Sub-cultures in our life
How a sub-culture functions
What Becker does here is to give a description of how a sub-culture works. Based on what he mentions, we can understand how generally a sub-culture functions. To begin with this explanation, it is important to know how these groups are formed and why they receive this denomination. First of all, this group of people forms part of a bigger group called society, which means that they share some cultural aspects as some point of views, rules, responsibilities and so on, but at the same time, there are certain traits that distinguish them. These sub-cultures are initially formed by individuals that disagree with the main group. For example, they can find that the rules that they must follow are inadequate, or they can think that their goals in life differ from the common ones, and most importantly, that their problems are not the same as the ones from the others. When these individuals meet each other and find out that they share these common aspects, which they believe are important for them, they can initiate a sub-culture. But a subculture is more than that, it requires a common understanding, a set of rules that should be followed by the members of this exclusive group, conventionalized behavior, new perspectives of themselves as individuals and as a member of the group, new perspectives about their position in the society in general. Communication is a key process for the development of a sub-culture. It is not only a way to stay together, or a form to solve problems or a way to make sure that the members are synchronized, but a method of differentiation. And this is how slang arises, as a symbol of exclusivity and secrecy. Moving on, all this exclusivity and intents of differentiate from them, leads to an undeniable self-segregation, which, in my opinion, reinforces the links between the members. To finish, I would like to mention the crucial role that an experienced member has when it comes to introducing a new member to this novel way of life. He would teach him directly through advises and orders, or indirectly by showing his or her behavior.
I am part of a sub-culture
Before doing this blog I would had never considered myself as part of a subculture. I described myself as a person who do what most people of my age do and have similar goals to them. For some reason, I had the wrong ideas of how the members of a subculture are. For me, they were always against the rest of society and they avoided every possible contact with people that do not share their opinions. Thus, I could not see how I could fit in this concept. But after reading Outsiders I changed my mind. As I described in the second paragraph on this entry, a member of a subculture does not necessarily have to present that extreme characteristics. Thus, I could say now that I form part of at least one subculture.
It has been two years since I became part of this subculture. In my country, I study in a business university and we have four types of programs: management, economy, engineering focused on business and two programs of psychology, one focused on the consumer and the other one focused on organizations. I have to say that psychology is not a popular career in my university and there are some reasons that can explain this: psychologists are seeing like crazy people with weird manners, whose profession is not rentable. On the other hand, is “not part of a traditional or prestigious” program as engineering or management are. People have this misconception of us wasting time because we are not always doing exercises or studying as hard as them. All this are stereotypes. We, as psychologist students know how taught it is to read all those papers for every class and how tiring can result to be analyzing even simple things, but at the end of the day it is all worth it because that is what we love. As can be seen here, two characteristics of the dynamic of a subculture are being described: first, a clash between the beliefs of a larger group with the beliefs of a smaller one, which conducts us to the second characteristic, a problem shared by a group of people: from dealing with stereotypes to trying to obtain good grades in our courses. We also have our own traditions like going to specifics bars and clubs after exams, going on trips together during holidays, celebrating birthdays together or studying in. Some activities are only done by a little group of us, but in general, it doesn’t matter in which year you are, if you are a psychology student you are always welcome to join us. I would say that it is an implicit rule to take part of these activities because is your obligation to continue with this tradition. All the mentioned before does not mean that we only interact with the members of our group, we also establish relationships with the students of other faculties, however, for most of us, we feel more identified as psychologist rather than as students of our university.
The novice and the master
As I mentioned, the ones that have more experience in this subculture helps the newbie to get integrated to our group. From telling them which teachers they should choose or helping them by providing them material of study, to telling them when and where our parties or trips are going to be, or telling them to sit with us in the cafeteria and introducing them the to the rest of our members. Even, sometimes when we notice that the novice has certain skills, as getting along with people or the capacity to convince people, we assign them some responsibilities as finding the appropriate person to form part of our sport team.
I would say that definitely I am not a novice anymore because: first, I don’t need to ask where the parties are going to be anymore because my friends invite me themselves, secondly, I am the one who invite the novices to join us and chat with us, thirdly, I know almost everyone from my faculty, including students, teachers and coordinators and lastly, the sometimes novices ask me for advice. The only requisite that I need to be considered as a master is to be in my last year of university and to be working. A master in seen with admiration because he or she has manage to almost finish the entire career and has a source of own income, which means that has more independence.
Sub-cultures and deviants
I would say that we are deviants but we are not at the same time. Let me explain myself. When people out of our group do not have any kind of relationship with us, they tend to make judgments based on stereotypes (as we all do) so I would say that we are falsely accused as deviants, but once they get to know us, they notice that we, as a group do not break any rules or at least any important rules so we are not pointed as deviants anymore.
Lately I have been trying to be open minded in order to avoid giving the “deviant label” to groups that act different from me. However it is impossible not to disagree with any act of violence that compromise people’s life. From my point of view, no religion, political belief or lack can worth more than human lives. From their perspective, they are doing what it must be done, because they are following their rules and they are fighting for what they consider they disserve, but from my perspective, they are violating the dignity of thousands of people, they are going against basic rights. I am talking about terrorist organizations, delinquents and any kind of subculture that follows the previous description.
Time changes
Reading Outsiders makes me realize that some issues have not changed in almost 60 years. For instance, we are still witnessing the inequalities in the punishments that are applied according to the social influence or the economic level of the offender, as Becker mentioned. Another thing that has not experimented a big variation is the influence of youth in mass media. Nowadays, we keep continue having TV channels or radio stations which have this audience as target. Another aspect mentioned that has not changed in some countries is the government struggle’s to reduce or eliminate marihuana use. This is what happens in my country, Perú, where authorities continue to try to stop the traffic of any kind of illicit drugs.
On the other hand, some things have changed since Becker’s time, such as the attitude towards homosexuals and even their own attitude. For the majority of people, homosexuality is not an illness or a non moral act anymore. However, LGBT community is still fighting against injustices and acts of violence against them. Nevertheless, this community is being treated more equally, both legally and socially, which has caused that more people feel free to declare themselves as homosexual or bisexual.
One more thing that I would like to mention is the use of marihuana and how it is more socially accepted than before. I can tell by personal experience that even in countries where its consumption is forbidden, a big amount of people smoke in secrecy. At the same time, it is ordinary to find groups in which not all the members smoke but when they all get together and some of them decide to smoke, the members who do not do it usually do not feel uncomfortable and stay there. This practice can be allowed by youngsters generally, but seldom by older people, at least in this kind of countries. On the other hand, there are cities and countries where recreational use of marihuana is permitted. Clearly, this is a big difference between the context that the author of Outsiders describes, in which only a few people do it and for that reason are labeled as deviance even by people of their same age, and our current context.
Deviance, as Becker mentioned, can vary over time. What was forbidden at some point of our history, may be result completely normal in the future and vice versa.