Conflict Theory & Deviance
- In general, conflict theory refers to a loosely related set of ideas that defines a society and its culture as made up of the powerful and the powerless. The powerful, it should be stated, have no real moral right to be in power, and hence, must manipulate others to convince the public of the inevitability and legitimacy of their power, or even hide that there is a power structure at all. Without the idea of this inherent illegitimacy, conflict theory makes no sense. This system rewards those who accept its premises, and demean those who do not. This demeaning process is the definition of deviance.
- One approach to the definition of deviance is the nature of capitalist society, where the control of the economy is exercised by the few. Several things happen here: First, the system itself defines deviance as referring to those people who refuse to buy the fashionable products and social ideas (i.e., social conformity is in the economic interest of this type of system). Even more, excess labor is relegated to a criminal class that is either kept on the welfare roles or sent to prison. Deviance, at its root, is defined as those that the system either does not need or want.
- The nature of conflict and power, and hence, the definition of deviance, need not be economic at root. One approach to this is that a ruling system will deliberately mobilize certain groups in society, ethnic and otherwise, in order to crush opposition. In return, these groups are given privileges in social and economic life. In the 19th century Austrian Empire, for example, if one group became too ethnocentric (such as the Ukrainians), the Austrian government would then finance the mobilization of their closest enemies, the Poles. This was the official policy of the Austrian government in order to keep national groups from rebelling against the imperial center. Most empires used methods of this type.
- The nationalist view of deviance concerns those who will not conform to the ethnic norms of a society, a society based on ethnic tradition. Hence, black Americans who support conservative candidates are symbolically excommunicated from the black community. An ethnic or racial community sees its survival in unity (this is very common among Serbs, Jews and Armenians, among others). This is healthy. What is unhealthy is when deviance is defined strictly as the unwillingness to support the collective in its every important decision. In this case, ethnic cohesion is under threat, and hence, deviance is defined as aiding and abetting this threat, making the "other" not only wrong, but dangerous.
- While liberalism likes to believe itself beyond these social constructions of deviance, it is clear that liberal leaders regularly demonize and dehumanize conservative Christians, rural gun owners and white Southerners as a matter of policy. In the liberal case, deviance is constructed as the hostile other, often the stereotype of the white, Southern, ignorant, gun-toting hick who inherently threatens the purported sophistication of the "progressive" urban or suburban life.