Updated July 23, 2021 435 Author: Dmitry Petrov
“Attempts to explain defeats solely by unfair refereeing, the vagaries of the weather, the machinations of competitors... this is the lot of outsiders.” V.V. Putin, President of the Russian Federation
Hello, dear readers of the KtoNaNovenkogo.ru blog. There are many words borrowed at different times from other languages and, due to their specificity, are not intuitive.
One of these words was outsider. This is a borrowing from English, which has existed quite harmoniously in the Russian vocabulary for about 60 years, but many do not fully understand what it is.
Therefore, today we will talk about outsiders, their position in society, and also learn about bullying and the art of the marginalized. It will be interesting, don’t switch...
What is an outsider?
Athletes know well who the underdogs are. This term came to us from the English language. Outsider literally translates as “overboard.” Sometimes this means extra or extraneous. In sports, an outsider is a person who lost, that is, found himself “overboard” from the competition. The losing team that is eliminated from the competition is also called.
An outsider in psychology is a weak person; no one is interested in his opinion. In the modern business world, large enterprises have monopolists that control the market. Unprofitable, small enterprises that are on the verge of bankruptcy are considered outsiders in the market.
Professional stock traders consider losers, beginners, and other amateur traders who do not know how to correctly assess risks to be outsiders.
In the art world there are quite complex criteria for assessing masterpieces. It is difficult to predict what will become the object of admiration from critics and ordinary viewers. It is impossible to compare “La Gioconda” by Leonardo da Vinci, “The Square” by Malevich, or a banana taped to the wall by Maurizio Cattelan. However, there is an art movement that is considered "Outsider Art", called "Art Brut". Initially, this was the name given to the work of mentally ill people with serious mental disorders.
Later, the works of children and “savages” from art were included here, that is, those whom the masters consider primitivists. An outsider artist does not have a specialized education, does not advertise his activities, and does not consider himself an artist at all. He does not need laurels, auctions and gallery exhibitions. He is a loner, withdrawn into himself, not dreaming of recognition from society, and his work can only be seen by outsiders by chance.
Deviation as a process: a stage-by-stage model of deviant behavior
The second case that Becker examines is the marijuana community. Eschewing the usual question of "Why does someone start smoking weed?", Becker asks why there are those who don't, given the significant number of people who have tried it at least once. This formulation of the problem leads the sociologist to the idea of a stage-by-stage model of deviance, in other words, a deviant career.
At that time, the traditional way to study deviance was to find the variable or combination of variables that best predicted undesirable behavior. Becker goes a different route. He insists that not all causes act simultaneously and that patterns of behavior develop sequentially. Thus, only by studying each of the career stages can we understand why someone continued (for example, smoking weed) and someone stopped.
In the case of marijuana users, Becker identifies three stages that a new user goes through before becoming a regular member of the community and a “successful” user. Only when all stages have been completed can we say that the individual has a stable motivation to use the drug. In other words, deviant activity precedes deviant motives, and not vice versa.
“Marijuana use is a function of an individual's beliefs about marijuana and its uses, beliefs that develop as experience with the drug increases.”
Howard Becker. Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance. M.: Elementary Forms, 2021. P. 61
First, a beginner learns the correct smoking method: how to roll a joint, how much herb to put in, how to inhale the smoke correctly. Only mastering the right technique allows you to form an idea of marijuana as an object that can give pleasure.
However, mastering the technique does not guarantee a high. The next important step in forming the idea of the possibility of using a drug for pleasure is the ability to distinguish between effects. That is, simply physical and psychological symptoms are not enough; the consumer must be able to point out them and consciously associate these effects with marijuana consumption.
Might be interesting
Can't you live a normal life? How does normality and abnormality arise in society?
And only at the last stage does the beginner learn the process of obtaining pleasure from smoking the drug. In other words, the pleasantness of the effects caused by marijuana is not obvious. Slowness, non-linear thinking, fear - in order to want to try again, a beginner must decide that all these sensations are pleasant and interesting for him.
It is successful interaction with other members of the community, who teach the new member all the necessary practices, as well as the correct interpretation of what is happening, that contributes to the development of a deviant career and the transition from one stage to another.
In addition, Becker notes that although correct mastery of skills is necessary for sustainable consumption, it is nevertheless not sufficient.
The individual must also learn to cope with existing social control mechanisms that stigmatize marijuana use as immoral and unwise. This can be done through the adoption of a new group's subculture, which helps develop justifications to neutralize legal and social disapproval.
For example, one of the possible rationalization strategies that Becker identifies is based on the idea of planned consumption. In other words, there is an appropriate time for consumption and there is an inappropriate time. This order gives a feeling of maintaining control over the drug, and therefore turns out to be a symbol for the user of the safety of his behavior.
In the same case, when a person is unable to refute or ignore generally accepted negative ideas about drug users, he refuses to use. In other words, the level of consumption depends, among other things, on how effective the rationalization of practice offered to a newcomer to the community is.
What character traits does an outsider have?
Outsiders are people with low self-esteem who do not know how to carve out a “place in the sun” for themselves. In an era of universal equality, society still distributes roles in society. In every team there are leaders, there are middle people, and there are outcasts. No one takes into account outcasts, they are not valued and are immediately forgotten about. This is neither good nor bad, it is the usual model of an ecosystem in which every niche must be occupied. Competition becomes meaningless if everyone has equal abilities and strengths.
Outsiders will not even enter the fight, since they are already confident of their loss. They would prefer to stand on the sidelines and just watch life pass by. And this is not laziness, but the fear of being in the center of attention, of becoming an object of ridicule. An outsider has an abundance of shyness, and it overshadows all the talents that a person possesses.
Outsiders are often envious and touchy. They will always find an excuse and never tire of feeling sorry for themselves. The outsider is silent and prefers the life of a hermit, avoiding any holidays and entertainment.
Social group structure
Any social group in its structure is similar to a certain ecosystem populated by living organisms. Each organism in this system has its own niche. For the system to function normally, all niches of the ecosystem must be filled. A lack of living organisms in one of them or an excess in another threatens the life of the entire ecosystem.
Therefore, if the balance in the system is disturbed, then it either replenishes it itself or gets rid of the excess number of organisms.
Any social group, large or small, is characterized by stratification into the same niches. The group tries to push someone into an empty niche, and push someone out of a crowded one. In this way the group restores the necessary balance.
An empty niche is usually reserved for an outsider. There are no competitors in this niche; no one wants to voluntarily fit into it. But for balance, the team fills it out at its own discretion. Usually a person gets there who is in some way much inferior to the others.
If the place is still empty, then with a high degree of probability a newcomer will get there. An outsider is the one who came to the group last. But if the niche turns out to be occupied when he arrives, then the newcomer automatically moves to the next one.
What makes a person an outsider in society?
Society has a complex structure and consists of many groups. Each group has its own hierarchy. By analogy with the animal world, in which there are plants, bacteria, predators and herbivores, the principle is the same in society. In a flock of lions there is always a leader and there are outcasts, and strong trees do not allow the young to develop in their shadow. Each group has leaders and laggards.
An outsider at work never strives to stand out. This is an uninitiative subject. He is not invited to corporate events because they simply forget about his existence. This is a quiet person who sits in a corner, doesn’t ask for a raise, doesn’t argue with anyone, and silently does his job.
Most often, an outsider in life does not have clear life plans. He just goes with the flow without trying to fight. He studies and works where his parents placed him, and he gets married only at his parents’ insistence.
Important: do not confuse the concepts of insider and outsider. Despite their similarity, these terms have completely different meanings. An insider is a person who has classified information. Secret information makes an insider valuable. Although an outsider can also be an insider. After all, a team in a super-secret service can consist of leaders and outsiders.
Disadvantages of outsiders
An outsider who has pronounced negative traits is a convenient excuse for everyone who also has these traits. With his obvious or often artificially accentuated inferiority, he focuses the projection of the complete group “negativity” on himself. Such a person is a necessary element of the balance of the complete socio-psychological “ecosystem”. From the first days of the existence of the school class, the children's community strives to stratify itself according to socio-psychological archetypes. The group within its composition selects the most suitable candidates for a certain social role and actually forces them into the necessary niches. Children with pronounced external defects, stupid, unkempt, and so on are immediately chosen to play the role of outsiders. Their very first awkwardnesses and mistakes leave an indelible mark on them, with which they must live for many years in the future, being the object of outright bullying and ridicule (cold ignorance as an instrument of rejection is almost never encountered in the children’s community, since it does not correspond to the task of supporting psychological “ homeostasis"). This hypothesis could be tested experimentally using the following - unfortunately, difficult to implement - experiment: from a dozen classes of different schools, based on the results of sociometry, select outsiders and form a new class from them. It can be assumed that the structure of the new group will very soon have its own “stars” and its own outcasts. Perhaps a similar result can be obtained when selecting leaders or geniuses.
Outsider – translated from English as “outsider”. This word can be used to designate a company that is not included in any association in its industry. An outsider is also a person who plays on the exchange from time to time and a broker who is not a member of the exchange, but may have the right to work on the exchange floor, provided that he follows the generally accepted rules of work in this room.
Outsider (English outsider - outsider) In Russian it means “lagging behind”. Less commonly used as a direct translation from English, meaning “located outside of something.”
Why is being an outsider bad?
Bullying is another word that comes to us from the English language and means bullying, or violence. As a rule, bullying does not have clear age restrictions; the main condition is the presence of a team. Bullying and violence can be both psychological and physical, and the target of bullying is an outsider.
An outsider at school is usually a newcomer or a child with some differences. The team leader can appoint anyone as an outsider, and this “vacancy” is not permanent.
In the study of teenage bullying, certain tests were conducted. The researchers selected leaders from several teams, who were combined into a new group. The new team was made up of selected outsiders. Soon enough, in these new teams there was again a stratification into leaders and outsiders. That is, in each group there are roles that are distributed by a stronger leader, and no matter what place he occupied in the previous community. Any person can be an outsider if this position is currently vacant.
Outsiders are used by leaders and their associates. At school, this can be expressed in demanding money, performing any tasks from the leader, and anything else that comes into his head. Often the victim is subjected to beatings, violence, even the use of weapons. For a leader, this is a way to assert himself at the expense of a weaker outsider and increase his own rating. A striking example of an outsider is presented in the film “Scarecrow” by Rolan Bykov.
It would seem that with age these “children’s games” go away and adults do not face bullying, but this is not so. Bullying is becoming less visible, but more sophisticated. Even in the team of teachers, people who must sow the good and eternal, one can find this division into leaders and outsiders. For outsiders, they deliberately create an inconvenient schedule, dump all extracurricular work, find a reason to deprive them of bonuses, or give them a reprimand.
Any team is divided into leaders, outsiders and witnesses to this confrontation. “Witnesses” will never come to the aid of an outsider for fear of ending up in that place themselves. Taking part in bullying or simply observing from the sidelines, they also experience a kind of psychological violence. The feeling of helplessness in front of a crowd, shame for one’s own behavior, makes one lose self-confidence.
A leader, inspired by his own impunity, can cross the line that separates “childish pranks” from a crime. Thus, all participants in the process suffer from such bullying.
The victim of bullying, an outsider, can escape from this trap only by moving to another team. And oddly enough, he himself can become a leader, or a “witness” of bullying in another team.
Bullying
The problem of outsiders is most acute in children's and adolescent groups.
Today, bullying of outcasts is called bullying, and takes on slightly different forms than a couple of decades ago due to the development of information technology.
Bullying of outcasts has existed in children's groups at all times - this is not a new phenomenon; children, like anyone else, are subject to influence and can be extremely cruel due to unformed ethical standards and rules of behavior.
But now bullying often spills over into the online reality of teenagers, which has a huge impact on their lives. Bullying on the Internet is called cyberbullying .
Still from the film “Scarecrow”, 1983
In bullying there is always a victim. It’s just that an unpopular or withdrawn outsider child does not necessarily become a victim of bullying; only constant and targeted acts of aggression towards an individual rejected by a social group can be called bullying.
How to stop being an outsider?
- Most psychological problems come from childhood. Often parents, without realizing it, raise an ideal victim who will be an outsider in any team. Strong-willed and despotic parents suppress any initiatives of the child. He doesn’t have a drawing, but “scrawlings,” the cup is poorly washed, and in general he is an “armless dumbass.” Any of his actions are criticized, devalued, and over time the child closes down. He stops even trying to take the initiative, so as not to run into another portion of criticism or insults.
- Thus, parents want to motivate the child to work harder and better, but young children need approval and praise, even for “scribbles.” This is what motivates them to keep trying new things and developing themselves. It is important for a child to realize his worth, first from his parents, and then in adolescence among his peers.
An outsider can be a child who has some physical disabilities or differences. These are redheads, albinos, short and overweight, children with glasses or braces. There are many options, but these differences are just a reason to get hooked. Several people in a team may have poor eyesight, but not all of them will become outsiders. And the leader may be a fat man with braces, but no one will dare to mock him for fear of getting rebuffed. It all depends specifically on the person. Of course, I'm exaggerating a little, but this really happens.
- Parents instill complexes in their own children, and this is reinforced during school years. The child is confident in his own “flawedness” and he is ready to accept punishment for this. Most suicide attempts are made by outsiders as a result of bullying in a group.
- An outsider is a victim and it is his weakness, vulnerability, inability to stand up for himself that provokes the leader to aggression. It is convenient for baiting. From the first glance at him, it is clear that he will not complain and will not be able to answer.
- To stop being an outsider, you need to shed this image of a victim. It should be understood that even a leader without the support and approval of the crowd will become the same outsider. He occupies his position only because through force and arrogance he managed to win the recognition of the team. By acting as an aggressor, the leader tries to hide his own complexes.
- You can develop leadership skills and break out of the “club of losers.” A leader is charisma, activity, initiative, sociability and optimism.
- It is believed that charisma is a gift from God; you either have it or you don’t. This is partly true, but with proper persistence, charisma can be developed. There are many works on the topic of how to develop charisma and these tips are worth taking advantage of.
- There is no need to be afraid of new achievements. Everyone learns from their mistakes and that's normal. You shouldn’t scold yourself for them, since they are the ones who provide the most valuable experience that everyone needs.
- It is important to overcome your isolation and embarrassment. You should find people with similar interests and gradually expand your social circle. Constant training will help even the most modest silent person become a sociable person.
- Optimism is a character trait acquired during evolution. It was optimism that helped our ancestors survive, and this quality can be developed in oneself. An optimistic attitude helps you cope with troubles more easily and look into the future without fear.
- Forgive yourself for all your mistakes and learn to love yourself. Just like that, for no reason, just because you exist. Accept yourself with all your shortcomings, strengths and talents. Ideal people do not exist, and it all depends on how they position themselves in society.
Life scenario
People who blame evil fate for their failures are partly right. Only it is not evil fate that is to blame, but the life scenario (aka fate). But the script can be changed, rewritten, adjusted. This means that everything depends on the person himself. Let's figure out what a life scenario is.
The life script of each person is written by his parents and the social environment of development. By the age of six years of a child’s life, the basis of the scenario has been formed. In the future, a person will slightly deviate from it, but in general, all events and meetings in life are already predetermined. There are several types of scenarios, but within the framework of this topic it is interesting to divide into scenarios of losers and scenarios of winners.
Winners' scenarios
Winners know how to set goals and always achieve them. They are confident, open, sociable, sincere and active. They accept and love themselves, life, and other people. Winners live in harmony with themselves and the world. They easily overcome failures and perceive them as experience and a basis for future victories. From the outside it seems that for such people everything goes like clockwork, it develops by itself.
Such people, as a rule, were welcome children. They were loved and supported. Their needs were taken into account, they were allowed to express their feelings, and were given freedom in all its manifestations. All the child’s endeavors were supported. His parents told him: “we love you”, “we believe in you”, “you can handle it”, “you are good”, etc. As a rule, parents of winners are winners themselves.
Loser Scenarios
Other children were not so lucky. Their parents adhered to a different parenting style, an integral part of which was censure and suppression or overprotection. As in the winner scenario, the child internalizes the norms and rules of behavior demonstrated by the parents.
Only an example is absolutely the opposite. There is a ban on expressing feelings and emotions in the family; the child’s needs are constantly suppressed. Parents do not know how to talk to each other and do not want to take care of the child. They constantly repeat: “you won’t succeed”, “where are you going”, “get it out of your head”, “you will always be a failure”, “everyone has normal children, but you” and so on.
Losers are not prepared for life.
They don’t know themselves, and therefore don’t know what they want from life. That's why they don't know how to set goals. Losers lack self-confidence, and therefore they do not know how to achieve goals. In any situation, the loser thinks “nothing will work out anyway,” and therefore does not even try to do something. Losers become outsiders in life.
They are programmed for self-destruction, constantly causing internal sabotage, and creating situations of failure. They take on overwhelming tasks or too many responsibilities that they cannot cope with, and then they think: “as always,” “there is no happiness in life,” “this is all I am,” “I’m back to my old ways again.”
They often get sick and suffer from addictions. It is difficult for them to find a job, stay in it, and even more so achieve promotion and growth. Losers often get drunk out of grief and say to themselves in the voice of a parent: “You’re still not capable of anything.”
However, they perceive an endless series of failures as an accident or bad luck.
They do not recognize their responsibility because they simply do not see it, do not notice patterns and connections with the past.
Losers come from families where parents are also losers. Therefore, alcoholism or a criminal lifestyle is usually passed on from generation to generation. However, this does not always happen; anyone can break the script and become a winner if they want. The past does not determine the future. It depends on the individual himself.
Deviation: from action to evaluation
Thus, the examples considered by Becker, seemingly so different in nature, allow us to see how moral boundaries are established in society, how mobile and social they are in nature. Becker redefines the understanding of deviance, showing that it is not only a consequence of violation of the norm, but also a consequence of the reaction to the violation.
This view allowed us to once again expand the field of sociological science, showing that when analyzing deviant behavior it is necessary to take into account not so much the personality of the actor as the social context. From now on, deviance is not one of the characteristics of human nature, but a feature of the organization of society.
