Deviating from average in seemingly tolerant Western societies – a problem or a chance?

The word “absence from normal” is simply a small bit softer than the title of the book by French sociologist Jacques Ellul, whom I intend to dedicate this text. A literal translation into Polish would read: "Devictions and deviants in our intolerant society". The phenomenon of deviating, or speaking more nicely, of not adapting, does not associate very well on the 1 hand, on the another hand it is besides very fluid, foggy, without an unambiguous definition. However, this word is consistently passed through the full publication, referring to a very broad group of people, more or little unsuited to life in our technological societies. This is simply a sociological view of the masses of people who, for different reasons, are not like others. peculiar attention should be paid to the sociological nature of these considerations, as deviancy is inherent in social existence for the author – it is denial of society, conscious of (or not) refusal to live and work in the modern world.

Although we will be referring to the present, let us emphasise in favour of the author that number groups were and are inevitably and in all societies oppressed by the majority. "There is no pluralism and liberalism that tolerates differences". This problem has just gotten worse.

This may seem paradoxical, due to the fact that nowhere more is said about tolerance and pluralism than in liberal societies of the West, but to Ellul it is just a facade – we accept differences that truly do not change anything, do not undermine the established direction.

The “deviant” becomes the guarantor of power, part of amusement and distraction: “The liberalism of society is manifested in the acceptance of spectacular eroticism, drugs... do not consider extremist issues, but you are fascinated by art and literature, which have never been so free, as natural, creative and unconventional as today. Long live anarchy (esthetic) and freedom of speech (computer)! That's the government's motto. In parallel, preventive services are developing."

In this way, from a mild introduction we rapidly decision to a very disturbing imagination of modern society, which not only excludes, demands adaptation, but which primarily generates deviations...

The Obsession of Unity and Social Control

The obsession of unity may be associated with communism, but it occurs in many another systems.

Just as the technological explanation yet aims to bring to 1 explanation a collection of diverse phenomena, so in the Western world, according to Ellul, we are only satisfied if we can bring everything to 1 explanation, the way we proceed, erstwhile we destruct diversity, the multiplicity of contradictions.

Moral diversity, like the multicentre of decisions, is unacceptable and must be eliminated. It was this obsession that guided Western politics, centralization, and colonization: the second was not only the evil of conquest and taking over wealth, but besides the ruin of cultures, civilizations, customs and countries into which Europeans entered. It was apparent to them that another civilizations had no value.

And Europeans, whose kings continually restricted the diversity of provinces, had only 1 idea: to destruct these “pseudoculture” and “untrue” societies in order to cover the planet with 1 intellectual, moral, spiritual and political coat and to combine all economical values into 1 network. The reason for this phenomenon Ellul considers nothing more than an obsession with unity, linked to the spirit of power.

This tendency to make a unified strategy of sociologists is constantly seen in our alleged liberal societies.

It may seem paradoxical, and yet we live in an abstract control system, little visible, but more totalitarian.

Only today, unlike the conventional control exercised by relatives, relatives, neighbours, we are faced with control by “foreign” authorized by various institutions.

“In line with many studies (e.g. Foucault and Castoriadis), our society responds to people who deviate from the norm or through their “exclusion” of society (asyl, prison) or legal (civil death, civilian deprivation, curatela over people incapable to make decisions...), or by subjecting social control to “special educational activities” ...”

More generally, social control is exercised through the influence of public opinion shaped by mass media and affects all who do not conform to the abstract model, the theoretical scheme. “The modern man is...” – after this message comes a series of adjectives, and if we do not fulfil 1 of them, we are deviants.”

This creates certain stereotypes, false judgments, besides repeated by the media, “a young man with long hair, black, Jew... behaves “in this way”, so we respond defensively to them, we close ourselves... This results in increased repetition, identity and conformism.

“There are careers that are predestined. There are environmental and class affiliations that should not be affected. Everyone, each group has a function to play and must not exceed it. In utmost cases, identity is the only satisfactory social form."

So how does that relate to alleged pluralism, tolerance, liberalism? After all, we constantly preach human rights, the rights of the child, the validity of all cultures, and towards marginalized people we show knowing and openness... As already mentioned, “acceptable” forms of deviation/non-adaptation are allowed, i.e. those that do not change anything.

In areas of performance and effectiveness, the right to differentiation is very small tolerated, for example in politics (varying in parties) or trade unions.

Only the most powerful and most compatible formations have the right to vote. Large parties are favored.

According to Ellul, the best example of direct denial of officially declared pluralism is, for example, decisions on the cost of campaigning or calculating the time of tv attendance.

In turn, erstwhile the right to differentness is manifested in erotica or entertainment, “you can let these deviations to manifest with fatherly understanding, due to the fact that it will not change anything.”

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Exclusion, marginalisation and "general interest"

Ellul powerfully criticizes the ideology of the alleged general interest, recognising it as highly totalitarian along with her celebrated slogan that "general interest cannot be brought to the sum of the peculiar interests".

According to Ellal, what is common never excludes what is particular. all peculiar interest must be in common, otherwise it is not shared.

A society oriented towards common good cannot be unitary and provocative deviation.

However, it seems that it is not possible to talk about the common good erstwhile it marginalises those who do not adopt the principles on which our society is based, and according to the sociologist they are: "work-production-consumption-efficiency". Society not only defends itself against another model, but besides clears itself of any threat that could undermine its foundation.

As an example of deviants (minor and from the point of view of society!) Ellul shows the unemployed who have not chosen their fate, yet they are “deviants” in relation to “the decisive social standard and the only “value” of our society, which is work”.

In a planet that gives the highest value to work, the unemployed become demoted – even though there is no rebellion or force against this society on its part.

But here is the contradiction that truly causes deviance: the same society is not able to supply individuals with a occupation worth doing. What kind of behaviour can we anticipate from a man who considers himself degraded due to the fact that he has taken on the values of this world?

If the number of cases of deviance has increased in fresh years, this is partially due to the discrepancy between the value of work and the deficiency of work preached (and taught in school).

Meanwhile, any refusal to work, any refusal to participate in technology in our society, is an act of gross deviancy. This is due to the fact that society does not tolerate deviations from the rule that man is made to work. Free time and holidays only service to accept the request for work or regeneration of forces before the next day of work. average life is working life. Work and pay for it are the only way to live a decent life.

Another group, an example of unintentional deviancy and thus exclusion, is the elderly. In our planet separated from the roots of the past, obsessing towards the future, the aged are no longer full of the function of a signpost, a connection with tradition, a treasurer of cognition from which experience can be drawn. due to the fact that they no longer execute a ‘functional’ role, they become independent, so... excluded.

Increased Deviation

We mention the separation from roots, which inevitably brings us closer to 1 of the biggest causes of the deepening crisis of exclusion and marginalisation of all otherness.

Anxiety, fear, and uncertainty are now part of the psyche of the Western man. We have never known a society more secure, man has never been so confident, and at the same time never felt specified fear. This man demands, first of all, to destruct what is not fitting, dangerous, and out of the ordinary.

Our society is numerous, densely populated, anonymous, tense, detached not only from its roots, but besides from its nature, overflowing with opinions, computerized. Everything is changing at a fast pace here, so we request to adapt constantly to avoid being accused of deviancy. This is the primary origin of intellectual disorders, but besides a origin causing intolerance to any derogations.

Thus, public opinion is likewise unstable, uncertain and variable, while being strong in its actions, making it more uncompromising and oppressive. It is easy to see that specified public opinion can be manipulated efficiently, even through the media.

It may happen that a slight phenomenon of deviance will begin to appear in the eyes of media professionals as something likely to interest the public. At that time, a flash of flashes is directed at them, with at least 2 consequences.

Firstly, abruptly a simple marginal and isolated event becomes of large importance, becoming a “mass” only due to the fact that the “mass” was informed about it.
Secondly, marginalised people, who abruptly became the subject of publicity, can thus be confirmed in their “deviation”, expanding the phenomenon that attracted the attention of television...

The expansion of the deviative categories, and thus the emergence of fresh interpretations, leads likewise to the emergence of fresh deviants. “Those who do not accept their sexuality”, “those who are not free” according to fashionable psychoanalytical criteria are now seen as deviants.

This is due, among another things, to paying attention to a given phenomenon, which henceforth looks for everywhere.

The more the concept of deviant expands, the more means of action the method offers in the field of detection and data collection.

Another origin exacerbating deviance is, according to Ellul, the impenetrable, over-bureaucratic, unfriendly and even repressive administration, which, alternatively of facilitating the lives of citizens, only hinders and deepens marginalisation.

"Voluntary" deviation, that is, immigration and racism

The issue of immigrants is not specifically mentioned in Ellula's book, it simply describes them as 1 of many groups that stands out and can be marginalized by society. As the subject of immigration is presently very urgent to not say, controversial, I let myself a separate paragraph.

When Ellul mentions immigrants, he presents different types of immigrants—those who (at least from outside) are well assimilated, discreet, even invisible; those who, although clearly "foreign", have a strong possible for assimilation; yet those who do not want to integrate, openly waiting for the host society to adjust their lifestyle and even their right to their requirements. The second group are the “loudest” who do not intend to submit and so the most “burdening”.

Using specified terms, I am deliberately going towards a subject somewhat correlated with immigration – of course it is about racism and xenophobia. This is where we come to an crucial point in Ellul's consideration of this delicate issue – it is about the pace of integration of new, "foreign" social elements. erstwhile it is dizzy, there is no time to adapt. According to a sociologist, society tolerates a certain number of them that it can absorb:

"More than a certain size, abroad elements become hard to accept. Then begins the conflicting process: society strives to reject (marginalize) these elements, while abroad elements, if sufficiently many and united, close and harden, further deepening their apostasy.

This was the communicative of Jews in the mediate Ages, who were more marginalized (because of their faith, rites, diets), the more they closed themselves,

until yet the “Jewish divider” became a ghetto due to the fact that it should not be forgotten that the first ghettos were created by the Jews themselves to defend themselves before they became a restriction.”

When, in writing these words, Ellul was referring to France at the time, but the issue is inactive present in many Western countries, the "problem" of immigrants is expanding due to the fact that they have exceeded the "acceptable intellectual and sociological level". Thus, if this “loud” and “compulsive” group that does not want to adapt is numerous, it can make tensions among the local community – immediately accused of racism.

However, according to Ellal, there is nothing racist about, for example, the irritation caused by the disturbance of peace or the reflection that, for example, in a given area, many insignificant crimes are actually committed by “foreigners”.

The directing of public opinion and media to racism alone can so service as a way to avoid discussion of circumstantial immigration challenges.

(Utopian?) remedium of Jacques Ellul

Jacques Ellul is neither in favour of repressing the deviants nor of making absolutely everything subject to them. It is not a good solution both to completely close to differentness and to submit to this differentness of everything – closed societies will be distrustful, uncertain, weak, and excessively open to everything will fall into many inconsistent factions.

As usual, we are approaching a "golden measure", but it takes effort to accomplish it. It is worth taking it if, as a French sociologist, we consider minorities to be factors of social evolution, i.e. innovative actors in society that would not be able to make any changes or adapt to fresh conditions without them.

The deviant “may be (but not always) the driving force (even if it is simply a traditionalist!) of the evolution of society” and above all: it poses a challenge to it.

This is due to the fact that the government yet has 1 will to stay what it is. And it is contrary to what is commonly believed that we live in societies subject to fast change. Yes, method changes are rapid, but completely consistent with a certain kind that itself does not change:

"Just due to the fact that we improve performance, usage computers, make atomic energy and genetic engineering doesn't mean we can talk about transformation. We are simply dealing with the improvement and augmentation of well-known phenomena, which are limited to pushing society towards which it was already heading. This method is changing, not society. The unacceptable nature of 1968 was not to make chaos, but to question what seemed fundamentally certain (goods, consumption, technology and order) and to rise questions about the meaning of all this social activity. Any activity that asks questions of this kind, not academically, but concretely and based on experience, seems deviant.

Tolstoy, who abandoned everything, is simply a deviant. It should be realised that in our judgments we exclude and marginalize people who do no more (or even less) than Tolstoy. We tolerate artists who don't question anything: Picasso, for example, due to the fact that although he played with forms, colors, styles, invented unknown characters, it didn't matter. He was 1 of the most conformist social circles, accepted the "gallery-traders with images" mechanism, had the goal everyone in our society pursued: to make as much money as possible and to usage speculation. He did what everyone in this society wants. We are dealing with tolerated and accepted deviancy, precisely due to the fact that it is not in any case deviance, but complete compliance with the public, under the seemingly other appearance."

Real changes are needed, but without 2 conditions, no reform, whether organization or economic, will have no effect. These 2 key conditions are, according to Ellal, a fresh morality and a fresh law.

New Morality

How can a fresh morality be implemented? 4 aspects are important: rooting, family, tolerance and pluralism, and responsibility.

First, man cannot live without the environment to which he is attached,

While the moral disaster of our time is rooting out, a man drifting accidentally without a place he can call home.

This means that the city should be designed so that everyone can consider it to be their tiny world, in which a network of human relationships will be established, in which past will be created over time. The ever-present "patodeveloper" surely does not favour this...

Secondly, the household must be made 1 of the pillars of moral life. Thirdly, morality must be based on tolerance and acceptance of differences, but this is only possible if man is firmly convinced of his place, environment and identity. Intolerance and racism are closely linked to the rooting and deficiency of a unchangeable family. Modern man is not found in an environment that is neither unchangeable nor safe, so he is weak, uncertain, and in this hidden fear becomes aggressive towards others.

The pluralistic view is simply a pillar of fresh morality, but it requires certainty that the means are guaranteed, through which everyone can speak, have the chance to defend their rights.

Tolerance is not natural, like any morality, so it requires a certain education – or alternatively active school education, which would not be limited to moral lessons against racism, but on democratic school practice, where students can learn to respect differences between their opinions. This is the core of youth education having nothing to do with liberal indifference.

Fourthly, it is about responsibility, i.e. the awareness that e.g. waste, poverty, racism, social injustice, misuse of technology, power of money, etc. are besides our issue, that much depends on our behaviour.

It is besides a work for neighbor, but not in a police sense, but in the sense of establishing a satisfactory human relation with him, which excludes competition and puts partnership in defence of common values. The morality of work towards others implies rejecting ruthless competition to establish cooperation and rapprochement.

New Law

Of course, Ellul does not forget the question of the law in his “dumpy” dreams. He mentions the fight against the political class he considers to be a power of dehumanization, due to the fact that its representatives have made their function a lifelong profession, which has nothing to do with the welfare of society.

However, much could change if the law itself became simpler, more understandable to the citizen.

Special attention is paid to the administration, which must be controlled, which requires, above all, the abolition of the strategy of derogations and exceptional law. Law should be a standardist and mediator – especially in times of crisis.

The function of a lawyer who should take the function of mediator becomes crucial here. It is mostly up to him to increase or decrease marginality. He should be a individual who, on the 1 hand, tries to convince the deviant to accept certain social limitations, showing him that this is not about rehabilitation or a mechanics that crushes humanity, and, on the another hand, he selects among the tendencies, ideas, impulses and plans of these deviants, treating them as a possible expression of the truths useful to society itself. This is crucial for all citizen, due to the fact that the wrong, unclear, burdensome law generates exclusion.

In this sense, each of us can become a “deviant” due to the fact that the law has marginalized it.

As a mediator, he ceases to be simply an executive of the authorities' orders, becoming a link between ideas that are a chance to change for the better.

Is it feasible to leave the "Matrix" of uniformity, unanimity? Well, after reading Ellul's book many years after its publication, it seems that unfortunately we are not moving towards solutions proposed by him, and problems are actually getting stronger...

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Digresia (reflection?) final

A small on the side of the reflection of the French sociologist I would like to add that, in fact, each of us can become a “deviant”, “unadapted”, “other”, “strange”, finally: marginalized. And you don't gotta effort besides hard to make it happen.

Not far from uncovering an example: during the reign of coronavirus, all it took was to be skeptical of universal communicative to exposure itself to exclusion. And it would seem that it was not alternatively a refusal to wear a mask or to inoculate itself rapidly with a manufactured preparation, and closing down forests was a manifestation of behaviour not only generating deviancy, but even deviant.

However, in order to get distant from sad memories, I will send my readers back to a beautiful movie that I late had the chance to watch. It's about "The Paths of Life" directed by Marianne Elliott. It's a communicative based on facts.

An ordinary, mature matrimony day by day faces the problems of homelessness, unemployment, and thus besides poorness and hunger. They make a bold (irrational? deviant?) decision: they embark on a journey along the UK coast with a shelter on their backs and respective pounds a week to live.

Can they number on knowing in a consumer - oriented world? Can you, or can you live distant from the planet that he threw away? It's not just about utmost challenges. First of all, it is simply a communicative about values, it seems now forgotten: about love. Humanity.

And most importantly, it gives hope that there is inactive more than just “work-production-consumption-performance” and that you can, and even worth going your own way.

Source:
Jacques Ellul, "Déviances et déviants dans notre société intolérante", Editions érès, Toulouse, 2013.