Pierce Jenkins
Period 2
October 7, 2013
Unit two Closure
Quote #1- Bad people do bad things
Bad people do not do bad things as well as there are no bad people. For a person to be
bad, they must be labeled by society as bad. Usually they are portrayed in the media as bad or
they commit socially unacceptable actions. This does not create a bad person. However being
labeled bad by society may give the physical appearance of being bad but is not always true. A
stereotype for a person to be labeled as bad by society would be that they do bad things. This is
not always true. All people do bad things and commit socially unacceptable actions. From this it
can then be inferred that good people do bad things. The quote is too vague. Also looking at the
Looking Glass Self article, people act by how others perceive them to act. If someone is
labeled as bad by society then that person may start to do bad things because thats how others
view them. They end up falling into the lie created by social media.
Quote #2- Eating human flesh is always deviant behavior
Eating human flesh is not always deviant behavior because deviance is defined by the
society you are in. In the article, Eating Your Friends is the Hardest Part, the passengers on the
plane created a new set of social norms because they ended up creating a miniature society on
their own. Along with these social norms came eating human flesh to stay alive. Deviance is
breaking a social norm, and when a new set of norms is established, the definition of what is
deviant changes. In the case of the rugby team on the crashed plane, their actions were not
deviant because it was a new set of social norms but was also not entirely morally wrong. It does
seem wrong to eat human flesh but in their case they set standards by not eating relatives (at
first) and only eating the already dead.
Quote #3- All convicted criminals deserve some form of punishment
This statement is somewhat flawed. First not all forms of punishment are effective. The
theories of punishment are only effective to an extent. They all succeed their goals with only
specific crimes. However, some crimes are not facilitated by the theories of punishment. In the
case with the shipwrecked sailors, they were not punished for their crimes for the extreme
situation they were placed in. Punishing them would not serve a purpose because they did what
was necessary to survive. Usually punishing is to relay a message that committing that certain
crime is unacceptable. In this case, punishing does not serve a goal. Second, this quote should be
changed to; people who commit acts of crime and deviance deserve punishment. Crime and
deviance are not the same. Some criminal acts arent deviant and some deviant acts arent
criminal. It should be a mixture of criminal and deviance to receive punishment. In this case it
will be socially unacceptable and against the law. For example, being rude is deviant and not
criminal, which is not warranted for punishment. Jay walking is criminal and not deviant, and
should also not be punished. For crimes like murder and assault, they are both criminal and
deviant and should be punished.
