This post will be an attempt to show how I apply sociological thought to influence personal decisions. It will be written in a way that assumes the reader lacks any sociological knowledge and thus I will be providing some real-life examples as I am afraid some readers may not be able to abstractly visualise jargon. If you possess some sociological knowledge please bear with me.
To oversimplify society for analytical purposes, we can assume that society is made up of two kinds of people: conformists and deviants. Conformists are people who believe in conforming to social norms, and do not question such norms. Examples of such social norms include being hardworking, empathetic, accepting that only certain types of media are appropriate for consumption and so on. Unlike conformists, deviants break established social norms. The sociological definition of a deviant is someone who breaks established social norms.
Conformists are afraid to break established norms because they are afraid to receive sanctions, or social punishments, for breaking these norms. A good example would be being afraid of being chided by friends for skipping lectures or tutorials. This is despite the fact that some established social norms are inherently unfair to the individual, and are outside his control. When a conformist encounters a situation where he is being punished for a social norm which he is unable to prevent, even though already invested much effort in preventive measures, he usually externalises the event as an exception to the norm. If you are unable to visualise such an event, you are either not old enough or you are so anal that you will block out unpleasant events and think that life is 100% fair. If I am required to provide an example, I would usually refer to unpleasant incidents that occur during group projects in a university due to the perception of certain group members as opposed to the perception of some other group members. Or I could refer to the perception of the parents of Generation Y citizens on computer games or K-pop. This is where I believe that the conformist is wrong.
The conformist is usually caught in a never-ending dilemma when required to confront such situations. He instinctively is able to recognise that such situations are unfair, because he usually does not have an IQ of a rock. He is usually given two choices as dictated by society in such situations:
1. Resist. Prove that the existing norm is wrong and risk receiving social sanctions over and over again.
2. Give up and conform to the norm.
By choosing option one, the conformist in effect has become a deviant. If the conformist chooses option one, it becomes starkly obvious that he is deviant. Other conformists that witness the deviant making a fool of himself over and over will be reminded why it is not wise to deviate and thus, usually choose option 2. The conformist can stick to option 1 and remain deviant, or like most people eventually choose option 2. Other conformists that witness the deviant in question being punished before becoming conformist again will then conclude that, it isn’t worth the effort to choose option 1 and in the future, are likely to choose option 2 in such situations.
What I have described so far is one sociological device that maintains an oversupply of conformists in society. By studying this device in detail, it is possible to see that the reason why this device is so highly effective is precisely because deviants are fooled by society into believing that they have only two options. It is also precisely the reaction of the deviant that prevents other conformists from breaking existing norms and thus deviating. It is also the reaction of the deviant that causes him to suffer sanctions in the first place. This is because even though he chooses to break some social norms, he still doesn’t break other norms such as honesty and integrity, as an example.
Intermission summary of concepts:
1. Deviants deviate in society because they feel some established norms in society are unfair.
2. When choosing to deviate, most deviants do not deviate for long due to the way they react while deviating. This maintains an oversupply of conformists in society.
3. The reason why many conformists do not deviate in society is because of the reaction of deviants to social sanctions applied on them when they make clear their intentions to deviate.
Now I know many people usually accept that life is unfair. I however, after accepting unfairness for very long in life I would have usually done the same. But i was fortunate enough to take a sociology module in my first year of university studies. It is however faulty to believe that everyone who studies sociology thinks the same way as me, although it is possible that they can. Most people I know, even sociology majors, keep sociology separate from their lives. It is the choice to apply sociology to your lives that makes the difference. It is however not that easy a choice to make, because sociological theories are rarely biased towards a set of beliefs like for example religion. And thus accepting it as a whole can sometimes be quite painful.
I have already established that it isn’t “wrong” to choose to deviate in life, because life is inherently unfair. However, it is definitely unwise to deviate from all social norms at once, because some norms are actually fair and not unfair, and those are the norms you want to leave alone as they are good and have reason to be part of society. Another trap some deviants fall into is taking the “all or nothing” approach when they choose to deviate and go and commit murder or suicide. This is another sociological device that will again reinforce the status quo on how conventional deviants react to social pressure. Thus if you need to deviate from select norms, what should you do?
You should do is of course, not react in a way a conventional deviant would react. This means, you shouldn’t make it obvious that you are deviant. This is the trap that most deviants fall into, and some of them even take pride in their deviance and make it part of their personality (i also have a sociological critique of the concept of personality as a sociological device, but I will leave it for another post). A more easily recognised deviant phenomenon can be derived from Japanese 2D sub-cultures such as anime and manga related spin-offs such as cosplay. Being proud of a deviant activity will place you into choice 1 outlined above, and you will thus eventually slip into choice 2 like a “fool”.
Also when breaking a norm, it should be noted in order to be successful in breaking the norm without being caught, it is required to break many other norms as well. Believing in universal norms is another trap that you will fall into. Breaking one norm without breaking others such as honesty and integrity will usually lead to failure. You must remember that you are dealing with unfairness here, and thus there is some justification in breaking said norms.
Well that is all for now I guess. Please look forward to subsequent editions of Sociological Application, if you enjoyed this edition.
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