1. Then there is no use asking why, let alone asking the question as if it's something to despair over. Perhaps you have another approach, but conventionally the position you take takes two forms, they do what they do because:
1. They are congenitally incapable of it. (I think you are actually of this mind, yes, arguing that biology is shaped by society, like dog breeds are shaped by breeding practices over centuries?)
Or, what seems perhaps more palatable:
2. Deviance will always exist. I has a _function_ in society. What's deviant in a particular society doesn't stay the same, but what stays the same is the existence of deviance itself.
To explain the latter for those who aren't familiar with sociological shoptalk:. In mainstream U.S. culture, if I bum a cigarette from someone, I'm supposed to smoke it. If I don't, s/he'll get pretty peeved. (Same thing with a lawn mower: I'd better mow my lawn. If I stick the thing in the garage for a couple of weeks, my neighbor's going to get huffy. When I do the "sociology of property" lecture, I take a student's cap or glasses or pen and then toss it in the trash or something similar that indicates that I'm not using it the way I'm supposed to use it. The lesson is that property, from a soc POV, ia a _relationship_ between people defining norms and laws as to how we are to use things, other people, land, ideas.
In the world of the bum, it's perfectly acceptable to bum a cigarette and never smoke it. If you're sitting next to some with a pack, you invariably ask for one. He's expected to give it to you, 'cause he has excess. You can then save it up to trade.
What's deviant in one society isn't deviant in another. though you're saying "slacking" and "mooching" is kind of a eternal social behavior.
If this is the case, that this is your view, then there is _no_ reason to despair over what you see. It is simply a curiosity and you'd study it for the reasons the Structural Functionalists do: to show not only that deviance exists and will always exist, but to show how it's functional for society (because deviance helps us see the otherwise unspoken norms ... ) and how deviance is fundamental to social change. (hhmm. I haven't recited the SF claims in awhile, so I'm a little shaky as to whether that last bit was articulated accurately, but I think you get my drift, yah?)
Or, I guess, come up with some new variant on Structural Funcationalism? Dunno. :)
>I am not swayed by
>long narratives designed to familiarize the reader with a particular
>sub-culture because I cannot help but think of them as advocacies.
Then that's just your own bias talking. *shrug* At least it's up front now. :)
> I prefer
>case studies in which short descriptions are used for analytical purposes
>and hypothesis testing. I understand from my qualitative methods seminar
>back at Rutgers that this is a big divide between more descriptively
>oriented anthropologists/ sociologists and more analytically oriented social
>scientists.
I guess I was trained to appreciate all approaches to social scientific research. I see the different methodolgoies as tools to ask certain kinds of questions. You use a screwdriver for one task, a hammer for another, and a butter knife for a still another -- though sometimes it's okay to use a butter knife for the same thing you'd use a screwdriver. *grin* (coz I'm a girrrrrl)
For instance, let's say soldiers tell you or me that they signed up because it was an easy way for them to get a college degree. Taking that at face value is a big mistake. There's a rich tradition of research in that addresses the "vocabulary of motives" (it's where I get the term "moral entrepreneurialism" from) and it shows how people often feel compelled to talk as if they are in control of their fates. The example that comes to mind is _Magic City_ where the researcher is a little dumbfounded to learn that people who've been unemployed for a long time and who lives in broken cities like Flint, speak of themselves as scamming the welfare office. They portray themselves as having a choice to take food stamps. How can they say that, he asks, when no one in the family has jobs, there aren't any jobs to be had, etc. They say that because it's a way to hang to a shred of dignity.
Same thing with people on welfare. Our highly individualistic culture pushes them to portray themselves as being in a position to turn it down if they want and, better yet, being in control of the situation, having the wherewithal and smarts to rip the system off.
Another thing they do is refuse to take statements at face value if they have any inkling that the researcher might be influencing the answer. For instance, the other day, Doug said that Walmart workers told her that they were embarassed by some of the merch. That's nice, but there's no way on earth any scholar would repeat those sentiments withou asking a number of things, namely: "Did the person tell me that because they think that's what I want to hear?" As you know, even survey researchers are aware of this phenom. Ethnographers are even more so.
Not your cup of tea, but to my mind, it makes their work a hell of a lot more reliable that some lifeless case study of the sort I used to write for clients.
Writing their work off as the work of advocates is just... I don't know Woj, I can only shake my head that you would be so dismissive of a rich sociological tradition.
>I will make a note of it when I see it and post to the list. What I had in
>mind was mainly the reaction to the culture of poverty argument which became
>the punching boy or a "Fonda Jane" for the left - because it dared to
>stipulate that ghetto dwellers are not "innocent victims of the system" as
>the party line claimed. Again I would need tore-read some of this stuff to
>have a more intelligent discussion - which at this point I do not think
>would be the best use of my time.
The culture of povery thesis has been around since forever. Further, since we are heavily influenced by individualism in this country, even advocates who identify with their subjects find it difficult not to blame their subjects. They have to struggle not to fall into the it's all culture camp. _And_, decent social researchers are inevitably called to account for the opposing point of view. They have to take it seriously. Classics in the field do that.
E.g., in Katherine Newman's research, she points out that the long-term unemployed managers she studied weren't necessarily laid off for reasons that had nothing to do with their behavior on the job. In fact, there's a solid body of research that shows that lay offs (save for plant shut downs) are almost always going to involve some element of "deservingness" from the employer's POV. This might be for any number of reasons including:
1. everyone does something crappy on the job, no one's perfect. When someone gets laid off, employer focuses on those things -- coz it's not easy even for the coldest cruelest bastard to lay someone off.
2. the person wasn't just an imperfect human, as we all are, the person may have had a bit of a maverick side -- challenging authority about something they thought was wrong, refusing to work 70 hrs a week when the culture of the biz was that everyone was expected to do so, etc.