Deviance

We witness someone's deviant behavior in our everyday life. However, how do we judge these behavior as an abnormal action? That is based on a social norm. therefore, it is not a absolute but a relative matter.

1. When I was a kid, I was like a boy. I played baseball, basketball with my male friends after school. The way I talked was also like a boy, therefore my mother used to correct my way to talk. I played basketball so I wanted to wear pants instead of wearing skirt, but adults judged it was deviant behavior and I was a tomboy. They even suggested me to hang out with girls. This can be explained by collective conscience which the shared norm , beliefs and values of my society in Japan shaped the way how each gender kids should behave.

2. I like to watch TV and the favorite TV show was “ jackass” from MTV. As most people know, the TV show does deviant actions in the program. Their actions are definitely abnormal and never happened in our everyday life if we live usually. This program is fun because people in the show break the norm and emphasize a deviance.

3. Having tattoo is not an abnormal thing in this country, but in my country Japan, if people have a excessive tattoo, they cannot use public hot spring. Japanese government makes the law as a norm. The reasons is that Japanese yakuza have excessive tattoo on their body, therefore, if people who have excessive tattoo, they are judged as a dangerous person to other people even if they are not yakuza. This can explained by agents of social control which social institutions that enforce norms and rules, attempt to prevent rule violations.

4. Committing suicide is a one of serious issues to most countries nowadays. Everybody who committed suicide had a different reason why they chose death. I don't agree with the idea of suicide no matter what reasons they have, because I lost my friend due to cancer, and she wanted to live if she could. However other people might support the idea of suicide because they understand that sometimes people have a problem which they even want to die. I think this can be explained by loner deviance which the activities of individuals who commit deviant acts without the social support of other participants. If people can get good support from others, they are less likely to think to die.

5. When I take a train, sometimes I see the person who listen to music so loudly. The volume is very noisy and might have a impact to the person's health. People who sit next to the person and other people in the same track think the person is crazy. The person want to get a attention from others or just want to bother other people. This is secondary deviance that is a response to the negative consequences of labeling.

6. Drug use is a definitely the deviant behavior in the society. If people use excessive drugs, this is the designation of a deviant behavior as an illness that can be treated by medical professionals. Which called medicalization of deviance. Using drug is harmful to human's body, so this is a same action with committing suicide. This is Loner deviance as well.

The reading “Positive Functions of the Undeserving Poor” by Herbert J. Gans explains thirteen of the more important functions of the undeserving poor. The undeserving poor and the stigmas with which some poor people are thus labeled may persist in part because they are useful in a variety of ways to the people who are not poor. People hire poor people because they can hire them with low payment. But they are actually work well more than other people who are not poor. People think that the people who commit a crime on the street are mostly poor people, but the bias put poor people in lower position than before. The undeserving poor are blamed for social problems that they did not actually cause.