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Deviance: Absolute Or Relative?

First and foremost, deviant acts are utterly relative; it's not possible to isolate certain acts and find them universally condemned by all societies as deviant. Deviant acts, furthermore, are relative to time and place. That is, behavior–past and present, and the across the cultural spectrum–in one society may not be deviant in another society. For example: Was Nelson Mandela a deviant? For years, the ruling white-minority party in apartheid South Africa viewed him as a "dangerous political deviant" and, in fact, even deployed government-sponsored terrorist squads of ex-Special Forces operators (many of whom were veterans of guerrilla wars in sub-Saharan Africa) to track and hunt him down. To most black South Africans, on the other hand, Mandela is a revered leader of the freedom movement.

For another, if I may say so, deviance continually undergoes redefinition–that is, for what is deviant today may not be deviant tomorrow within a given society. For example: Is killing......


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Approximate Word Count: 676
Approximate Pages: 3 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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