Midterm- Crime Control as Ritual Cleansing Flashcards
(7 cards)
Reading Mary Douglas
What constitutes “dirt” as a social reality? What gives dirt its quality of “dirtiness?”
Explain diff between Ideological vs. critical narratives
THEY ARE BOTH SOCIAL EXPLANATIONS
Ideological narratives: self-justifying stories grounded in unquestioned myths and official rationales. (“The criminal justice system exists to uphold law and order”) like it rains cuz god sneezed
Critical narratives: stories that question the limits and transparency of ideology (“the criminal justice system exists to ritually cleanse society of dirt and evil.”) like it rains cuz pressure and water cycle and science
USING CRITICAL, WE CAN IDENTIFY WHAT’S MISSING FROM IDEOLOGICAL NARRATIVES. Really get to crux of what’s going on.
Douglas looks at second
What is logic of taboos?
Trying to understand why some things and practices are off limits (sacred or profane)
modern rituals are full of hidden symbolic significance (Wrong: We don’t eat food “X” because “X” is disgusting. Right: Food “X” is disgusting because we don’t eat it.)
TABOOS HELP CONTROL SOCIAL ORDER BY CONFRONTING AMBIGUITY AND CATEGORIZING IT AS OFF LIMITS.
what are liminal states?
in bewteen, marginal, blurry - like birth, death, defecation, sex etc.
things we don’t understand very well, have trouble categorizing and ordering, arent necessarily good or bad, etc.
what is dirt? how is it like crime?
Dirt is matter out of place. Where there is dirt, there is system.
JUST LIKE CRIME!!1
dirt and crime upset our sense of patterns - they are the liminal areas, they are outside the good.
Punishment deals with marginal people. We are purifying what has been stained or corrupted by punishment.
Where does this leave us in understanding that every society has dirt and crime of one kind or another??
Well, that there is a moral, political, and practical challenge in understanding how the world gets ordered and classified.
Why is pot bad? Murder? Incest? It’s about being critical about our rituals and the reason for why we do what we do.
Crime control is cleansing…
what is the difference between ideological and critical explanation of social practices?
how can anthropological theories shed light on practices of crim just system?
how does modern crim just system reflect perennial social fears of contamination by evil?
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