Postmodernist theories

Question 1

How do postmodernists view society?

Answer 1

Postmodernism is based on the dialectic principle
This is the idea that we can find the “truth” about something by gathering experts and getting them to argue their points

Question 2

What is dialectic materialism?

Answer 2

The idea that we can use concrete observations of events and structural phenomena to discuss and argue about society

Question 3

What is dialectic idealism?

Answer 3

The idea that structures are irrelevant because they just reflect social constructions and the value consensus, so we can only meaningfully argue about ideas and individual experiences

Question 4

How do postmodernists explain crime & deviance?

Answer 4

Postmodernists looking at crime tend to take a dialectic idealist approach, which they call “Transgressive Criminology” (Henry & Milanovic, 1996)

Question 5

What is Transgressive Criminology?

Answer 5

Their core belief is that inequality and exploitation through uneven power dynamics are responsible for society’s problems
It is all about the “harms” that crime both causes and is caused by

Question 6

What are harms of reduction?

Answer 6

Using your power to cause immediate harm to a victim

Question 7

What are harms of repression?

Answer 7

Using your power to restrict or disrupt others’ progress

Question 8

What does Katz (1988) argue?

Answer 8

Crime can’t be studied by looking at social trends because in modern, global society there’s no structure and everything’s constantly changing
By the time you understand it, it’s changed

Question 9

What does Lyng (2005) argue?

Answer 9

Crime is exciting and criminals often do it for the thrills
They wanted to be seen as “living on the edge” (“edgework”)