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American History X as another example of how deviance might be a weapon for social destruction.

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American History X as another example of how deviance might be a weapon for social destruction.

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The movie American History X, by Tony Kaye, focuses on two L.A. brothers who are driven into the Neo-Nazi and white power skinhead movements. The older brother goes through rehabilitation while serving a prison sentence for voluntary manslaughter and after being freed, he tries to stop his younger brother from being exposed to hate groups. This move is an intense, brutal, and disturbing critic to the social injustice that we've seen in the world since we are known as humans. It shows the view of a white supremacist who is against the idea that immigrants, and anyone who is not like them, "pure", may be taking their place in society just for being a minority, and it shows the two sides of how deviance can be mentally deceiving and dangerous to certain people, who have certain beliefs. Believing in what the supremacist group from the movie believes means that anyone that is not like them is not an honest member of society, therefore deviant, and as a result of that train of though, they are also blindsiding themselves of the fact that they are the minority, and that what they believe is one of the few concepts that are considered as deviant for the majority of the world, as the text mentioned: "There are a few acts, if any, that are defined as deviance in all societies under all conditions". Deviance being a weapon for social destruction is the basic idea behind the plot of this movie; people are destructive, aggressive, and prejudiced all because they see people as inferior and different for them. Deviance has the power to generate anger and indignation and through ideals that go beyond societal capabilities, these turn out as physical actions that hurt not only the people who act but the ones who are acted upon.

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Definition of deviance according to the text, and my point of view of the text's author's view:

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Definition of deviance according to the text, and my point of view of the text's author's view:

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According to the text, deviance occurs when others identify and apply unfavorable judgments to some members of a society and effectively apply them to that society's norms. Up until that point I personally agree with what the texts suggests, but I believe that the author might have gone a bit too far o what he defines as subjective and deviant due to societal beliefs. In my opinion, the "medicalization of life", named by Ivan Illich, is something that somewhat stretches the idea of deviance to a point where it is only talking about the human's judgement of what is better for them. The basis for deviance, and mainly what causes for it to be so subjective, is the fact that it only exists to prevent us to being harmed or coming out of our comfort zone; for example, the concept of birth outside of the hospital being considered deviant, to me, only shows that we found a way to make it safer, cleaner, and more successful and made it the normal thing to do. Having birth in any place that is not medically accompanied might be seen as deviant because in someway it puts the life of, not only the baby, but also the mother at risk, exposing the process to bacterias and the lack of medical knowledge which might result in a disastrous attempt at making something beautiful happen. I say that humans will always look for things that threatens their wellbeing and comfort and deem it as deviant, as an attempt to not having that occur in society; as the author of the text mentioned "faults which appear venial to the layman will create there the same scandal that the ordinary offense does in ordinary consciousness" (p. 5 of the printed text).

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Why and how did the Cash family become considered and treated as deviant by society?

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Why and how did the Cash family become considered and treated as deviant by society?

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As the text presents deviance is the idea of defying the normal standards set by society, but the Cash family is far from living in the norms of society. They live in the woods, don't pay taxes, the kids are homeschooled, and a lot more that is not on the normal family's everyday routine; they are deemed as deviant by all because they are the ones who live by their own rules. The Cash have their own holiday, called "The Noam Chomsky Day", to celebrate the birth of an American professor and intellectual, Noam Chomsky. The creation of this day really shows the standards that the Cash family lives by, and where they base some of their beliefs, and that is from the ideas that Chomsky has and even wrote a book about it, the anarchism. N. Chomsky was a believer that anarchism was the correct way of politics, and that there should be no political hierarchy and that society should organize itself voluntarily and for the best, but that also suggests that people would have the freedom to do whatever they wanted and not be punished for it because there is no one who has the power to define his actions as detrimental to the society; we can see how they really live by that theory when the movie mentions that they once celebrated this day by making an event out of stealing food from a local supermarket, which gives enough evidence to why society would see benefit in taking them as deviant, they are constantly breaking the law (mainly the father). As the text we read in class mentions, Émile Durkheim pointed out that deviance is a social definition, and that social groups enforce these definitions social sanctions, he also mentions that deviance involves power; that is the exact point of view of the society that considers the Cash family as deviant, they see a small group of people wanting to live on their own basis as if they lived in a place were there was no control and they were free to live as they wished, and they instantly see people who don't belong in their society. They (Jack, the mother's father) treat them as inferior, with threats to their freedom, and that is all based on the norms set by the government, and the ethics considered by most in that particular setting.

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The move Fight Club, by David Fincher, presents the story of an insomniac who created an underground club, with a man he meets and becomes his companion, with the intent of providing physical release to people who felt disconnected to society; this club turns into a domestic terrorist group. This movie really depicts many of the concepts mentioned in the text we read in class mainly when it includes new characters to the story. Each person that participates in the Fight Club does not feel welcomed into society, and they are looking for a way out of this prison that is their minds. The narrator is the main example of a deviant person in society, being the creator of this club, and being an insomniac who lives a whole chapter of his life with another guy who he created from his own imagination, he was deviant. This movie really shows the impact that not feeling like you belong in society might have in people; everyone in that club felt left out, whether it was because of their physical appearance, or because of a mental issue, they all disinvolved a rage against society and with enough support they came up with an attempt to destroy it. Along with the concept of deviance, the movie also touches on the idea of Anarchism that is also mentioned in the Capitan Fantastic movie. The Fight Club got so broad that it became another branch of society, spreading through more than one states, and reaching people without it even being mentioned aloud; Anarchism comes into play in this case where another community is developed within a society led by a government, and they begin to live by their own rules and based on what they all think is right.

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The idea of social groups being formed naturally with humans (idea that came from Marcos Rosset).

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The idea of social groups being formed naturally with humans (idea that came from Marcos Rosset).

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As Aristotle once said, "Man is a social animal". Being a social animal by nature means that we are not capable of living is solitude, and therefore tend to form social groups that were at first based for protection, entertainment, procreation, and a lot more that comes from our historic instincts. That is the basis for the nature of deviance and its relativity; humans develop different habits and customs as they develop as a society, and Marcos Rosset was able to bring to our class discussion a very interesting point, which as I quoted said: "You need to be able to identify who is outside of the social group, to have a social group." This idea greatly connects the topic of the nature of humans and the development of social deviance. It emphasizes the importance that different opinions and habits when it comes to the subjectivity of deviance. As an example, the move Captain Fantastic greatly shows this idea in action. The movie portrays a family that lives in the woods, with a routine completely out of the norm in the modern society, with no school for the kids, and no access to hospitals, and it also shows the other extreme of society with the father of Ben Cash's wife, who is a rich elder man who is completely against the Cash family's way of living. These are two different social groups, that have nothing in common (which shows that to have a social group you need to see people from outside), and have their whole relationship based on those, which is the main conflict of the movie.

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American Beauty and its representation of deviance

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American Beauty and its representation of deviance

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American Beauty, by Sam Mendes, is a movie set in an apparently ideal suburban neighborhood about a man going through a midlife crisis who develops an obsession with his daughter's closest friend. Throughout the movie the idea of deviance is deeply explored but through an internal point of view of the main character/narrator which gives us a whole new idea of how this feeling of not belonging and living life with a whole other approach to life can be detrimental to someone's mental health, mainly due to the self pressure that everyone impose on themselves. The text we read in class already said, "It is in essence a social judgment and definition" (P. 7), which implies that each person has their own views over what they think is right or wrong, but these are, most likely, highly influenced by their surroundings and social groups. In the movie, for example, Colonel Frank Fitts, who was an ex-military and really closed-minded had extreme views over what was right or wrong in society, being racist and homophobic; by the end of the film Fitts turned out to have a strange moment within himself kissing the main character in the mouth, and afterwards running away crying, and all of that because his son had left him and he felt desperate for losing everything. In the end Colonel Fitts kills Lester Burnham (main character) with a shot in the head, as if he was the one to blame for his "absurd" actions, making an amazing inference on the topic of how deviance can become a lot more than just not belonging, but also a huge factor for the manipulation of people in society forcing them to not diverge from the norm and avoid any internal conflicts within society, such as being gay or being black in the context of the colonel in the movie.

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Diseases are a fruit of the concept of deviance (idea from the text)

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Diseases are a fruit of the concept of deviance (idea from the text)

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As the text previously stated, "An entity or condition is a disease or illness only if it is recognized and defined as one by the culture" (P. 30), stating that diseases are only bad, or approached as a disease if the culture decides so. I have struggled to understand what the author meant with this, and until now I was not able to come with a plausible sense of how this makes sense. In my point of view a disease is an internal issue with your body, and I wouldn't say that this concept was created based on a way to make money, or control the society, but instead, in a way to make sure that people are safe and have their best chances at surviving when they have a medical issue. The text makes it seem like the "medicalization of life" was an invention of the human to twist what is actually happening, just as a way to make life easier and that they just happen because someone says so, because otherwise it is just a normal thing to die at 20 years old because of an infection that is so common that we don't classify it as an issue: "Illness and disease are human constructions; the do not exist without someone proposing, describing, and recognizing them" (P. 30).