Merton's Theory Of Anomie Theory

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Hypothesis: This paper seeks to discover if, political correctness has introduced social deconstruction to Merton’s unifying idea of social institutions like the American Dream and if the theory’s assumptions on criminal deviance are still applicable to this new model of social discourse. Literature Review Merton (1938) described deviance in terms of goals and means as part of his strain/anomie theory (Merton, 1938). Where Durkheim states that anomie is the confounding of social norms, Merton believes that anomie is the state in which social goals and the legitimate means to achieve them do not correspond (Taylor, Walton, & Young, 1974). Often, non-routine collective behavior, such as rioting or looting, is said to be a resultant of excessive …show more content…

In most societies the institutional norms function as dependent variables (Baron, 2005). Baron assumes that Merton’s model works within the overall functionalist perspective, with a great deal of emphasis on the role of culture, particularly in its unifying aspects (Cloward, 1959). However, Baron postulates that under the same framework, that when individuals are forced to adhere to a set of social norms aimed at self-limiting personal goals non-routine behavior is the expected resultant that is counter to the institutional norms (Baron, …show more content…

Therein, as Merton (1936) suggested in his research, the lack of any meaningful culture upon which to base standards for evaluating risk, leaves us with only the ability to discuss right and wrong in the most limited terms (Merton, 1936). A common culture which can place relative values on things like naked selfies on iCloud vs the humiliation of naked selfies being stolen from the I Cloud and posted on the internet, creates an abstract of Merton’s theory at the lowest-common-denominator (Cloward, 1959). By extrapolation, the culture of political correctness creates the impulse to lynch all perpetrators in righteous fury and console all the wronged as victims regardless of prior conduct or risky behaviors (Mann,

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