working in paid employment. However, in an unequal society, Merton argues that not all individuals have the same opportunity of realising these goals by approved means. This means they face a sense of strain and anomie (normlessness), as the dominant rules about how to achieve success don’t meet their needs, and therefore deviance results from unequal access to legitimate opportunities (such as education and careers which can be seen as opportunity structures). Merton argues that there are different ‘modes of adaptation’, or responses to situations, that range from conformity that most people to display, to one of four forms of deviance, which he calls Innovation, Ritualism, Retreatism and Rebellion. A non-deviant, non-criminal conformist citizen would take the conformity…

    • 1428 Words
    • 41 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Durkheim’s (1897) argument is extremely outdated, being almost 120 years old. This means that some of his views aren’t applicable to today’s society - his ideas were based on pre-industrial societies where people often lived in extended or nuclear families, whereas today’s society is based on modern industrial society where not many people continue to live in nuclear families anymore. He argues that our behaviour is caused by social facts such as social integration and moral regulation and that the suicide rate is also a social fact. He…

    • 1624 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Mr Stefan Sledmore

    • 1499 Words
    • 6 Pages

    One key opinion of the functionalist perspective is that crime is a good thing. Factionalists view crime as beneficial for society because we can learn from it, they would argue that if, for example, a woman was walking alone in a short dress down a dark alleyway way in town and was sexually assaulted, then the rest of society could learn from this and avoid being alone, wearing revealing clothing and walking down dark alleyways. However, the victim does obviously not see this as positive! Because of the view that crime is needed, Emile Durkheim stated that crime was inevitable as it provided two main functions; ‘Boundary Maintenance’ and ‘Adaption to Change.’ ‘Boundary Maintenance’ is view that crime produces a reaction from society uniting its members in disapproval of criminals. This explains the function of punishment, which is to reaffirm society’s shared rules. ‘Adaption to Change’ is the view that all changes start with acts of…

    • 1499 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The norms become blurred and individuals become unaware of what is right or wrong in society (Lilly, J. Robert et al. 2007). An example of anomie in society is the summer riots of 2011, making news headlines across England. Durkheim would argue that this incident is a lack of norms; offenders being unaware of the adequate norms in society. The article (The Telegraph. 2011) called it a ‘crumbling nation’, supporting Durkheim’s theory of anomie, as individuals in the riot may have been unsure of the norms in society and as a result showed acts of rioting. This suggests that the functionalist theory can yet be applied to society today and explain why people commit acts of crime and…

    • 1459 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Becker: "Outside"

    • 800 Words
    • 4 Pages

    a) According to Howard Becker, central fact about deviance is that “it is created by society. Becker does not mean that the causes of deviance can be derived from the social environment of the deviant or the “social factors” that causes an individual to engage in deviant behavior. Rather, Becker means that social groups create deviance by creating the rules or norms that must be adhered to and if they are violated—the violation will result in what the group deems as being deviance. Thus, the individuals who go against the norms or rules of a social group will be labeled as being an “outsider”.…

    • 800 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Midterm

    • 2323 Words
    • 10 Pages

    1. Compare the absolutist, relativist, and social power perspectives. Which perspective do you believe would best describe your approach to deviance? Why would you choose this approach? Which of these approaches exhibits the most respect for deviant’s choice of behavior? The absolutist perspective, dominated by religious settings, hold that deviance is universal and what is wrong in one place, is wrong everywhere. This tactic to describing deviance rests on the supposition that all human behavior can be considered either innately good or innately bad. Deviant acts come to define the individual’s character and can often be based on stereotypes i.e., all parents who spank are abusing their children or all Muslims are terrorists. The absolutist perspective assumes an extensive unanimity over definitions of deviance, universal norms, and taboos. Durkheim said that social laws replicate unbiased facts integrated into functionalist notions of deviance. This perspective maintains that deviance is pathological and an objective fact. Deviance is considered unethical and reproachful of social order, requiring unyielding, retributory measures.…

    • 2323 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    I received my recent grade for Topic 3 assignment “Deviance and Its Consequenses”. It is obvious that I am worried because of such a low grade and I can see that it is my fault as the essay has some slappy mistakes. I put my effort to find an interesting topic for disqussion and provided the facts in my essay; I took interviews to be more familiar with peoples’ opinions. Through my research and I stated it in the essay I found out that all of social classes whitnessing these deviant behavior, described in my essay and with the examples: “Nail polish” and “Subway” I was trying to show their reaction. I carefully read the questions, used GCU library to find article and these is what I came up with. I can clearly see that it is weak student work…

    • 192 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Best Essays

    Social Controls

    • 2967 Words
    • 12 Pages

    Many of the early control theories attach more importance to psychological factors rather than social factors when analysing deviance and conformity. One of the earliest control theories to focus on sociological reasons for crime was that of Durkheim’s theory of anomie. Durkheim argued ‘inadequate forms of social control are more likely during periods of rapid modernisation and social change because new forms of regulation cannot evolve quickly enough to replace the declining form of social solidarity (N.D cited in Hopkins 2009,…

    • 2967 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Good Essays

    However, as Downes and Rock point out, 'ambiguity' is clearly the whole issue in the analysis of crime and deviance: the authors state that it is socially recognised the difficulty of identifying situations or people as deviant and it all starts conforming to the group reaction (2004:5). That is not only about the criminal subject: assumed that sociological behaviour is performance, most of people tend to behave conforming to the situation and, then, to that series of attitudes that are considered moral. So is deviance just a conforming to the wrong side? Most of criminals and deviants are, indeed, influenced by peers despite mass media depict criminals as solitary weirdos (Krohm, 2009:401-402). Erickson, cited in Gibbs (1966:11) formulate an interesting (and prettily sociological) consideration stating that the study of crime and deviance becomes critical focusing on 'the social audience' that refers some individuals as being deviant in order to gain control since it is necessary to react against these people. That is the basis of the criminal law but, since some behaviours do not conform with civil norms, what about informal norms? Stipulating these rules and then conforming to them is the making-of the social culture, which according to Downes and Rock substantially consists in 'traditional ways of solving problems' (2003:145-146) and these problems refer to all those issues and situations that are not considered ordinary, usual and normal. Subsequently, the people who consider that side as the 'outside' are the same that behave affected by moral panic, nowadays generally spread by the mass media; meanwhile, in the Middle Age deviants for example were the left-hand writer or the witches and, in the last century, they were the homosexuals or the mods and the rockers. What makes the former ones ‘more normal’ than the latter…

    • 781 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Violence is one of the most obsessed concepts in society and will always be a current topic of interest. People are infatuated with crime and the media takes advantage of it. When media presents violent topics, it somehow cures many people’s urges to be violent, these people we would deem as the social norm. Everyday people living an everyday life, they have urges to be violent but they don’t act upon them. That is a rather general idea of the social norm, since the concept of normal changes within different cultures. A deviant person is one who is departing from usual or accepted standards. There is something that is off about them as a person, and they don’t necessarily fit in with the social norm. A serial killer, for example, would be deemed deviant. Obviously serial killers are different, because they go around killing people however, the media finds different negative features to enhance the issue or form a reason as to why they would kill certain people. The media basically labels them as an outcast by saying they were deviant before they started killing, and then go on to blame killings on their deviant characteristic.…

    • 906 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics