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Sociology · Chapter 7

What Is Deviance?

Deviance is any behaviour that violates a social norm — and no act carries that quality inside itself. Pick one act below, hold it perfectly still, and move it from room to room. The body, the blade, the voice, the glass never change. Watch the reaction slide from required all the way to criminal.

Choose an act to begin

Tap any row on the chart to move the act to that setting.

Which kind of norm is at stake?

Keep three ideas apart. Deviance is norm-breaking. Crime is law-breaking. Harm is damage done. They overlap, but none of the three contains the others: a loud mourner is deviant without being criminal, a jaywalker is criminal without being especially deviant, and a great deal of legal, ordinary behaviour does enormous harm.
Deviance is a reaction, not a qualitychoose an act, then choose a room
Step 1 — choose an act (it will not change)
Step 2 — carry that same act into a different setting

Read it through a paradigm