Fighting Fire with Fire

The riots that took place in London two years ago prove many things about society. I am amazed by how far people can go when they are in such large groups. It reminds me of the idea of norms and conformity versus nonconformity in society. When one doesn’t conform to social norms, they are seen as outcasts. In this situation it is the same. Anyone who was not a police officer joined in the riots as a result of conformity. Some claim that they did not intend to loot or take part in the riots, but being that everyone else was doing it, it felt normal. Many people did not realize the consequences of what they were doing because of the fact that the rest of society was involved at the moment. They didn’t believe that they would be punished if they acted as a part of a large group. One rioter even said, “If I hadn’t been arrested, I’d be living a life of crime every day. If no ones stopping me from committing a crime again, I’d keep doing a crime.” This demonstrates just how necessary sanctions are in society, because for most people, if they are not punished for a wrongdoing, they will continue to do it under the impression that it is okay. Also, because the rioters acted out of anger and they were in such a large group, they did not realize that they were looting from people who were trying to make a living, just like them, and police officers who were trying to support their families, just like them. I do believe the riots began as a result of police or other sources of authority taking advantage of the lower classes and abusing their power, but some of the rioters took the protests to a new level of immoral behavior. Basically, you can’t fight fire with fire.  

Protest or Accept?

The “Youth in Revolt” article talks a lot about the trends of the younger generations today and how they are more politically involved and very active when it comes to voicing their opinions. In particular, the Occupy movement has spread and growth dramatically within the past two years. Since 2011, the movement has been revolting against the finances and the economy of the U.S. as well as the income gap that continuously increases between the rich and the poor. Personally, I agree with the fact that the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer. I also believe that because of politics and the way our economic system works, you need money to make money, which explains why the rich get richer. But there is also another side of the argument that needs to be viewed. Members of Occupy Wall Street are against and want to bring down the financial firms located in the Financial District because of the political, economic and financial power that they hold. About a month ago, I worked at my sister’s job in the Standard and Poor’s Building on Water Street and witnessed the protesters myself. Being the ‘enemy’ as I walked out of the building in my business attire, I realized how much these firms actually help out the economy. If we brought down firms like the ones on Wall Street, a large percent of our population would become unemployed. My family is middle class. Just because my sister works in the Financial District doesn’t make her rich, but it does give her the potential to rise up and become successful. So without these companies, many college graduates with business degrees would be out of a job.

Medicalization: Money over Humanity

Chapter 2, “From Badness to Sickness: Changing Designations of Deviance and Social Control” encompasses the idea that the role of medicalization has changed vastly over time, and as a result of these changes, the definition of illness has changed as well. I believe the movement of medicalization from the church to the state was great because most of the time, erratic behavior is caused by malfunctions of the body and brain and not by spirits. As the chapter states, when medicalization was under church control, patients would leave more sick than they were before being under the supposed “physicians” care. But once medicalization moved from state control to its own control, I believe this contributed to the great downfall in the institution. Medicalization is a fee-oriented practice, and as a result, I do believe doctors prescribe medications, run tests and keep you under their care for extended and unnecessary periods of time because of this. For example, the mother of one of my coworkers was in the hospital a few years ago, right before she passed away. The doctors, the mother and all the family knew this was it for her, yet the doctors still insisted on running tests and giving her various shots and injections. The question is why? All she wanted was to pass away in peace. What was the point of putting her through all that excessive pain and misery? The doctors’ inability to answer that question made it clear that they were benefitting from running the extra tests. Thus, I feel that the institution of medicalization has improved greatly to an extent, but in today’s society it is evident that even when it comes to saving lives, it still ends up being about money and power.

Power Struggles

Chapter 1, “Deviance, Definitions and the Medical Profession” discusses the Salem Witch trials that took place in the 17^th century. There are a few things about this occurrence that astonished me. First off, I don’t understand how the victim’s of witchcraft supposedly named those who were terrorizing them. Most likely, whatever the girls were experiencing was due to environmental factors such as malnutrition, a virus or even a mental condition. So how would they have come up with the names of random women in the village? It seems as if the community leaders had prejudices against the supposed “witches” and thus the victims were persuaded into believing those particular women conducted witchcraft on them. Secondly, I find it amazing how once some people of higher class and more power were convicted, all of a sudden there were doubts about the victims “infallible judgment.” As a result of this, the trials stopped. This is a prime example of how power plays a huge role in society and societal decisions. Those with power have the authority to make the rules and enforce them, decide what is considered deviant and provide sanctions for deviant behavior. Therefore, those with power will always have power because they have the ability to rule the society in which they live and keep those with less power oppressed and continuously being labeled as deviant.

Race and Stigma Management

Amir Marvasti’s article, “Being Middle Eastern American: Identity Negotiation in the Context of the War on Terror,” does a great job in encompassing the various aspects of stigma management. I do feel that although Middle Eastern Americans receive the greatest amount of racism in America, especially after 9/11, all races endure some sort of discrimination from another race at one point in their life. Personally, as a Guyanese-American, I have experienced much racism throughout my life. For example, just a few days ago I was getting frozen yogurt with my cousins in a predominantly Caucasian area. From the moment we entered the store we were stared at as if we were aliens. In this situation, and in most that I have been in, I tend to result to defense cowering. I don’t necessarily agree with this term for the fact that it makes those who use it to cope seem like cowards, but the reason why I use this strategy is because I am 5’2” and 90 lbs. That being said, I don’t think it is such a good idea for me to try to address a situation if I have no way of defending myself if it gets out of hand. Basically my point in bringing up this situation is that every race gets targeted. It’s not right, but it happens. With the society we live in, we are all classified into a particular group and rated amongst others. Because of this, we feel the need to put others down to make ourselves seem better that we are rated by the mass.

As a side note: There is a Bollywood movie that I think goes great with the theme presented in Marvasti’s article. The movies name is “My Name is Khan” and it depicts the struggles Middle Eastern Americans faced after 9/11. I’ve attached a trailer of the movie with English subtitles if anyone’s interested.

Context as a Factor of Determining Deviance

In the piece titled, “Career Deviance” by Howard S. Becker, it is discussed how a person goes from committing one devious act and then soon ends up making a career or habit out of it. What is interesting to me and is also addressed in the piece is how deviance depends on context because what is acceptable in one place, time and/or culture, may not be acceptable in another. Taboos are described as “words which are perfectly proper in one language, but have a dirty meaning in another. So the person innocently using a word common in his own language finds that he has shocked and horrified his listeners who come from a different culture.” After reading this, I was reminded of the incident with George W. Bush using the hand symbol for “okay” and receiving much scrutiny for doing so afterwards. In America, most people would not take offense to this symbol, but in countries throughout the world, particularly Australia, this symbol means “screw you.” This idea can be extended to deviance as well. Just as the interpretation of a word or gesture depends on where you are or the time period, whether a behavior is deemed deviant or not depends on these factors as well. To Americans Bush was doing nothing wrong in this situation, but to Australians, his act was extremely deviant and offensive.

Speculating Crime in Society

Durkheim’s article, “The Normal and the Pathological,” discusses crime, its role in society and the reason why it exists. In the article, he states that “for murderers to disappear, the horror of bloodshed must become greater in those social strata from which the murderers are recruited; but first it must become greater throughout the entire society. Moreover, the very absence of crime would directly contribute to produce this horror.” I find this statement very intriguing because in other words, Durkheim is saying that crime will decrease if criminals are more exposed to it previously, but if crime decreases, people will be less exposed and as a result of this lack of exposure, crime will increase once again. If Durkheim’s claim holds true, the prevalence of crime is a never ending cycle and there is no way to rid society of crime. The claim makes sense, but I find it hard to believe that under no circumstances can we, as a society, get rid of crime. I consider myself an optimist in the sense that I believe that “if there is a will, there is a way.” If a community worked together to accomplish one goal, I believe that they could succeed. Personally, I think the criminal justice system is too lenient and that if the system subjected criminals to harsher treatments, less crime would occur. Therefore, I understand Durkheim’s claim, but I do not agree with it entirely because I believe that under the right circumstances, societies can rid themselves of crime.

Ranita’s Blog #1

I felt that the video, “What is Crime” is extremely relevant to our society today. One of the first quotes shown in the video stated that, “Only about a quarter of reportable non-fatal injuries to employees are actually reported by employers.” Last semester I took a Psychology course where the reasoning for this was discussed. Many businesses where injuries are likely to occur set up rewards to promote safety. Most of the time, these rewards are given for reaching the outcome of no injuries within a certain period of time. As a result, most injuries go unreported because if employees do report them, they will not receive the reward. This occurrence proves Merton’s idea of deviance innovation. Deviance innovation is “using unconventional means rather than conventional means to achieve a culturally approved goal” (p. 176). In this scenario the unconventional means is letting the injury go unreported rather than reporting it and learning from the mistake, which would be the conventional means of achieving the goal of obtaining whatever the reward is for increasing job safety.

I agree with Merton’s idea because it can be applied to any act of deviance. For example, robbery is an act of deviance that probably occurs everywhere. Most people steal from others because they cannot afford the item that they choose to steal. Their goal is to obtain that item, but instead of working to make money so that they can buy the item (conventional means of achieving goal), they steal which is the unconventional way, but either way, they still end up with the item that they want. If the unconventional way seems easier that the conventional way, the deviant behavior will persist.