SOC211H5 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Jeffrey Dahmer, Necrophilia, Romantic Hero
Document Summary
Chapter1 notes: issues in the study of deviance. Why study deviance: vicarious experience: by living in our heads the apparently more exciting or interesting lives of others or by investigating them and discovering their own lives are preferable. The fascination with deviance according to psychiatrists is said to be a way of dealing with disowned parts of ourselves. It is a way of coping with the forbidden urges that we supress. Vicarious experience as a research motivation can distort our understanding of deviance. It leads us to study the rare specimens of deviance such as the homosexual necrophiliac cannibal serial killer jeffery dahmer. The result is a concentration on violent sexual and crazy deviance and a lack of attention to the more frequent but banal forms of deviance such as cheating: reform: to know about causes and cures of crime. Reform as a research motivation has its own dangers. First our search for reform policies sometimes outturns our tested knowledge.
