Introduction What Is Deviance?

CHAPTER 1 Introduction What Is Deviance? Learning Objectives: After reading this chapter, you will be able to: • discuss deviant attitudes and beliefs; • discuss deviance in everyday life; • understand the role physical characteristics • understand the sociology of deviance as a play in the discussion of deviance; non-pejorative; • discuss what role relativism plays in deviance; • recognize societal and situational deviance; • compare and contrast essentialism and • recount the ABCs of deviance; constructionism in terms of deviance; • understand deviant behavior; • discuss the concept of positive deviance. 1 M01_GOOD9661_10_SE_C01.indd 1 05/02/14 7:25 PM 2 INTRODUCTION racy Thorne-Begland, a former naval officer judge declares a mistrial on the others—his she- Tand fighter pilot, appears on ABC’s Nightline nanigans cast a shadow on everything he had done and discloses that he was—and still is—gay. before. The public exposure of his misdeeds seri- Dishonorably discharged from the military ously deviantizes former senator John Edwards. because of its “don’t ask, don’t tell” rule, he Joey Paulk was riding in a Humvee in fought the ruling, and lost. In 2012, after com- Afghanistan when it hit a land mine and exploded. pleting a law degree, he became a prosecutor He regained consciousness twenty feet from the in Richmond, VA, and then stepped forward as vehicle, on fire. Weeks later, waking up from a coma a candidate for district court judge. The Family in a San Antonio military hospital, Joey looked at Foundation opposes his nomination, and in May his hands and realized that he had no fingers. While of that year, the Republican-dominated Virginia shuffling down a hallway, he forced himself to look House of Delegates votes to deny him the judge- in the mirror. His face was mutilated—melted and ship. His opponents claim that, as a homosexual, scarred beyond recognition. After months of skin he cannot be “impartial,” and worse, he’ll become grafts and further operations to permit him to open engaged in “activism.” Gays in public office his mouth enough to eat a hamburger, give defini- and legal positions are “notorious” for “homo- tion to his chin, and align his eyelid and lower lip, sexual activism” (Tavernise, 2012, pp. A15, he was able to say to himself, “From a distance, A16). In short, Mr. Thorne-Begland’s outspoken you can’t tell I was injured.” He’s had to learn how opponents—anti-gays all—brand him a deviant. to do things for himself, but he can now drive, In Chapel Hill, NC, as John Edwards walks send texts, use zippers, and hold a drink at a party. toward the courthouse steps, he is mobbed by But children have gawked at him and drunks have reporters and onlookers pressing to get close to taunted him, and he feels self-conscious about his him. Edwards, a onetime Democratic U.S. sena- hands. “I’m just doing what I’m doing to survive,” tor (1998–2004), representing the state of North he says (Dao, 2012). Surely at this point Joey must Carolina, was the vice-presidential running mate be wondering, “What’s going to become of me? of John Kerry in 2004 and a failed presidential Will I be able to live a normal life? Will uninjured, candidate in 2008. But in 2011, a North Carolina unblemished people stigmatize me? Will more grand jury indicts Edwards for misappropriating drunks taunt me, more children gawk at me? Will campaign funds to cover up an extra-marital affair I get treated like a cripple, be isolated, cut off from he had carried on while running for office, at a conventional social relations? Will I ever get mar- time when his wife was suffering from breast can- ried and have children?” cer, an affliction to which she succumbed in 2010. Beginning in the early 2000s, representatives The deception deepens: Edwards impregnated his of Wal-Mart de Mexico began making bribes— paramour, Rielle Hunter, she bore a child, and “envelopes of cash,” eventually totaling millions he convinced a “loyal campaign aide,” Andrew of dollars—to local government officials (“facili- Young, to claim paternity of the child. Prosecution tators”) to obtain permits and favorable contracts argues that Edwards had paid his mistress to keep to open stores in Mexico. They concealed these quiet about the affair and the child in order to practices from the hierarchy at headquarters in the sidestep train-wrecking his presidential bid. In his United States and, when Sergio Cicero Zapata, defense, Edwards claims he paid the hush money then a top executive at the firm, reported the mal- to keep his ailing wife from finding out—a per- feasances to the top brass at the subsidiary, only sonal matter, not an illegal political conspiracy. If the most superficial investigation was conducted; convicted, he faces the possibility of spending the for years, the matter was shelved. In 2004, Zapata next three decades of his life in prison (Severson, resigned from the firm, and then, eight years later, 2012). But guilty or not, John Edwards discred- talked to The New York Times about his allega- its himself—deeply disappointing his donors, tions. Bribes, he said, helped the company grow destroying his political career, dishonoring his quickly—faster than the competition. “They got personal life, and bringing shame to his family. zoning maps changed. They made environmen- Although months later he is acquitted in criminal tal objections vanish. Permits that typically took court—judged not guilty on one count while the months to process magically materialized in M01_GOOD9661_10_SE_C01.indd 2 20/01/14 12:43 PM INTRODUCTION 3 days.” What the company was buying, he said, holds attitudes of which somebody disapproves, “was time” (Barstow, 2012, p. 8). Over the course or possesses physical or ethnic characteristics that of the following year, the firm attracted legal touch off disdain or hostility or denigration in attention and public hostility for multiple addi- this, that, or some other social circle, “audience,” tional offenses, including purchasing its goods or person. Perhaps we’ve stolen something, or from factories that imperiled the safety of its told a lie, or gossiped about another person in an employees—in one of them, in Bangladesh, over especially unflattering manner. Maybe more than 100 workers died in a possibly preventable fire— once we’ve gotten drunk, or high, or driven too and operated under sweatshop conditions. When fast, or recklessly, or gone through a red light the corporation’s chief executive appeared before without bothering to stop. Have we ever worn a meeting of a foreign relations council, he was clothes someone else thought were out of style, met by the jeers of a “raucous crowd of protest- offensive, or ugly? Have we ever belched at the ers” (Greenhouse and Yardley, 2012, p. A1). dinner table, broken wind, or picked our nose in In New York, outside a courtroom, a pimp public? Have we ever cut class or failed to read announces that he and his lawyers will “stage- an assignment? Do we like a television program manage” his trial to increase the box office appeal someone else finds stupid and boring? Didn’t we of a movie about his life that’s in the works once date someone our parents and friends didn’t (Buettner, 2012). In New York, a newscaster is fired like? Maybe our religious beliefs and practices for making stereotypical and derogatory remarks don’t agree with those of the members of another about Muslims (Stelter, 2010). In Washington, at a theological group, organization, sect, or denomi- time when nationwide rates of violence continue to nation. Perhaps we’re a liberal, or a conservative, decline, the FBI announces a nationwide rise in the or somewhere in the middle—someone doesn’t murder of police officers (Schmidt and Goldstein, approve of those views. Some among us are 2012). Across the country, the use of food stamps prejudiced, or racist, or anti-Semitic, or xenopho- continues to rise as its stigma fades (DeParle and bic—on principle, they don’t like foreigners—or Gebeloff, 2009). Again, in Washington, research- rabidly anti-French, or hostile to Japanese people, ers announce that as racial differences in test read- or against any and all Arabs or Muslims, regard- ing scores have declined, differences between less of what they’re like as individuals. students from high-income and low-income fami- Humans are evaluative creatures. However war- lies have increased (Tavernise, 2011). ranted or unwarranted, we make judgments about These events, tales, narratives, and human the behavior, beliefs, or appearance or characteris- dramas are the stuff of life. They are about real tics of others. Each and every one of us does the people who engage in real activities and suffer same thing—all of us evaluate others, although in real—whether deserved or undeserved— reactions somewhat different ways. Societies everywhere from others. They indicate that certain members have rules or norms governing what we may and of society regard or are likely to regard what the may not do, how we should and shouldn’t think, protagonists did, said, or are as negatively valued, what we should and should not believe, even how undesirable, unacceptable in some way. Many we should and shouldn’t look, and those norms are sociologists who contemplate their behavior so detailed and complex, and so dependent on the believe that the way these people react indicate views of different audiences or social circles of the existence, relevance, and the importance of the evaluators, that what everyone does, believes, and phenomenon they refer to as “deviance.” is, is looked on negatively by someone—indeed, in all likelihood, by lots of other people.

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