Charles Krauthammer was concerned with the deviancy situation in the society as he observed that the society seems to be tolerant to some form of activities that were once in time considered deviant. Basing his argument on comparable research findings which revealed that in 1940, top deviant behavior among school going children was identified as noise making, chewing gums, talking out of turn, cutting in line and running in halls. However, fifty years later, in 1990, the research revealed that the top deviant behavior in school going children were drug abuse, alcohol abuse, suicide, rape, and pregnancy.
From the findings, it is a clear indication that there has been an explosion in deviancy within the society during the past fifty years. In defining deviancy up, Krauthammer was of the view that the Ame
...rican society has normalized some of the practices that were once considered deviant and finding deviancy in what was initially regarded as normal (Krauthammer, 1993). To drive his point home, Krauthammer elaborates on the changing trends in the society where deviancy has defined down so as to assume that deviancy within the society has actually been brought down.
He for instance reflects on the situation in 1960s and notes that in the present society, many things have changed in regard to what was seen as deviant during the 60s. He identifies the single parenthood, crime and mental illness as some of the aspects that have greatly been redefined in defining deviance down. His argument is that following the moral deregulation that has occurred, there has been an upsurge in deviancy within the family, criminal behavior and also in the
mental retardation incidences that are open to the public.
Krauthammer also observes that most deviant behavior today goes unreported due to the defining deviancy down effect (Krauthammer, 1993). In conclusion, he argues that both defining deviancy up and defining deviancy down serves an ideological and psychological agenda. He is of the opinion that defining deviancy up helps cope with explosion of real deviancy in the sense that it presents new deviancies that the society has to fight distracting the old ones and giving the people the feeling that the societal norms are being preserved and policed (Krauthammer, 1993).
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