#robert merton

[tondroom]

Applying criminological theories to Phantom of the Opera #1

I study criminology, and I have an exam in a week about criminological theories (=theories that attempt to explain deviant behavior/crime.) Each theory has a different perspective. So, I figured, why not apply a theory to Phantom. It's been on my mind.

For example, there's Classical Strain Theory (Merton, 1938). It was developed as a criticism of the 'American Dream.' Merton argued that not everyone can achieve the ideals of the American Dream (ex: a good house, good job, nice salary). I mean, if you're born into a poor family, of course it's much harder to get to a top university and become a lawyer. So, he argued, that the people who don't have the means to achieve society's goals, experience "strain". An individual responds to strain in different ways. They respond differently in different situations.

🎭 "Conformity"

An individual accepts the goal (example: American Dream) and try to achieve it with socially accepted means anyway. So, they try to 'work hard' and follow 'legitimate routes.'

🔪 "Innovation"

An individual accepts the goals, but they try to use different - absolutely not socially accepted - means. Innovation! You could get rich by working hard, but you could also steal things or extort people. And this is exactly what Erik does. Let's apply this element of strain theory to him. One of his society's goals is to, as a man, have a steady job and make money. Erik isn't able to achieve this goal due to his face. He's stigmatised and ridiculed for it. He doesn't have a face that's allowed in a workspace. Not to mention that his upbringing caused him to be socially unskilled, and he generally has some odd traits that make him unable to keep a job. That causes a lot of strain. The dude can't achieve his goals. Thus, to achieve society's goal anyway, he starts to manipulate and extort the managers of the opera house. In that way, he's achieved the goal of making money, just differently (and through criminal behavior). There are probably more examples of Erik's innovations, but I want to explain the other responses to strain too.

🥀 "Ritualism"

Ritualism is another response. This is when you accept society's goals, but you don't have the means to achieve them, and you basically give up on trying. An example is an exhausted person working a thankless job, never trying to move up the hierachy within their company. They have kinda accepted their fate, and accepted that they don't have the means to grow into a better position. This can also be applied to Erik, especially to the very moment he starts living inside the opera house. One could say his goals are to get a (1) nice-looking house and (2) become a 'normal,' functioning member of society. Clearly, Erik's tried to achieve these goals in his past; he's travelled around the world, and one could say he attempted to find a steady homebase everywhere he went. He's worked different jobs (circus-artist, architect, assassin), trying to become a functioning member of society the way society wants it. But again, there's an obstacle each time he tries to be 'normal': his face. Everyone rejects and abuses him. So, he gives up on becoming a functioning member of society, also deciding to accept he won't have a nice house, nor a nice job. He hides himself in the opera house and 'functions' from the background, from the shadows. His reality is an unfortunate reality for a lot of neurodivergent and disabled folks too.

🕳️ "Retreatism"

This is when someone also gives up, but they retreat from society altogether in a literal sense. Merton mentions severe drug-addicts and homeless folks as an example of this. These folks don't have the means to achieve society's goals, so they give up on them and retreat from society. They're technically 'there', but not a part of it; they don't 'function' at all anymore, according to Merton. And Erik's a fine example of this during the last scene of Phantom. He lets Christine go, giving up on trying to achieve society's goals of getting a nice family, a house, a wife... But it's no use. It's implied he withers away from sadness and dies. He gives up and retreats - unfortunately resulting in death.

✊ "Rebellion"

This is when you can't achieve society's goals, so you reject them and try to reform society. Merton mentions terrorists as an example of this. However, I could argue that activists or protestors are also an example of it - without correlating them to the extreme example of terrorists. Erik rebels a lot in the show, but I want to focus on the moment he drops the chandelier onto an audience, killing them. One of society's goals is to make money, like I mentioned before. Erik does this, by innovation; he extorts the managers for 20 000s francs each month. They pay him, up until they start to reject his extorting. Christine also rejects (and 'betrays') him, ruining their teacher-student dynamic. He can't be her teacher any longer and he probably won't get to marry her either. He can't achieve the aforementioned goals of being a functioning member of society, plus marrying someone, which is another goal. So, acting out, he drops the chandelier on a bunch people, killing them horribly. This shows he rejects society's goals and the means to achieve them.

Criticism

Of course Merton's theory is an old one, and he only applied it to the American Dream. It's also hard to test this theory, because how do you measure strain? It also doesn't explain specifically what makes some individuals resort to crime, and what makes others conform. Therefore it also doesn't account for the emotional state of an individual, and how much "strain" they can handle. I mean, Erik's clearly damaged emotionally, causing him to have moments where he acts completely irrationally. This is evident when he chokes Christine for a moment in the musical, but stops when he 'comes to his senses.' Is Erik's criminal behavior a result of strain, or a result of other factors, like mental illness, or even brain damage due to the abuse he endured?

But all in all, it's an interesting theory and it's fun to apply it to characters. And now, I have to go back to studying again. See ya (:.

[balladofthe101st]

deviance typology

[thesociologicalcinema]

Robert K. Merton (1910 - 2003) American sociologist Robert Merton is perhaps best known for his theory of Deviance, which locates the source of crime within the structure of American society. Merton drew on Émile Durkheim's concept of Anomie and modified it to refer to the the strain put on individuals' behavior when accepted norms conflict with social reality (Giddens et al., 2012. Essentials of Sociology, 4th ed.)

[maaarine]

The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy (Robert Merton, 1948)

“The parable tells us that public definitions of a situation (prophecies or predictions) become an integral part of the situation and thus affect subsequent developments.

This is peculiar to human affairs. It is not found in the world of nature. Predictions of the return of Halley's comet do not influence its orbit.

But the rumored insolvency of Millingville's bank did affect the actual outcome. The prophecy of collapse led to its own fulfillment. (…)

The self-fulfilling prophecy is, in the beginning, a false definition of the situation evoking a new behavior which makes the originally false conception come true.

The specious validity of the self-fulfilling prophecy perpetuates a reign of error. For the prophet will cite the actual course of events as proof that he was right from the very beginning.”

[asingletear-blog1]

Cyber Punk

Punk has to do with Robert Merton’s Strain theory.

Back in the 1950s as criminologists began to more seriously explore the sociological causes behind crime, Robert K. Merton put forth his perspective through strain theory. Merton argued that mainstream society holds certain culturally defined goals that are dominant across society. In a capitalist society, the dominant goal that most people aim for is accumulating wealth. Merton further argued that this goal of becoming financially wealthy was so powerful that the goal of getting rich itself had become more important than the means by which one attained wealth. In other words, whether you got rich via conventional/legal means, or via unconventional/illegal means, it didn’t matter, as long as you got your coin. For Merton then, there was anomie (normlessness) regarding the means.

Merton furthered this perspective by providing a framework by which sociologists could typologise criminals and non-criminals – strain theory. Strain theory argues that one must consider if an individual rejects or accepts (1) society’s cultural goals (wanting to make money), as well as (2) the institutional means by which to attain those goals.

To this end, five typologies were established:

Conformists, who accept the culturally defined goal of financial success, as well as the institutional means society defines as appropriate to reach that goal (e.g., advancing one’s education, steadily working, saving money). Conformists follow rules and believe doing so will pay off financially.

Innovators, who also accept the culturally defined goal of financial success, but do not follow society’s rules (i.e., laws) in their pursuit of attaining wealth. Innovators may not have the means to attain financial wealth (e.g., not enough money to further advance education), and/or simply not believe in the law. Hence, innovators turn to crime.

Ritualists are those individuals who do not believe they can attain the culturally defined goal of accumulating financial wealth or who do not value this, but who continue to do so through society’s acceptable cultural pathways simply because they are supposed to (e.g., going to work and school, despite feeling such actions will never pay off).

Retreatists are people who reject the goal of financial wealth, as well as the means society deems acceptable to get rich. Hence people in this group escape, or retreat from society, often times through substance use.

Rebels are the last group who redefine society’s goals and create new institutional means of pursuing their unique goals. Rebels work outside of the established system.

Punks are either Innovators, Retreatists, or Rebels.

if you extrapolate the theory to be not just about financial wealth, but about any kind of currency (social, spiritual, etc), then this is doubly so, how ever cyber punk still tends to center around finance as its microcosm for all the societal issues that it explores using these five roles or strains.

in ghost in the shill, you could argue that Motoko and the rest of section 9 are Ritualists dealing with innovators and rebels.

they don’t really buy into the values that are thrust on to them by society, but they go through the motions anyways, because they feel like they have to, because its all they know, they can’t think of any worthwhile alternative.

this is thing that is funny about cyber punk, the main charectors don’t need to be the punks, so long as the punks (the innovators, rebels, and retreatists, are what the story is about, what you are supposed to contemplate)

a common motif in cyber punk, is to show the divide between the haves and the have nots expanding as corporatism expands through the use of society, as sky scrapers get taller, slums get wider.

this is where the confusion comes with “The Last Night”, it is absolutely a cyber punk story, but people are confused, because rather then relying on corporatism’s interaction with capitalism to show case the values that culture puts forth and its flaws (as to be punk is to be counter culture, and to be counter culture is to criticism mainstream culture), it uses corporatism’s interactions with socialism facilitated by technology. people think that the fundamental component of cyber punk is capitalism, because they confuse capitalism with corporatism, and because capitalism and corporatism are so regularly used in cyber punk. but its really just about societal critique of mainstream culture using cybernetic technology to exaggerate the societal factors that are present in the modern day to a lesser extent that you are criticizing.

The Last Night isn't necessarily saying that working for wealth and to survive is the only noble or worthwhile method to have meaning in your life, or even that it is noble or worthwhile at all, it is merely suggesting that perhaps, even if you didn't have to work to survive or to have wealth, that if you could instead just consume what ever you want, and live life like a game, that perhaps that isn’t so noble or worthwhile either. that there would be punks even in this world, who would resist and reject the mainstream gamification and consumption prevalent in society, and search for something else, that Innovators, Retreatists, and Rebels would still exist.

thats why wild wild west is not “steampunk”, its just steam tech fiction. because there are no punks. innovation in this context doesn’t mean inventing things, it means not following societies rules, but the maincharectors do follow societies rules, and they believe in them, and they believe in the values that society puts forth, and the movie doesn’t put forth things intended to provoke you to question this.

anything with “punk” in it is about Robert Merton’s strain theory, if it isn’t, then its not punk. cyberpunk without questioning societies value system and rules, is just cybertech fiction.

so The Last Night is cyberpunk, just not in a capitalist framework.

[maaarine]

The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy (Robert Merton, 1948)

“The systematic condemnation of the out-grouper continues largely irrespective of what he does. 

More: through a freakish exercise of capricious judicial logic, the victim is punished for the crime. 

Superficial appearances notwithstanding, prejudice and discrimination aimed at the out-group are not a result of what the out-group does, 

but are rooted deep in the structure of our society and the social psychology of its members.

To understand how this happens, we must examine the moral alchemy through which the in-group readily transmutes virtue into vice and vice into virtue, as the occasion may demand. (…)

Did Lincoln work far into the night? This testifies that he was industrious, resolute, perseverant, and eager to realize his capacities to the full. 

Do the out-group Jews or Japanese keep these same hours? This only bears witness to their sweatshop mentality, their ruthless undercutting of American standards, their unfair competitive practices.

Is the in-group hero frugal, thrifty, and sparing? Then the out-group villain is stingy, miserly and penny-pinching. (…)

The right activity by the wrong people becomes a thing of contempt, not of honor.

For clearly, only in this way, by holding these virtues exclusively to themselves, can the men of power retain their distinction, their prestige, and their power. (…)

And it is only with the rejection of social fatalism implied in the notion of unchangeable human nature that the tragic circle of fear, social disaster, reinforced fear can be broken.

Ethnic prejudices do die — but slowly.

They can be helped over the threshold of oblivion, not by insisting that it is unreasonable and unworthy of them to survive, but by cutting off their sustenance now provided by certain institutions of our society. (…)

Nor can widespread, even typical, failures in planning human relations between ethnic groups be cited as evidence for pessimism.

In the world laboratory of the sociologist, as in the more secluded laboratories of the physicist and chemist, it is the successful experiment which is decisive and not the thousand-and-one failures which preceded it.”

[thesociologicalcinema]

Strain Theory - Robert Merton argues that deviance occurs when a society does not give all its members equal ability to achieve socially acceptable goals. ... Or when a viral ancient strain of vampirism is unleashed.

[researchwhisperer]

"Writing a scant thirty-five years ago, Veblen could observe that the faith of western culture in science was unbounded, unquestioned, unrivalled. The revolt from science which then appeared so improbable as to concern only the timid academician who would ponder all contingencies, however remote, has now been forced upon the attention of scientist and layman alike. Local contagions of anti-intellectualism threaten to become epidemic." - Merton, Robert. 1942. “A Note on Science and Democracy.” Journal of Legal and Political Sociology 1 (1 and 2): 115–26.