STRAIN THEORY

It is important to provide a summary of Merton’s theory on crime and deviance in order to evaluate its intricacies and merits. First, Merton rejected the biological account of deviance. For Merton, mankind’s innate nature to do as they want is a weak explanation for deviant behavior, and he disagreed with earlier sociologists who saw crime and deviance as a naturally occurring phenomenon only curbed by social control mechanisms like laws and punishment (Merton 1968: 185-186). Instead, Merton asserted that instigator of deviance are social institutions, which exert pressure upon individuals. Therefore, Merton had a decidedly systemic view on deviance and crime.

Second, Merton characterized that within any society, there exist the two outmost important social structures: those being cultural goals and social/legal norms (Merton 1968: 186). Cultural goals describe the myths or cultural expectations that are widely accepted by individuals to be something to strive for within a society, and social or legal norms prescribe the acceptable means one is to attempt to achieve those goals through (Merton 1968: 187). The culture within a society, for example, might foster expectations that every member within it should achieve for wealth or power, but reasonably would also condemn cheating or harm to others as means to an end, lest society falls into disarray.

A society should be considered “anomic”, to use a term Merton borrowed from Durkheim, when either one of these structures outweigh the other (Merton 1968: 200, 215). For Merton, America is an example of a society in which cultural goals are overemphasized to the detriment of legally prescribed means (Merton 1968 :190). He illustrated this by doing a form of content analysis, as he observed the abundance of “rags to riches” stories in news media and magazines (Merton 1968: 191-2). In the United States, observed Merton (1968: 190), the cultural goal is to amass as much financial resources as possible, and success is commonly defined through perceived monetary gains. In addition to this cultural goal, there also exists a general lack of enforcement or care for the institutional means allowed to achieve them and whether those means are equally accessible to all (Merton 1968: 199).

Merton provided the example of Americans’ tolerance towards the “successful knaves” (Merton 1968: 196-7). These are people who achieved the cultural goal of financial success through illicit means but nonetheless had their success validated due to their “wit” or “smartness”. The overemphasis on goals regardless of the social strata of the individuals influenced by this narrative within the society (the rags to riches prototype) and the lack of care or attentiveness on what means should be acceptable (accepting successful knaves) ultimately creates a society in which individuals within the lower strata find themselves overexposed to the discrepancies between expectations of grandeur and lack of access to resources to achieve them in reality. Individuals under both types of pressure may be more likely to resort to crime or deviant behavior (Merton 1968: 200). Merton also noted that deviant behaviors influenced by this discrepancy are not limited to individuals in the lower strata, as he observed the variety of “white collar crimes” that went unpunished at the time of his writing (Merton 1968: 198).

FIVE ADAPTATIONS

According to Merton, there are several adaptations that individuals could resort to when exposed to conflict between the two social structures of means and goals. The first one is to remain conforming to both means and goals (Merton 1968: 195).

The second adaptation is innovation; this occurs when individuals accept the cultural goal but disregard or are unable to abide by norms in achieving them. Merton (1968: 200) noted that this type of wide-spread deviance is only possible due to the promises of meritocracy that anyone can make it within a social structure like the United States; for in a feudal or caste system, the ambition of each caste is culturally limited and curbed. Merton (1968: 234) stated that this type of social structure opens up possibilities for further dysfunctions, as more may adopt illicit means and follow suit. The culture of success also helps in fostering a society in which failures to achieve the cultural goals are internalized or propagated as individual failures (Merton 1968: 202-03). After all, if all are encouraged to achieve the same goals and the same goals should theoretically be attainable to all, then one only fails when they give up as a sign of individual weakness, even though in reality the situation reflects systemic failings (Merton 1968: 193). Failures are also construed as “part of the process”, and successes are portrayed as a matter of luck; this construction helps the successful legitimate their successes (even if their methods were questionable), help maintain the cultural norms as if there is nothing wrong with the system and help the unsuccessful internalize their failures as not of their own fault (Merton 1968: 202).

The third type of reaction towards discrepancies between the two structures of norms and goals is ritualism. According to Merton, it is also possible for one to internalize the legal means in achieving goals yet reject or deviate from cultural goals. Many fearing the instability associated with making attempts to achieve cultural goals might stick to routines and rituals in order to gain a sense of stability and safety (Merton 1968: 204). The fourth type of reaction is retreatism, where individuals reject both means and goals within a society, and often becomes loathed in both regards due to their perceived deviance from both standards (Merton 1968: 208). Retreatists may include individuals with substance abuse issues, people who experience homelessness or just general outcasts within a society. Merton theorized that their double rejection of both goals and means stem from their double internalization. Individuals may understand both the goals and means to achieve them yet realize that goals are unattainable without a willingness to break the rules; an unwillingness to break rules in order to achieve cultural goals result in these individuals’ completely retreat from abiding by either means or goals (Merton 1968: 207). Society therefore loathes these individuals because they reject the values held and promoted by most. The fifth and final type of reaction to the discrepancies is rebellion. Instead of utter rejection displayed by retreatists, revolutionaries may prop up a different set of goals or norms, which they see as ameliorating the discrepancies they experience under the pressure of both structures. To Merton, individuals who parade around as “revolutionaries” but only act out of jealousy for others’ success are not true enactors of rebellion, as these individuals do not abide by a new system of belief that they consider to realistically reflect a new set of goals more attainable by most and new means that are more universally accessible (Merton 1968: 210).

MERTON AND DURKHEIM: PUNISHMENT AND SOLIDARITY

Moving on to Durkheim’s theory of mechanical and organic solidarity, as well as that of crime and punishment. A lot of parallels can be drawn between Merton’s five categories of adaptations towards the conflict between means and goals and Durkheim’s abnormal division of labor. For example, Merton and Durkheim would both be troubled by the economic barriers that prevent individuals with less access to resources in achieving in professions that they are most inclined towards; therefore, they would probably agree that there is an issue of forced division of labor within the United States (Durkheim 2014: 300). The discontinuous division of labor, characterized by its inefficiency and side effects such as giving rise to various useless jobs can be readily compared to the existence of Merton’s ritualists (Durkheim 2014: 304). Ritualists actively abandon productivity or achievement in order to stay unnoticed and unexposed to risks in the work force according to Merton, yet they still partake in conventional means of achievements like holding down a job (though it may be a useless one). Finally, the unregulated division of labor is the exact type of situation that gives rise to rebellions; rapid transformation brings about new ideas about whose interests should be centered and exacerbate conflict between different groups (Durkheim 2014: 278).

However, for Durkheim nepotism and people’s inability to do the job they want are themselves the symptoms of abnormality, but Merton goes further and proclaims that the resulting symptom is deviant behaviors and crime. This comparison illustrates one of the foundational differences between the two theorists. Merton would emphasize crime as a consequence of a chain of social issues, but Durkheim would largely ignore crime by itself. In his writings, Durkheim (2014: 67) stated that crime is a construction based on the emotional reaction that the collective consciousness is offended on some level. Merton specifically characterized crime as something that people might resort to under systemic pressure, unlike Durkheim (2014: 77), who only wrote about crime as part of punishment, which serves as a necessary function in ensuring mechanical solidarity. Merton would similarly agree that crime may serve functional purpose, but not in relation to punishment. Crime serves a functional purpose for the perpetrators in situations where abiding by rules proves insufficient or maladaptive, such as for new immigrant groups with little political representation in his example (Merton 1948: 247). Having more crime, however, shows persistent discrepancies between goals and means and eventually destabilizes the society, so Merton would not agree that crime and punishment fosters solidarity.

MERTON AND DURKHEIM: CULTURAL GOALS AS FORMS OF MECHANICAL SOLIDARITY

Yet another important distinction is that Merton’s characterization of means and goals as two concepts calls into question the effectiveness of using laws as a sign of whether or not modern society had truly moved away from mechanical towards organic solidarity. First of all, the shunning of the retreatists due to their non-participation towards achieving the dominant cultural goal in modern society nor their participation in the workforce would seem to indicate that the exact punitive mentality found within traditional societies against individual differences is still alive and well. Since loitering by people who experience homelessness is punished in certain areas (in California, for example), the purpose and method of the ways solidarity is fostered therefore remained largely the same in this regard (Parampathu 2022).

The counter argument in favor of Durkheim would be to emphasize Durkheim’s qualifier for his statement, that mechanical solidarity (sameness) need not disappear but only play a less prominent role compared to organic solidarity (differences) (Durkheim 2014: 133, 177). Merton would respond by stating that Durkheim’s focus on looking at laws to reflect the evolution of solidarity misses the potential that solidarity and how it is enforced is reflected in another type of behavior people display towards deviance, namely through reward and not punishment. In other words, Durkheim’s method of utilizing the law as an observable phenomenon of solidarity had led him to focus solely on the norm governing mechanisms but not on the goal governing mechanisms found within cultural expectations.

For Merton, solidarity in both is necessary for the stability of a society. The fact that successful rulebreakers are celebrated and not necessarily punished due to their strict adherence to social goals is evidence that alternative forms of satiating collective consciousness exist outside of legal sanctions (punitive or otherwise), and that the perpetuation of mechanical solidarity can be considered more common even in modern times. Furthermore, if systemic inequalities in access remain unaddressed, what is considered to be “restorative” for individuals within one economic stratum can easily become punitive to a person in another (Durkheim 2014: 88). If the differences in class of individuals are not carefully considered and no steps are taken to mollify disparities in wealth, can it really be proclaimed that modern society is one that worships the right of the individual? As Merton stated, this form of discrepancy is unique to social structures that promotes class mobility (Merton 1968: 200). On some level, it can even be argued that there existed more variance in cultural goals in traditional societies compared to modern ones, as the goals and expectations of each individual was allocated to them based on their caste at birth, and therefore clearly distinct from members of society born of a different class. Therefore, one might conclude that it is traditional societies that relied more on individuals’ differences to maintain the hierarchical basis of its social structure. Merton would take issues with the lack of class in Durkheim’s writings, as well as the pitfalls of equating solidarity with laws and not with cultural ideals.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, Merton is a great counterpart in supplementing Durkheim with the systemic cause of crime that the latter failed to acknowledge. Merton’s deeper distinction of means and goals also provided a more nuanced characterization of collective consciousness compared to the vague notion proliferated by Durkheim. Sociologists in training who find Durkheim’s lack of acknowledgment that abnormal divisions of labor are in fact more commonly experienced should find Merton to be a satisfying surgeon in dissecting the many abnormalities identified by Durkheim.

That being said, Merton’s theory is not without its weaknesses; for example, it is difficult to prove that cultural goals are indeed propagated equally across different social classes. In the subsequent chapters of the book Social Theory and Social Structure, where he talked about strain theory, Merton responded to this exact criticism. He claimed that although critics would say that a lower percentage of individuals in the lower economic strata expressed success as a goal in life, it was not the percentage but the absolute number that mattered (Merton 1968: 228). This defense remains unsatisfactory however, for it can be easily argued that society in general would prescribe different acceptable social goals to different demographics, especially in an environment as diverse as the United States, which Merton used as grounds for his theory. How does this theory apply, for example, to groups where the general cultural expectations are that they abide by norms set by legal and social institutions but not some form of success? For example, women might be pressured to abide by family norms of taking a domestic role or societal norms of putting her family before her career, especially in the 1950s when this theory was conceived. Does this mean that the ritualist prototype is therefore the norm for women? Are careerist women therefore deviant according to this model?

Another flaw might lie in the idea there is a general acceptance towards rulebreakers who fulfilled cultural goals. It is probable that the public’s attitudes towards such characters may fluctuate depending on the social context; after an economic crash for example, people might be less tolerant of cheats even if they agree with their motives. It is also conceivable that only certain demographics may be accepted to become “successful knaves”; individuals of minority ethnicity who fall into this category might be scrutinized even if they are successful. Again, this illustrates that the theory does not account for different experiences in terms of race and gender, only class. Furthermore, it’s unclear whether innovators should be labeled as deviant or anomic. In Merton’s own example, Italian immigrants may initially be overrepresented in organized crimes due to their lack of access to legally acceptable means to change their social standings; yet as time went on, the community eventually amassed enough resources that many could afford to become professionals. Does this mean that eventually when more of the lower strata improve their financial standings through illicit means, there will naturally be less crime? In that case, what is so problematic about the scenario described by Merton if it is self-resolvable? Merton did not necessarily provide answers for these questions.

Nevertheless, Merton is an example of a social theorist who used a combination of content analysis and lived experience for a systemic view on crime and inequality. The size of his theories is also confined within the U.S., which serves as a good anchor point in preventing it from becoming too abstract and in provincializing his views. Overall, Merton’s theories illustrate great compatibility with classic canon theorists like Durkheim, and many modern sociologists in training may find his work to be enlightening.

REFERENCES

Durkheim, Emile. 2014. The Division of Labor in Society. New York, NY: Free Press.

Parampathu, George. 2022. “Anti-Homeless Laws May Violate California's Equal Protection Doctrine.” SCOCAblog. Retrieved December 21, 2022 (http://scocablog.com/anti-homeless-laws-may-violate-californias-equal-protection-doctrine/#:~:text=Local%20laws%20like%20LAMC%2056.11,required%20to%20maintain%20individual%20health.).

Kaufman, Michael T. 2003. “Robert K. Merton, Versatile Sociologist and Father of the Focus Group, Dies at 92.” The New York Times. Retrieved December 21, 2022 (https://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/24/nyregion/robert-k-merton-versatile-sociologist-and-father-of-the-focus-group-dies-at-92.html).

Merton, Robert King. 1968. “Social Structure and Anomie.” Pp. 185–214 in Social Theory and Social Structure. New York, NY: Free Press.

Merton, Robert King. 1968. “Continuities in the Theory of Social Structure and Anomie.” Pp. 215–48 in Social Theory and Social Structure. New York, NY: Free Press.