We are all outsiders

The biggest message Becker sends in his book ‘Outsiders’ is that everyone is an outsider in someone’s perspective. In the eyes of society, marihuana users are outsiders in the same way dance musicians consider all non-musicians outsiders.

Rules are an important factor when it comes to ‘creating’ outsiders; the Marihuana Tax Act in 1937 made marihuana users a new group of outsiders, because they did something that was illegal and deviant from non-marihuana users. But unwritten rules can also play a role; dance musicians act, dress and speak in a certain way that is different from non-musicians, therefore dance musicians considers others outsiders.

These unwritten roles often play a role in the functioning of subculture; to be part of a certain subculture you have to follow certain dress codes and other rules. You have a career within this subculture; you develop from someone who is new and unaware of some specific norms and/or rules to someone who knows everything there is to know about the subculture and might even have some authority.

I cannot think of a certain subculture I am part of, other than ‘youth culture’. I would not label this subculture ‘deviant’, as I do not label other subcultures as ‘deviant’ easily. I believe my attitude toward subcultures and outsiders may be typical of our time; we care less and less about labeling and ‘othering’ and our boundaries when it comes to accepting different genders, nationalities etc. (but also, smaller things like tastes in music) have expanded since Becker published his book in the 1960s. I am not trying to say that subcultures are non-existent in our society nowadays (I actually believe there are many more than in the 1960s), but I do believe we do not label them deviant and treat its members as outsiders as easily as people would in the 1960s.

Even though, society nowadays is functioning in a slightly different way from Becker’s society in the 1960s, his book ‘outsiders’ is a good overview of how people treat those who are different from them and he teaches us that the term ‘outsider’ is a subjective one, which is still relevant today.