The Politics of Deviance

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.