Social Act of Deviance

Calvario, Louie

Nov. 14, 16

Holy water, the burning effect.

The act of social deviance can possibly be defined to be a violation of norms or the defiance of norms. Numerous cultures around the world have practices that we could precisely find deviant based on our own norms, however in their culture it’s considered a norm. Religion is one of the vast array of cultural practices that has a strong will of power which influences how we behave and think as a community. If ever something challenges the beliefs of that community, there will definitely be some backlash. “For example, in the case of withdrawal of treatment for terminally ill patients, Freeland (1997) describes the manner in which the Islamic faith refuses to condone the concept of the right to die because the religious law honoring the sanctity of life supersedes secular law of self-determination.” In Islamic religion it is frowned upon because they believe that nobody other than Allah has the right to end your life. Currently there are only five states in America that have a law that protects those who want to end their life based on a terminally ill diagnosis. These states include Oregon, Montana, New Mexico, Vermont, and Washington and they call this law death-with-dignity. It is an extremely controversial law that has received a lot of retaliation from a religious point of view. Like the views of Islam religion, Christianity also finds this to break the norms of religion and the ideology that only God has the power to end your life. We have created social norms in order to conform to what is acceptable and what is not in society, furthermore what can be the unexpected outcome of individuals’ interactions. However, if norms can flourish and range they can quite possibly cease to exist if we condition ourselves to stop following what can be considered normal and corrupt whatever equilibrium we have built.  

Religion has been here for thousands of years, and it will continue to exist long after we are gone. For this social experiment, I decided to break proper conduct in a social religious gathering. My nephew Jeramiah was being baptized at Resurrection Church in Los Angeles Ca. If you’re catholic, a baptism is your sacrament of admission to the church. It generally consists of the priest sprinkling or pouring water onto the head of the child. In this case, the father sprinkled holy water onto my nephews head, I happened to be beside my brother facing towards my nephews head when the holy water was sprinkled. Some of the water touched me to which I loudly enunciated “it burns”. It was not something one expects to say when you’re graced by holy water, so as I turned towards my brother, I saw the displeased looks of my whole family, the priest and the parishioners who attended the gathering. At this point I didn’t have notion of my facial expressions nor had any feeling on my entire body. I can vividly remember the silence that lingered for about a minute and the sour taste in my mouth. I swallowed the taste and looked straight into my brother’s eyes, I could practically see my lynching and crucifixion in his eyes.

Shortly after, the priest regained his composure and continued with the ceremony. I on the other hand was ushered out of the gathering by my stepfather. He took me into a room, which I can only describe as religiously alarming. He asked me why I did what I did, and before I could reply a nun came into the room and approached me to an extent that I felt was a bit too close for comfort. Of course the same question was asked and I replied with a smirk on my face “ It was a joke”. Neither the nun nor my stepdad find that amusing to which they naturally felt the need to explain to me that what I did was not something one should joke about. As I sat there uncomfortably, I realized that maybe it wasn’t the best idea, and as I pondered the events I heard the door open once again only this time it was the priest who happened to walk into the room. You see, normally I don’t get intimidated as often as I should, but this time I was beyond intimidated. My whole demeanor changed as soon as the priest approached me to which I found baffling. “Religious figures are the most visible to external observers who have a prejudiced view of local people’s ability to act independently (Scott 1998)”. Soon after the priest walked in, so did most of my family. Suddenly I was in the middle of a group, which consisted of 11 family members and a religious leader.  One by one they tried to understand why I said what I said but could not. It was relatively easy for me to perform this act because of my spiritual detachment towards religion. Even though religion was a big part of my upbringing, I never felt like I could live my life based on Christianity views, which is why I became detached from religion. At this point I felt like I wanted to drift off in my own thoughts but the flashback of the faces of my mother, my bother, the priest and the parishioners lingered. I could tell that I was about to undergo severe scrutiny.

Father John was very gracious yet stern when he decided to take it upon himself to explain to me that “religion is sacred and it is what brings communities together”. I grew up catholic and I only say this because I had to attend weekly mass when I was living under my mothers roof. Although everything father John said to made sense, I couldn’t relate to it because of my own personal view, however I could understand why my conduct was not appropriate behavior. “Religion as a part of culture helps individuals to face the destructiveness of nature and the dangerousness of people’s egoistic impulses (Freud, 1927/1961)”.  Religious services can be classified as conventional crowds because they are made up of people who come together and share a common focus. The proper decorum of behavior would be to respect one another, listen to the sermons and follow gods’ way of living. In my case, I violated perhaps all of the norms that one should follow whilst attending a religious gathering. After what felt an eternity of being reprimanded by my choice of words I stepped outside and immediately was attacked by the looks of the parishioners. No necessary foul words needed to be spoken, however, the words bless you and peace lost all meaning by how loosely they were thrown at me. At this point I felt the need to remove myself from the situation and decided to get in my car and go home before anything more serious could occur.

As I approached my car, my mother called my name and she asked if she could have a couple of minutes alone with me. I obliged and listened to what she had to say. Surprisingly enough, she didn’t reprimand me for my behavior, rather acknowledged the fact that my views are somewhat opposite to those of the parishioners as well as hers. She explained that she was brought up in a very religious household and that she wanted the same for all her children. She believes if you follow Gods way of living, you will secure a spot in heaven, which is where eventually you would want to end up going to once you perish. She then went on to say that my choice of words were most likely going to get her in trouble with the parish. At this moment, I realized that my actions not only got me in trouble, but it got my whole family in trouble as well. I was surprised that my family was going to be judged based on my action and of course it made me feel awful. I apologized to my mother; I didn’t realize how I not only disrespected religion, but my families’ beliefs and those of others too. She also worried that my actions would ignite a sense of defiance on other youth in the parish. I kissed and hugged my mom goodbye and drove off.