The Politics of Deviance [Hardcover]

Anne Hendershott (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 25, 2002

Arguing against the grain of her own discipline, Anne Hendershott asserts the value and strength of the most important of all determinants of behavior--social norms and the commitment to accept them. The Politics of Deviance maintains that definitions of deviance that rely upon reason, and not emotion or political advocacy, are indispensable to the process of generating and sustaining cultural values and reaffirming the moral ties that bind us together.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In The Politics of Deviance, Anne Hendershott (Moving for Work), a sociologist at the University of San Diego, laments the death of deviance as a concept within sociology, along with a consequent "destigmatizing [of] deviant behaviors" within the real social world. In chapters like "Medicalizing the Deviance of Drug Abuse," "Expanding the Market for Mental Illness" and "Postmodern Pedophilia," Hendershott details a process whereby, in her view, "all behaviors are created equal" within the culture, and a market model of what is desirable in a society (i.e., that a kind of manufactured demand for rebellion drives permissiveness) rules to society's detriment. An indictment of what Hendershott feels has taken place within her field over the last 30 years, this book, published by a California think tank, attempts nothing less than a rearticulation of social conservatism.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Anne Hendershott

Product Details

• Hardcover: 184 pages
• Publisher: Encounter Books (August 25, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1893554473
• ISBN-13: 978-1893554474
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #850,924 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Anne Hendershott was born in Waterbury, CT. She taught at the University of San Diego for more than 15 years but moved back to Connecticut recently to teach at The King's College in New York City. She is married and has two grown children and an assortment of pets including Bentley the boxer--the newest arrival in the household.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 54 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Farewell to Deviance. June 27, 2005

By Bernard Chapin VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I have to say first that this is one of the most underrated books of all time. I mentioned it the other day in a review because it covers societal decline better than just about every other book I've read on the topic. Anne Hendershott is a brave writer who took considerable risk in addressing the topic of deviance, as it is one that her fellow academics in sociology, wish to pretend no longer exists.

Yet, exist it does, only now our society has defined the traditional representations of deviance, such as drug addiction, homosexuality, and pedophilia, down to the point where they as normal as low cut jeans on young girls. Society has also replaced the abnormalities of the past with the concocted crimes of sexism, homophobia, and, most humorously, racism-through-questioning-racism, which is what happens when one argues over the necessity of affirmative action programs. We also now have the nauseating circumstance wherein deviance has been defined up, meaning that those who chose to remain virgins and "un-experimental" are the ones judged pathological.

In the chapter, "Rape, Real, and Imagined," we find that rape has become a crime which, by definition, is systematically biased against men. Their accusers have the right to anonymity, whereas, those on trial are entitled to no such courtesies. A semantic twist suddenly rephrases pedophilia as "intergenerational relationships." As an aside, one of these days I would like to find out why the FBI does not arrest NAMBLA en masse under the RICO statutes. Why not? They're all members of a proven criminal organization. Speaking of NAMBLA, mental illness has now been extended to cover the lazy, the irritable, and the over-energetic. In ADHD, PTSD, and PMS, we have a hangman's game full of letters that describe somewhat fuzzy categories of dysfunction. This is explored, more in depth, in Satel and Sommers new book on therapism.

The Politics of Deviance is not merely a sociology book, it is an exploration of how of society has declined to the point where merely attempting to follow the rules is a Herculean task as the rules and mores shift downwards every other month. It is not a long book but the prose is concise. Hendershott really delivers a narrator devoid of distracters and hyperbola. It is a worthy read.

45 of 56 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding October 16, 2003

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

An outstanding book that demonstrates the processes that the perverted use in order to try to force society to accept their Deviance as normal.

The Author carefully develops the argument that deviant behavior has become acceptable at the expense of the well- being of society.

Hendershott's arguments for the destructive acceptance of pedophilia, euthanasia, and homosexuality are equally supported by the statistics she sites for each subject.

The book closes with a convincing argument for the distinction between right and wrong behavior. "In the aftermath of September 11, President George W. Bush repeatedly called the terrorist acts 'evil' and those who perpetrated them 'evildoers,'" writes Hendershott. If Bush had said this before that fateful day, she says, his statements would have been called dogmatic and unnecessarily accusatory. Now that so many innocent civilians have been murdered, few can deny that there is a battle between good and evil, and evil is the deviant of the two. It must be recognized for what it is in order to be defeated; otherwise, there would be no merit for retaliation.

48 of 60 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars about time July 23, 2002

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

It is about time that some brave soul attempted to rehabilitate the idea of deviance. Daniel Patrick Moynihan tried to do it a few years ago when he talked about how we were witnessing the "defining down of deviance" and got nothing but grief from his onetime colleagues in the American Sociological Association. Now Anne Hendershott has taken up the cudgels and acquitted herself well. This book is right on the money in its calculus of how left wing interest groups have indeed defined real deviance down--criminality, drug abuse, suicide, etc.--while working hard to define up the imaginary deviance of businessmen, abortion opponents, and high testosterone college males. She has fascinating case studies such one showing how the National Man/Boy Love Association has worked tirelessly--and with surpising success--to redefine the deviance of pedophilia so that it is now merely a species of "male friendship." She has a very interesting chapter on "moral panics" showing, among other things, how the witchhunt against day care providers for "satanic abuse" of children was inspired by feminist hysteria. Hendershott believes that deviance, which politically correct sociologists have banished from the curriculum, must be restored to the central role in our intellectual that it once enjoyed. A glance at the headlines shows that its function--creating boundaries and encouraging shared norms about what is right and what is wrong--is more important now than ever.