SOC 014 Chapter Notes - Chapter 4 Part II: Deviant Behavior: Thomas Robert Malthus, Elective Affinities, Anomie

• School: University of Vermont
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOC 014
• Professor: Lutz F Kaelber

Document Summary

The fact is that the poor are already socially stigmatized and when sociologists point out that fact, they are not contributing to this stigma. Double failures: people who are unable to achieve through conventional or deviant economic activities. In almost all explanatory theories of deviance, there is agreement with merton"s assumption that being at the bottom of the economic ladder causes nonnormative, criminal behavior. For a very long-time numerous philosophers and theologians have commented and speculated on poverty from various perspectives: thomas robert malthus wrote one of the earliest arguments charging the poor with a moral failing. This makes them feel disparaged and dishonored. They developed the argument that the poor are unjustly stigmatized and self- stigmatized for their poverty. Being poor results in discrimination, social marginality an exclusion, contributing to the experience of poverty and the social ostracism of the poor.