Free Reaction Report Essay Example

In Northern India two farmers have committed suicide because of the unseasonal rains in the state. The families of the victims said that they were upset after ‘suffering crop losses’. The government is currently investigating the tragedy, considering this situation as a deviant behavior.
According to the David Emile Durkheim theory of anomie, that could happen due to two main reasons. Firstly, these individuals were potentially prone to deviant behavior because their socialization took place in conditions of promoting standards of deviant behavior or ignoring rules. Secondly, as Robert K. Merton has said, it could happen because of contradictions between cultural goals of society and socially approved means of achieving them.
The proponents of another theory of labeling stigmatization explain this deviant behavior as an opportunity of influential public institutions put the stamp of deviants to less powerful members of society. At the same time, they point out such types of deviant behavior as primary and secondary deviation. The primary deviation is commonly understood as minor deviations, such as accidental or trial use of soft drugs. Secondary deviation, according to Howard Becker, occurs when individuals get a stigma of deviants. After that, they begin to turn around with themselves as deviants, gradually get used to it and start to behave in accordance with their roles.
In the case of Indian farmers I think it would be more correct to explain it with Durkheim’s anomie, because theory of labels explains only secondary deviation, recidivism, the formation of deviant career under the influence of excessive social control, but not the primary etiology of deviation. Moreover, Durkheim saw the main reason for the deviation in social instability that can be applied to Uttar Pradesh tribe. In India, perhaps, there is the most pressing social disintegration of society. Differences are compounded by the mixed nature of the socio-economic life of the country. The presence of different types of social relations contributes to the appearance of danger of social instability in the country.