Deviance is determined by the degree to which we make others uncomfortable.
would murder be a crime if we lived in a world where no one was afraid to die?
6 comments:
Anonymous
said...
1. Deviance - I agree. Deviance is traditionally defined as varying from the "norm" and since most people are most comfortable with the norm, then deviance can be measured by the degree to which you make them uncomfortable.
2. Murder - not so sure. Murder implies that you are harming another person and you are taking away their opportunity to live a happy life. The impermanence argument may apply more to suicide, but I'm not taking that one on ...
good points. theft is a crime because it involves the forcible loss of something valued. nobody complains if somebody steals something they didn't want anyway. following this logic, murder is a crime because people value their lives.
BUT, people are still accused of murder when they have ended the life of someone who did not value her own life, and occasionally (but not always) when they have ended the life of someone whose life was not valued by others. thoughts?
this is essentially true. another thought: does the practice of capital punishment then imply that society does not value the life of the murderer? (how) is this justifiable?
if the life of a murderer is not valued/valuable, then clearly not all life is valued--does/can this extend to other groups of people? and would this then mean that murder, or some murder, would no longer be a crime?
yes. i can think of quite a few groups of people: illegal immigrants, perpetrators of crimes of varying degrees, etc. Even the circumstance can dictate whether it is considered murder or not. Killing in self defense or in wartime is rarely considered murder, for example. Murder is such a subjective term. We define murder as individuals and as a society, and the definitions do not always overlap. Some people view capital punishment as murder. Others do not. It is clear that the life of the accused in these situations has become devalued, and those in power would argue that the commission of the act of taking the life of another human being immediately strips away the individual value of one's life and any rights to that life the individual held previously. In order to find some murder that is not considered a crime, you can also look at the smaller scale occurrences. Think about how it is possible for some people to get away with cold-blooded, calculated murder, while others rot in jail for crimes of passion. One could argue that the corruption of the defining institution has caused that shift, deeming some forms of killing another human being more acceptable than others. It's pretty evident that not all life is respected equally, in this country or anywhere.
Again, the problem is that people aren't going to call it murder because it's been drilled into them that the killing is justified in some way...either that or they've been convinced that the people being killed are somehow less than human. So I would say, based upon my individual definitions of what constitutes murder, yes. I would say that it's already the case.
this approaches the original train of thought: if someone gets away with a cold, calculated murder, or even a crime of passion, because nobody notices that someone is gone, nobody is made uncomfortable--therefore, the killer is not viewed as deviant.
6 comments:
1. Deviance - I agree. Deviance is traditionally defined as varying from the "norm" and since most people are most comfortable with the norm, then deviance can be measured by the degree to which you make them uncomfortable.
2. Murder - not so sure. Murder implies that you are harming another person and you are taking away their opportunity to live a happy life. The impermanence argument may apply more to suicide, but I'm not taking that one on ...
~B.
being unafraid to die doesn't mean not wanting to live.
good points. theft is a crime because it involves the forcible loss of something valued. nobody complains if somebody steals something they didn't want anyway. following this logic, murder is a crime because people value their lives.
BUT, people are still accused of murder when they have ended the life of someone who did not value her own life, and occasionally (but not always) when they have ended the life of someone whose life was not valued by others. thoughts?
this is essentially true.
another thought:
does the practice of capital punishment then imply that society does not value the life of the murderer? (how) is this justifiable?
if the life of a murderer is not valued/valuable, then clearly not all life is valued--does/can this extend to other groups of people? and would this then mean that murder, or some murder, would no longer be a crime?
yes.
i can think of quite a few groups of people: illegal immigrants, perpetrators of crimes of varying degrees, etc.
Even the circumstance can dictate whether it is considered murder or not. Killing in self defense or in wartime is rarely considered murder, for example.
Murder is such a subjective term. We define murder as individuals and as a society, and the definitions do not always overlap. Some people view capital punishment as murder. Others do not. It is clear that the life of the accused in these situations has become devalued, and those in power would argue that the commission of the act of taking the life of another human being immediately strips away the individual value of one's life and any rights to that life the individual held previously.
In order to find some murder that is not considered a crime, you can also look at the smaller scale occurrences. Think about how it is possible for some people to get away with cold-blooded, calculated murder, while others rot in jail for crimes of passion. One could argue that the corruption of the defining institution has caused that shift, deeming some forms of killing another human being more acceptable than others. It's pretty evident that not all life is respected equally, in this country or anywhere.
Again, the problem is that people aren't going to call it murder because it's been drilled into them that the killing is justified in some way...either that or they've been convinced that the people being killed are somehow less than human.
So I would say, based upon my individual definitions of what constitutes murder, yes. I would say that it's already the case.
this approaches the original train of thought:
if someone gets away with a cold, calculated murder, or even a crime of passion, because nobody notices that someone is gone, nobody is made uncomfortable--therefore, the killer is not viewed as deviant.
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