Is "Deviance in the Eye of the Beholder"?
Building on the previous section, two major methodological points should be apparent from the simple classification of "types of deviance".
Firstly, that categorisations of this sort are not particularly useful, sociologically, for the understanding of deviant and conforming behaviour. The problem, here, is that once we have defined our relatively rigid categories it becomes a process of trying to squeeze tremendous varieties of human behaviour into our predefined little boxes - and human behaviour (as you will be aware) has an infuriating tendency not to always fit neatly into our nicely defined categories. We can see this more clearly by thinking about the following ideas:
Murder, for example, would fall into this category.
Certain forms
of behaviour (such as a man dressing as a woman - or vice versa -
may, at various times, be considered deviant without being criminal.
Secondly, and probably more importantly, it's likely you will have found yourself thinking that, for any given example of deviance, you will have considered it from at least two different points of view. That is, behaviour you have defined as deviant may not be considered deviant from someone else's point of view. This should be readily apparent in relation to the first two categories, since definitions of deviance here tend to rely on relatively informal, highly subjective conceptions of behaviour.
In the third category ("bad behaviour") you will probably have found it easier to define examples of deviance because there exists a generally-agreed yardstick against which to measure deviant and non-deviant behaviour (namely, a set of formal, legal, rules governing the definition of criminal deviance and non-deviance).
This is not, of course, to say that formal definitions are somehow "more objective" than informal definitions. Rather, it is simply easier to define behaviour as deviant if you have some form of commonly-agreed standard against which to compare forms of behaviour...
For example, when the Soviet Union still existed, it's Communist rulers actively discouraged the dissemination of religious literature (the Christian Bible, for example). At various times, Christian Fundamentalist groups (especially in America) attempted to smuggle Bibles into the Soviet Union, at great personal risk (since, if they were caught, they would have faced imprisonment).
In relation to Soviet society, such activity was clearly defined as criminally-deviant behaviour. From the point of view of Western Christian society, however, such behaviour may be viewed as an admirable form of deviance (since it is probable that we would view the lack of religious freedom as itself being a deviant act).
What this
example (and, no-doubt many others) serves to suggest is the
methodological
point that, effectively,
"Deviance is in the eye of the beholder".
In other words, that which is deviant to me may not be considered deviant by you.
This idea, simple as it may seem, is an important insight in to the way we are able to theorise the nature of the concept of deviance and, by extension, how we are able to study the "causes" of deviant behaviour.