The Importance Of Deviance In Society

Values and mores are social constructs, born of a people who yearn for a better nation. Whether it be "manifest destiny" or the simplistic desire to have a safe and fair environment, people will come together for the sake of bettering their world. Deviance can serve two purposes; the one, to reinforce the current way of the world by demonstrating why it is we have the values that we do; the second, to challenge the way we think about how and why our society believes the way that it does. Examples of the latter are evident throughout history. Christopher Columbus, who deviated from the norm and questioned sensible knowledge, John Smith who did not spend his time looking for gold, members of the Boston tea party movement, every revolutionary who dared defy the mother country and take up arms against her in the fight for independence. All of these men were considered deviants in a fashion for going against society; and yet they paved the way for the birth of our nation. No different were their actions than the actions of the abolitionists who questioned America 's policy on slavery. A lot going man, legally considered a fugitive in his time, wrote a

One such man John C. Calhoun conjectured that:

"But let me not be understood as admitting, even by implication, that the existing relations between the two races in the slaveholding States is an evil: far otherwise; I hold it to be a good, as it has thus far proved itself to be to both, and will continue to prove so if not disturbed by the fell spirit of abolition. I appeal to facts. Never before has the black race of Central Africa, from the dawn of history to the present day, attained a condition so civilized and so improved, not only physically, but morally and intellectually." - John C. Calhoun