The Complementarity of Deviance and Conformity

The first and arguably most foundational idea in the sociological conception of deviance is its necessity for social order. More formally, we might say: Regardless of historical or cultural context, at least one group of people within a community — real or imagined — will be viewed as evil, dangerous, and/or unacceptably different. Sometimes these outgroups are relatively large and organized. Other times there is only an idea or fear that such a group is lurking among us, even with little or no evidence of an actual threat. Whether witches or sexual predators, communists or biker gangs, cultists or punk rockers, deviant outgroups are perpetual features of social life. Since we always seem to have, nay, create, "deviants," social theorists have gotten considerable mileage out of the counterintuitive question: What purpose do deviants serve for communities?

THE "FUNCTIONS" OF DEVIANCE

Early sociologists analogized social systems to physical bodies. Just as the heart, lungs, brain, muscles, and bones work in concert and serve vital functions, so must each part of society serve some vital function for the larger organism. Those phenomena that do not (or no longer) serve an important function eventually wither away by being "selected against" and removed from the system. From this perspective, there must be some utility for the constant recurrence of deviance and its accompanying processes of punishment — including those with imaginary foci such as witch trials — otherwise they would not continue to occur.

Initially, it might be difficult to see a purpose in horrific events such as witch trials, but this is the approach sociologist Kai Erikson took when analyzing the witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts. He argued that in England, the Puritans' collective identity centered on criticisms of the normative and dominant religion in that context, and thus their identity was secured through the fact that they were not typical Anglicans. The group's boundaries were solidified by having the Church of England as an ever-present, negative example. After moving to the New World, the Puritans were forced to reconceptualize their collective identity. Who are we "Puritans" now that our previous enemy is no longer present? Like all interpretive communities, the Puritans needed to continually reestablish who they were, especially as previous cultural distinctions were blurred or called into question in New World communities.

To compound the cultural crisis, the revocation of the Massachusetts Bay Colony's royal charter, which established its system of governance, made the legitimacy of the community's official order even more uncertain. Applying demonic paradigms of misfortune, the Puritans reasoned that the threat of supernatural evil was ever present and, worse, had even infiltrated the group. Community survival and cosmic struggle required violent expiation. The witch trials powerfully reestablished that the group's identity was founded on combating evil. At the expense of already peripheral group members (relative to more powerful factions), the community reaped a collective return on violent persecution by shoring up its sense of collective identity, explaining its misfortune, and definitively delineating the cultural landscape, even if only temporarily.

Drawing on the legacy of structural-functional theories shorn of the overzealous biological metaphors, Erikson argued that the execution of twenty accused witches and the baseless accusations and prosecutions of hundreds of others bolstered the social order. Although problematic in some ways, a worthwhile takeaway from functionalism is that deviance can be defined as the product of the social processes surrounding the punishment and control of behavior, ideas, or conditions that violate cultural norms. In other words, the response to deviance is as important for analysis as the deviant acts themselves, if not more. Because punishment requires social power for enforcement, cultural boundaries are generally buttressed by ideologies of morality and policed by those authorized to use physical coercion by the extant power structure. But like all social processes, boundaries of deviance and punishment can change over time and thus require continual reproduction through enforcement and punishment.

In short, demonizing a deviant group clearly marks cultural boundaries. Symbolic boundaries are maintained by scripts of acceptable behavior and justified by the values espoused by the powerful within a community. In essence, the clearest way to define cultural boundaries is to point out and punish those who have violated expectations. Consequently, collective identity crises tend to produce scapegoats and the righteous infliction of pain and shame.

Having a common enemy to fear, despise, decry, defy, or ridicule is a powerful force for solidarity. Enemies work at all levels of collectivity, for "families as well as whole cultures, small groups as well as nations." In contemporary American culture, politicians and pundits utilize the threat of terrorism, whether it be from ISIS or al-Qaeda (or Islam in general), to rally public support behind American foreign policy. In the previous century, communism fulfilled the role of arch villain. On a more local scale, politicians have little to lose and much to gain by raising the specter of sex predators or street gangs when trying to win an election. With its appeal to fear and emotion, the claim of being "tough on crime" is one of the safest positions any candidate can take.

While pedophiles and terrorists serve as generalized enemies for many contemporary Americans, other perceived enemies are only demonized by particular social groups. Religious conservatives define themselves against "godless liberals." Environmentalists define themselves against "SUV-driving planet killers." Anti-immigration advocates define themselves against "illegal aliens." Every us requires a them.

If demonizing enemies bonds members of a group to one another, a necessary corollary is that boundary maintenance is equally important in deviant subcultures. To the extent that cultural codes strengthen internal ties by demonizing deviants, those labeled as deviant can likewise strengthen their own resistance identities by collectively dismissing conventional culture.

THE FUNCTIONS OF DEVIANCE FOR DEVIANTS

Albert Cohen's classic criminological study of gangs examined this process of collective resistance to societal norms. Cohen's key initial observation was that much of the deviant behavior engaged in by youth...