In today’s society, norms are behaviors that are socially accepted by the majority, and they are decided by the people within it. They normally are dependent on their environment, culture or religion within that society. If anyone exhibits behaviors or ideas contrary to the norms it can be perceived as deviant. If deviance itself is followed by the majority of people, it can then become the norm; even if that devious behavior is eating dead bodies. This article was about the survivors of a plane crash, a rugby team and their loved ones from Uruguay, and their struggle to survive from a sociological perspective.
They were on their way to Chile for a match, but crashed along the mountains. The article tells their story, the society they create and the transition of cannibalism from deviant behavior to societal norm. The article discusses theories of deviance and its functions in society. For instance the author directly mentions symbolic interactionism, which is the theory that people give meaning to certain aspects and objects in our everyday lives. Humans like to assign arbitrary meanings to objects that originally have none. Giving it a meaning gives it a place in our social construct.
For this example the object was the human body, and the article explains how these survivors assigned a meaning to an object, and when their circumstances became direr the definition had to change to suit their needs to preserve peace among the people and prevent the social construct from going into complete disarray. The method of research for this article was content analysis because the author James Henslin takes this story and dissects it, highlighting lessons that apply to society as a whole as it appears in the story. The data was qualitative; it was observations based on the actions of the survivors.
The author derives 21 lessons from this event, but the main findings among them include, our world is socially constructed, we can transform and create new societies with social approval, and in order to create an effective society people need organization and justifications for their operations. The first theme, our world being socially constructed is proven in the text when it is apparent that the values they brought into that situation had to change. Originally the group had to ” [forcel themselves to swallow (Henslin)” then their behavior transformed to an individual identifying a frozen hand as a midnight snack.
The people assigned the labels based on their situation and environment. In reality societies do it naturally all the time. Watering your lawn on the wrong day can be seen as a cardinal sin in environments where there are water shortages, and that construct is man-made and can change based on circumstance. The next theme found in the article is that the existence of a behavior in society relies on the approval of others.
In the reading this is apparent when “There was only one way to regain strength, and, without giving words… everyone knew what it was. Henslin)” The excerpt from the article refers to the first instance of consensus for eating the bodies. The group had to agree on the act to make it an acceptable behavior. It was the beginning of the behavior’s transition from deviant to norm and to get there it needed social approval. The final theme that is prevalent among the author’s extracted lessons is that they needed organization and justification to keep their society in order. The group depended on their rationalizations to both preserve their positive self-image and keep the operations running in an orderly manner.
Initially they had to identify the bodies as no longer human and make the distinction that they no longer have a soul in order to excuse the act at first. They changed the meaning of a dead human body from person to food for survival, and even after that distinction was made, family members and even women were classified as different and those bodies were eaten last, or not at all. The group’s religion followed as well, they needed to believe that God wanted them to eat the bodies in order to survive before they adopted the behavior as a norm for their society.
These justifications excused the explicitness of the action and it was necessary. Javier and Liliana Methol were mentioned as the last couple to partake in the behavior, they eventually agreed because they needed their own justification to make it permissible to have more children. Once the behavior was accepted, they needed rules and regulations, such as excluding bodies from being consumed, a hierarchy among them, and certain roles each individual must play in the society. The pact of these lessons is a better understanding of societies.
If it can be simplified into characteristics applicable to a majority of groups then it develops a better understanding of deviance, why it occurs and how social constructs are built from once deviant behaviors. Also, its shows the instincts humans have to survive and in certain situations we do not just revert back to animals in order to survive. Human beings have the tendency to keep their religion, their perspectives, views and even a form of the lifestyle they were accustomed to. This type of research is important because a better understanding can lead to better leadership techniques.
Knowing your people and the type of environment they are used to can help cater your leadership style to their needs personally. For instance, if a subordinate comes from a background where yelling at people is a deviant behavior or is a sign of disrespect, then the leaders should know that they will act accordingly, they are not used to that type of behavior because it is not the norm for them. The article did a good job of making it less about the cannibalism, and more about what it represented. Instead of making it solely about them eating people any other deviant behavior could be out in its place and have the same meaning.
The point the research was trying to get to was that people are resilient and will generally do whatever they can to survive and stay sane. It was not just that they had to eat the bodies but that “the dead became part of [their] lives” and they built a social system around it. My thinking on this subject was changed because it brought a new perspective to deviance. When thinking about drug dealers or prostitution my focus is less about the act and more about the social construct behind it, what lead to that deviant act becoming the norm and what’s how their society is built around it.
I would like to know more about the individuals who couldn’t conform. It would be interesting to have their perspective as well, just what about the act made it worth their own survival. I would like to read about more lessons being extracted from extreme cases of deviant behavior because it would be unethical to conduct these experiments on real people. In reference to sociology I see certain theories applied like functionalism, the deviance played its role in the society and maintained stability among the group.
Also symbolic interactionalism is also applied here. It brings a better understanding to the concepts as it applied to human bodies in the article. In conclusion, this research on deviance gives an extreme example of how it is incorporated into a society. The people had to survive and adapted the best way they could. They used symbolic interactionism to change the meaning they assign to the human body in order to create the social construct and seek rescue. This research highlights how much people influence the structure and norms with a society.
