Reading the book ‘Outsiders’ was something that I enjoyed a lot more than I had expected. The book by Howard Becker will leave you with some interesting new perspectives on sub-cultures, social rules and the whole concept of outsiders or ‘deviant’ people – at least, it gave me a lot of new insights to think about.

To give an example of these perspectives, the author explains in his book that it is not so much about what someone actually did – so, what the actual crime was - when he/she becomes regarded as an outsider, but more about how society responds to it. Becoming an outsider means disobeying certain rules that were made up by a social group, but maybe the deviant was not trying to be disobedient, but was or is acting according to his own set of ‘rules’ that he has made up for himself – the person’s own morals, norms and ideals. The deviant might not regard himself to have committed a crime, because this person might believe that what he did was ‘the right thing to do’. I think this is an interesting way to look at deviant people; not everyone who commits a crime or shows deviant behavior is trying to purposely be disobedient.

I did recognize some situations that Becker describes in his book from my personal life, or from others around me. Although I try to be aware of my behavior when it comes to seeing others as ‘outsiders’ and try to be accepting and open-minded to everyone, I have experienced this ‘feeling’ or reaction several times before. For example, when I hear stories about people in my surroundings that have supposedly done something deviant, I do feel this ‘shock’ for a moment, or I find myself thinking ‘why would he/she ever do that? Why would any person ever do something like that?’. This sense of not being able to understand certain behavior, I believe, comes from the social rules that I have been taught by the people around me. Seeing certain acts or behavior as deviants was taught to me by my social group. I also know that, for example, my parents would regard marihuana users as ‘outsiders’. In the book, Becker takes the sub-culture of marihuana users as an example of a deviant group, and I believe that nowadays that’s still how a lot of people look at them. The example of homosexuals as deviants, that Becker also discusses, is not that prominent anymore to my idea (at least not in The Netherlands). However, the example of marihuana users is one that I do recognize and think is still very much alive. It is still a feature that people are very much judged on.

Although I never had the feeling that I myself am part of a specific sub-culture, especially not one that is regarded as 'deviant', I felt a lot of recognition while reading the book and I think everyone would. Recognizing certain people as 'outsiders' is something that we are all taught, no matter what sub-culture or society you belong to.