The Politics of Deviance

Rating:
Summary: Personal prejudices dressed up as trendy boogey-men
Review: A collection of the author's personal prejudices dressed up as trendy boogey-men. Vapid writing filled with out-of-context references used to reinforce her prejudices. Save your money if you're looking for any serious information or approaches to understanding social deviance.

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding
Review: An outstanding book that demonstrates the processes that the perverted use in order to try to force society to accept their Deviance as normal.

The Author carefully develops the argument that deviant behavior has become acceptable at the expense of the well- being of society.

Hendershott's arguments for the destructive acceptance of pedophilia, euthanasia, and homosexuality are equally supported by the statistics she sites for each subject.

The book closes with a convincing argument for the distinction between right and wrong behavior. "In the aftermath of September 11, President George W. Bush repeatedly called the terrorist acts 'evil' and those who perpetrated them 'evildoers,'" writes Hendershott. If Bush had said this before that fateful day, she says, his statements would have been called dogmatic and unnecessarily accusatory. Now that so many innocent civilians have been murdered, few can deny that there is a battle between good and evil, and evil is the deviant of the two. It must be recognized for what it is in order to be defeated; otherwise, there would be no merit for retaliation.

Rating:
Summary: What a timely book!
Review: I have read two other books by Dr. Hendershott, and the breadth of her knowledge, and directness of her insights, is quite simply phenomenal. It is why I could not wait to read this book. I purchased it so I might become more and more informed about the current state of how sociologists understand, characterize, and address "deviance." This begins, of course, with its definition---and Dr. Hendershott immediately illustrated the problem! Not only is deviance defined in the media by just one example after another, if at all, but by reading "the Politics of Deviance," I have a new appreciation for the depth of the controversy and the nuances involved in this subject area. As I found out before reading her books, Dr. Hendershott did not disappoint! She have me tons of information, and did so in an very engaging way. I could not wait to turn from one page to the next! I wholeheartedly endorse reading this book, and hope many others will do so as well. It has much to contribute on this important, and timely, subject!

Rating:
Summary: Name Calling
Review: If the things you do don't fit into Anne Hendershott's neat, little, conservative world, then you are practicing deviance, and you are a deviant. This is just name calling to promote a conservative agenda. Mathematically, "deviance" just means "distance from the norm", so it sounds scientific. But call somebody "a deviant", and you are calling that person a bad, twisted little "sicko" who should be controlled by higher authorities such as the penal system or a mental institution. You are putting yourself in the position of being the judge, the somehow sinless person who is entitled to throw the first stone. Hendershott is ready to paint gays and pot smokers who haven't hurt a fly with the same brush with which she paints practicing pedophiles -- who obviously do great harm. Gays and pothead must also be labelled with the term "deviance" so we know that they are bad, bad, bad. She also claimed in her television appearance on BookTV that many pro-Choicers are "celebrating" abortion by doing things like wearing an "I had an abortion" T-shirt. Those folks are clearly not "celebrating", they are merely being defiant of people who persistently insist on trying to shame them and turn them into criminals. Hendershott is not helping us to understand some sort of an objective sociological phenomenon. She is simply trying to bring back the politics of shame as a tool of oppression. On an individual level, my opinion is that she wants to shame and thereby gain a measure of control over anyone who engages in behaviors that make her personally cringe. But writ large, this book is a tool to help let the state back into people's bedrooms, using our smallest human foibles to make us fear what happens when the skeletons in our closets are discovered. After all, you are a just a shameless, little, dismissable deviant who must give in to the wise judgements and teachings of the neo-conservative movement.

I don't know if Amazon will print this, but it is the best way I can explain what this book is all about. If I could give this book negative stars, I would.

Rating:
Summary: A worthy tome.
Review: In this book you will read about how suspect social theories propagaged by the far-Left, especially during the 1960's have become bedrock in univerity sociology departments all across America, affecting public policy in devastating ways.

For example, you will read about how those theories led to emancipation of supposed non-violent inmates from mental health facilities all across America, and how those theories still make it nearly impossible to reincarcerate those people when they do become a threat.

This is a darn good book, much more in-depth and profound than I make it sound here. Buy it.

Rating:
Summary: The Title Says It All
Review: Unfortunately this book is all politics. Using cherry picked info to back her views, Ms. Hendershott spins just as well as any Fox News pundit. Sure, any person with common sense understands that pedophilia is dead wrong, but it doesn't automatically follow that all of the assertions in her book are then true. She rails against Clinton's sexual indiscretion while extolling Bush's virtue, while he lied to us to get us into a war, has approved of torture, works steadily to dismantle all environmental protections and has been at the head of the most corrupt administration in our nation's history.
Hypocricy is also a form of deviance if one believes the truth to be a norm.

Rating:
Summary: It's about time
Review: YES, I am a Republican and YES, I am a Conservative but please hear me ... it is about time some one stood up and shouted YOU NEED TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR ACTIONS!! Too long have we hidden behind socialogical and psychological Trojan Horses only to be attacked in our sleep for what we should have been awake to take as accountable responsibility. Please do not allow others to hide behind medical terminology rather than stand bald faced and responsible for bad behavior. GROW UP!