Blog Post 8: Notes on an Exorcism

After viewing Andrew Solomon’s “Notes on an Exorcism” illustrating his experience of suffering from depression and how he achieved happiness, it really made me question Western culture’s affinity to drugs and medicine as the go-to answer. I have never been a strong believer in prescription medicines for unwarranted conditions, when there are several other alternatives. Drugs remove people from reality, altering their state of mind without solving the problem at hand. Although therapy is expensive and time consuming, I do believe it has much more withstanding and substantial effects when the individual is committed. Similarly to Andrew Solomon’s approach, he sought finding another solution. His solution happened to be in the form of drums, loud music, crowds of people, chanting, and took place in the outdoors. All of these factors typically spark happiness in people and release endorphins, changing a person’s mood for the better. When combined with the intention of reviving yourself and seeking a new path, an experience like this can be so potent and memorable. The only thing memorable about taking prescription drugs is remembering when to take them. Having an experience such as Solomon’s can be life-changing in so many ways and can act as a memory to hold on to whenever upset or in distress.

Blog Post 7: The Creation of a Permanent Underclass

Loic Wacquant discusses the era of the ghetto and how it was ultimately formed. He illustrates the role of higher society in creating and maintaining a system of permanent subordination. He states that blacks had entered the economy by contributing cheap labor, the only variable that whites could manipulate to make a profit, yet remained ostracized and marginalized, consigned to what was later referred to as the ghetto. Whites accepted integration in theory, but had not accepted it in reality, facilitating a mass onslaught of segregation. African-Americans were stigmatized, geographically confined, constrained both economically and socially, as well as institutionally encased.

Wacquant states, “The ghetto, in short, operates as an ethnoracial prison: it encages a dishonoured category and severely curtails the life chances of its members in support of the ‘monopolization of ideal and material goods or opportunities’ by the dominant status group dwelling on its outskirts.” The film titled “Precious” illustrates several of these concepts that define the ghetto and contribute to a permanent underclass of wrongfully stigmatized groups of people. The main character Precious is forced to adhere to the policies of the welfare system in order to obtain the bare minimum of assistance in a community that is lacking proper education and a severely lacking job market. She is socially and economically removed from any form of political participation, and as Wacquant states, “lower-class African-Americans now dwell, not in a society with prisons as their white compatriots do, but in the first genuine prison society in history.”

Blog Post 6: The Politics of Definition

Although some may believe definitions are definitive descriptions, it is important to recognize that they can often times be interchangeable and ambiguous, depending on several different factors. Such factors include social status, economic status, or religious beliefs. Definitions are then constructed through political discourse and made legitimate through the process of law, or other forms of social control. As Peter Conrad and Joseph W. Schneider stated, “Powerful interests in society are best able to implement their version of reality by creating and legitimating deviance definitions that support their interests.” This is the ultimate form of control. The major power players of society create and maintain the rules and regulations that befit them and that secure their social status as leaders and agents of superiority. For example, abortion is still one of the leading debates in our society, as it has been for many years. The definitions of what constitutes a living child has been worked and re-worked countless times, despite scientific contribution leaning any which direction. Religious or political beliefs dictate one’s perception of the topic. Religious leaders, political leaders, ambassadors of scientific discovery, all conflict in their approach as to whether it is a moral decision or a woman’s right to her own body. Although the medical world intends assume a type of scientific basis and may often be treated as morally neutral, medical designations of deviance are influenced exceptionally by the moral codes and orders of society, thus eliminating the possibility of neutrality. 

 

 

Blog Post 5: Deviance as a Social Definition

Understanding deviance as a social definition is quite interesting. People engage in deviant behavior all across the globe, however, definitions as to what makes these acts deviant can extend from a targeted geographical pinpoint, to the beliefs of an entire religion or culture. When definitions can be interchangeable as so, it becomes increasingly difficult to govern successfully and by a standard set of rules. Individuals or groups of individuals may have varying interpretations as to what is considered deviant, posing a difficulty on the greater society who may have definitions relative to their society only. As Peter Conrad and Joseph W. Schneider stated, factors such as society, subculture, time, place, parties involved, or who was offended, all play a role in what is labeled as deviant. As expected, the more powerful groups in society reign superior to those beneath them, creating definitions of deviance that are intended to secure control.

The medicalization of deviance was intended to promote professionalism, such as doctors and medicinal drugs that could correct or control unwanted behaviors. For example, the crusade of physicians against abortion acted as the catalyst for a monopoly over medical services, and a promotion of abortion as deviant and immoral. More and more issues inherent to humans are now being medicalized and has promoted a culture of people who believe that doctors hold the golden grail, making them the ultimate controller of all health and sickness perceptions.

Blog Post 4: Removing the Stigma

The stigma associated with mental illness is quite crippling. Much of the current debate regarding the causes of mental illness are genetic or environmentally based factors. Those who believe that mental illness is genetic, tend to distance themselves further from the individual and tend to place a severe stigma on not only the individual but the family from which they come. Those who believe that the individual has developed a mental illness based on environmental or social factors still place a stigma on those individuals, considering them to be weak or questioning how they were raised. As Goffman states, this stigma allows society to create a means of labeling and categorizing, and mentally classifies them as undesirable. These people are almost inevitably rejected by a society that has been conditioned to the stigma that is placed on individuals with differences or perhaps mental illness, discrediting legions of people who could potentially be helped if they were considered more valuable as a person.

Blog Post 3: The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

The film titled “Crash” perfectly illustrates the concept of deviance as a self-fulfilling prophecy. The two African-American males discuss how the LAPD perceive them to be deviant, based on the simple fact that they are black males walking around a wealthy and predominately white neighborhood. In this environment, being black is considered deviant. The two men eventually come to terms with how others view them and assume the characteristics of the deviant figures others claim they are. They rationalize that if others think this way already, why not engage in deviant behavior. As Howard S. Becker states that due to being excluded from participation in most other conventional groups, or do to the “treatment” which may itself produce increasing deviance, individuals or legions of people for that matter, are more inclined to engage in deviant behavior because they are already preconceived to do so.

Blog Post 2: Interview with a Homeless Man

In reading the articles discussing who is considered “social junk” or “social dynamite” in society, as well as the readings discussing source of deviance being a lack of social mobility or resources and opportunities, I began to think about the plight of the homeless. Many homeless people, such as the man in the video above, began their lives without an education and without the ability to read or write. This factor alone drastically limits the available opportunities for the future in the form of jobs or social communication.

The man in the video describes the scene of a homeless shelter, questioning how politicians or the dominant members of society and policy holders, could agree that it’s an effective and safe solution to get homeless people off the streets into one home altogether. He expresses his concern over crime and violence, saying that it would be inevitable, because people are in such dire situations, of course they’re going to engage in deviant behavior. The lack of opportunity is facilitating and igniting a spark in those less fortunate to engage in these acts in order to survive. These individuals are also labeled “social junk,” being that they are so at a loss they represent no real threat in the form of aggregating or rallying against the powers at play. Instead, they are pushed to the sewers of society and not given a second thought. When crime happens, we as a society are quick to point the finger and place blame on anyone we can define as the “other.” However, I can’t help but wonder if we can keep them down, why can’t we bring them up?

Blog Post #1: Necessary Deviance

The belief that deviant behavior is necessary or vital to the success of a society may seem alarming to many at first. However, when broken down as Emile Durkheim and Kai Erikson explain, it becomes a much more palatable idea. In essence, deviance and acts of crime or violence, in fact serve a great purpose. Although they may be horrific and tragic, deviance plays a key role in reinforcing the norms and morals of a society. Legions of people rally together to support what they believe has been vilified, criminalized or defamed in any way. This ultimately strengthens society as a whole and cultivates new waves of progression. As Durkheim stated in “The Normal and the Pathological,” “Crime is, then, necessary; it is bound up with the fundamental conditions of all social life, and by that very fact it is useful, because these conditions of which it is a part are themselves indispensable to the normal evolution of morality and law.” Crime, thus, creates and maintains strong collective behavior in the pursuit of moral justice or progression. It is the ultimate catalyst to positive social change.