Deviance and Self Control, Essay Example

In 1940s Robert Merton, famous American sociologist, developed an anomie theory that was aimed at analyzing circumstances in which culture generates deviance and disunity. Merton borrows a concept of anomie from Emile Durkheim. However, when referring to Durkheim’s definition of the notion we talk about “a condition where social and/or moral norms are confused, unclear, or simply not present”, which eventually leads to deviant behavior (Dunman). For Merton, anomie is rather a lack of correspondence between cultural goals and the available legal means for achieving them. He applies the theory to the US society, American dream in particular, claiming that while significant emphasis is made here on the goals of success, mostly defined in monetary terms, there is a lack of equivalent emphasis on appropriate means of reaching those goals. This disjunction between accepted norms of success and accepted norms of legitimate means of achieving it, results into a substantial amount of deviant behavior.

According to Merton, anomie serves as the rationalization of high rates of deviance in the United States if judged against other societies, and also as an explanation for the unequal allocation of deviant behavior across groups identified by class, race, ethnicity, etc. Merton’s chief interest is not that much why a particular person deviates, but rather why the levels of deviant behavior vary so significantly in diverse societies and for dissimilar subgroups within a particular society. The major question is how people react to the discontinuity between goals and means. Trying to give proper characteristic to typical human responses, Merton produces a typology of adaptations, which classifies most common individual reactions into several modes of adaptation such as conformity, innovation, ritualism, retreatism and rebellion. In the present paper, I am going to discuss only four of them, which are innovation, ritualism, retreatism and rebellion.

Starting with innovation, it is necessary to first clearly define what Merton means when referring to this particular concept. He believes that both conformity and innovation are two major models of behavior in American society. Innovation implies achieving the socially accepted goals in the unaccepted ways. “Just as part of a river which suddenly finds itself blocked by obstacle may split and find a new way to the ocean, so too people who find their advancement blocked in society may find new paths to achieve their goal” (Hoffman). This path is exactly what Merton considers being innovation. When applied to American society it implies that what we achieve as a result of our manipulations is more important than submitting to the conventional rules that we are supposed to follow. Innovation most rationally follows from Merton’s general explanation of the relationship between culture and deviance particularly in relation to American society. The pressure toward “innovation” is the greatest one since even though it implies breaking the laws, it also means achieving the goals that are greatly promoted in society.

The most obvious example of innovative behavior that comes to my mind, when trying to apply Merton’s typology of adaptation to personal experience, is playing sports. The general rule that everyone accepts silently is that winning the game is much more important than competing according to the accepted rules. I remember myself cheating in the sports competition realizing that all I wanted was to win, and it didn’t really matter whether I do that fairly or not. I do not feel fine about that now, when analyzing the situation from the direction of the observer, but I also realize that if only I became a competitor again, I would repeat my little tricks in order to gain victory. With crowds of people watching you compete, shouting the name of either yours or your competitors’ team, you feel an extremely strong pressure on you, and you can do nothing but do anything to win. Principle of anomie as it is by Durkheim is well applied in this case since we observe potentially unlimited desire of success that is no more restricted by a social system.

When referring to conformity and innovation we talk about patterns of behavior that involve achieving goals of success. However, there are individuals who reject hard work in the sake of financial success solely, or simply have no ways of reaching it, which also pushes them to not accepting the promoted values. According to Merton, ritualism is one of the two ways of rejecting society’s goals. It means that an individual can accept the means by which success should be gained, yet giving up the actual intention of achieving it. Thus a person follows the social norms of behavior, remains committed to society’s traditions of progress, and yet give up the societal goals of monetary success. I had a period in my life when I found great interested in various kinds of arts. I spent plenty of time searching for all the possible available information on the subject, obviously doing that to the detriment of my studying process. I realized that what I was doing would never contribute to my career advancement since my major did not require any knowledge of architecture or paintings. However, I still believe it has developed my ability to think creatively, as well as it has satisfied my demand for aesthetic pleasures. No need to say, I have never planned to build a career connected with any kind of arts. Why was I doing that then? Probably, because I enjoyed the process of self-development, not being concerned about whether it will get me anywhere.

Another way of rejecting socially accepted norms is retreatism.  The difference between ritualism and retreatism is that while the second means rejecting society’s goals, the first suggests rejecting both the estimated goals and society’s institutions. Retreatism implies dropping out of a society. Individual’s rejection can be either legal or not, yet in both cases it keeps the characteristic of being deviant. Personally I seldom experience a complete rejection of what society proposes me. Actually, I do not think I have ever experienced a critical moment of dropping out of a society. But I must confess that in childhood, when my personal goals seemed still unclear to me, I frequently quitted participating in some kind of activity just because I rejected to reach the set goals. I even became some sort of an outcast in my class, since I despised my peer’s interests. I neither wanted to go to music school, nor to attend the drawing class. Eventually, I outgrew this dislike for conformity, and it never resulted in any kind of illegal behavior, yet what I was experiencing than is close to what people go through when becoming outsiders.

Rebellion is a mixture of rejection of societal goals and means and a replacement of them by other goals and means. What Merton means by this concept is that an individual not simply rejects what society provides one with, but also strives to substitute it with more appropriate goals to set and means to achieve them. Depending on personal views of the society, an individual responds to it either in a legal or illegal way, demonstrating openly own position and thus endangering the stability of an accepted social system. Durkheim’s anomie is also applied in this case since we face a situation when goals, even though changed, predetermine human behavior. An individual sets goals in accordance with personal desires rather than with what society dictates to be appropriate.

In modern society, where human desires are no longer limited by social order and morality, where “winning the game” is more important than following the rules, anomie is becoming a frequent phenomenon. Merton’s changing a concept slightly gives us a different outlook on the nature of deviant behavior, which in my opinion contributes to the analysis of own conduct in this or that period of life.

Works Cited

Coser, Lewis A., ed. The Idea of Social Structure: Papers in Honor of Robert K. Merton. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975.

Dunman, L. Joe. “Anomie.” The Emile Durkheim Archive. 2003. 29 September 2009. <http://durkheim.itgo.com/anomie.html>.

Hoffman, Bruce. “Robert K. Merton’s “Dream Machine.” Crimetheory.com.   23 January 2002. 29 September 2009. <http://www.crimetheory.com/Merton/index.html>.

“Robert Merton: Anomie Theory.” University of Minnesota Duluth. 29 September 2009.     <http://www.d.umn.edu/~bmork/2306/Theories/BAManomie.htm>.