ABSTRACT
In the 1950s, a few sociologists began to look at society from the bottom up, focusing on outsiders and "deviants" prostitutes, homo-sexuais, runaways, transvestites, drifters, winos, gamblers, addicts, beach bums and carnival workers. Howard Becker's 1963 book, "Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance" opened with an argument that amounted to a preview of thinking that became commonplace later in the decade. All social groups make rules and regard people who fail to live by those rules outsiders, but the person who is thus labeled an outsider may have a different view of the matter. Many kinds of behavior regarded as deviant in the 1950s and early 1960s seem normal and harmless enough now. But the sweeping relativism of the deviance studies explained away too much. Society, parents, and various authorities could be held responsible for our ills, but what appeared to be individual immorality or bad behavior rarely turned out to be the fault of the perpetrator involved.
