Mental Health Corner: Everyone's a Deviant

Deviance is difficult to define and many who study the concept disagree on how it should be defined. However, the closest definition in its most basic form is that deviance is any violation of societal norms.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines an individual who is named a deviant as “a person who differs markedly from what is considered normal or acceptable.” The labeling of a deviant can be based on a range of behaviors and depends on an endless number of social norms. This includes anything from a person in a religious home renouncing their parents beliefs, to someone who takes another person’s life. In the first case renouncing such beliefs is beyond the comprehension of the parents. In the second, nearly the entire society would find such an act inconceivable. Such a broad range of deviant behavior definitions is what makes it so hard to pin down an exact definition.

In today’s socially and politically divisive climate, it is important to understand the varying definition of deviance. We often find the behavior of those around us incredulous. How could someone you know or love possibly be such a deviant. We feel that personally we know the definition of a deviant and can pick out the people around us who fit the definition. The revelation that our definition, or even our societies definition, is just one of many is a hard pill to swallow.

There are “rights and wrongs” that are nearly universal, such as taking another person’s life being a wrong. There are also rights and wrongs that many think should be universal, such as believing face tattoos are wrong and that they will lead to loss of job opportunities. However, that definition is flexible for each person and for many is not deviant at all, but a beautiful outward expression of one’s self.

Division and hurt over others life choices are a hard thing to heal, but not impossible. The realization that neither political party, group nor individual has the only definition of rights and wrongs is healthy. No one should have the capability to apply universal societal norms, therefore defining deviance for everyone. Accepting that your boundaries for deviance are personal to you, but no better than another, frees one to love others.

By Webster’s definition, Elvis was a deviant, Jesus was a deviant, as was Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. If the great minds who spend their entire lives studying the social construct of deviance can’t settle on a hard and fast definition for all, maybe it's time for all of us to realize that neither should we. Resolve to heal divisiveness in our own lives by not imposing our definitions of deviance onto the ones closest to us.