Folkways are defined as the customs or traditions of the day to day activities. Typically, either societal expectation or the social norms are established to evaluate the manner in which each and every individual in the society is expected to behave in a particular life situation. Both societal expectations and social norms are not typically constant since they are applied to people in a different manner. When an individual engages in them, they will satisfy their daily needs even though going through them happens unexpectedly. Folkways play a major in the society since it provides order to the society (Thio, Taylor and Shwartz, 2012). Therefore, going contrary to them either deliberately or unintentionally annoy several people or may make one be considered as a disgrace to the society. It is, therefore, important to examine a folkway that I have violated mainly because of the class assignment with a purpose of getting the necessary content for the task.
Folkway Violated
For a society to maintain orderliness in various places especially in the public areas, different techniques and systems have been introduced such as queuing techniques mainly to preserve the orderliness in the society. It is, therefore, a rule that a person will only be served depending on the arrival time; the first person will be served first. Despite the fact that this state is kept, there are cases where some individual will always want to be served ahead of others even if they came late hence violating this folkway (Hall, 2014). The habit is defined as either cutting lines, skipping lines, butting or pushing. It is usually considered as bad manner under normal scenarios but under circumstances whereby by someone is old, disabled or expected, it is accepted but only when the person is very polite.
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I was in a hurry and decided to violate a folkway through skipping several people at a very busy ATM point. I did this purposely to be served first since I was going to be the next client to be served after having skipped others even though the line consisted of both youths and old people of both genders. My mission was fulfilled since I thought I would receive different reactions from individuals in the line. I received insults from the young people in the line as the old people got surprised with my misconduct. All the hopes were gone when one relatively old person came and grabbed me by my neck removing me from the line as others supporting the individual's act. I had to protect myself giving a lame reason that could allow them to consider me saying I was in a hurry going for an examination. "Do you think among all these people in line you are the only person in a hurry, a young man I have a son mercilessly dying in the hospital and I am trying to access the money so that I can help his life," one old woman shouted. Another person remarked that children of today had got no manners and whatever they have they source from gutters. It was such embarrassing to me, and I never expected it to be that serious. The commotion attracted the security in charge of the ATM who came and took me out insisting that I will not use the ATM point due to such misconduct.
Analysis of the Experience
It was one of the important moral lessons I experienced. It should be noted that folkways are seriously taken so that one does not fall in deep trap violating them the same way I did. The woman who had a son mercilessly dying in the hospital made me feel guilty since she was very polite and faced the line. In several occasions, people do violate this folkway not having in mind that other individuals in the queue have significant problems. Another embarrassing scenario was when the security guard threw me out of the line and insisted that I should go away. It kept me thinking about individuals who go contrary to this folkway in areas where people may be weak and not in a position to complain but in a real sense; they feel so sorry.
The two main theories of deviance that could be applied to the same occasion include the theory of structural functionalism and the labeling theory. According to the structural functionalism theory, the deflexion is considered to give a proper difference between the behavior that is socially legal and the illegal conduct (Downes & McLaughlin, 2016). Structural functionalism promotes social unity among people by a rationality of "us and them" putting straight people on different individuals. With my case, people considered it as unacceptable, and therefore it was deviant. On the other hand, the other people were regarded as upright individuals since the ganged up against my deviant behavior. Labeling theory majorly elaborates that people cannot be referred to as deviant based on the stereotypes (Heckert and Heckert, 2015). It can be connected to my case when the old person commented on the youths that children of today had got no manners and whatever they have they source from gutters. His sentence clearly showed that all children lack manners. The generalization will apparently make some teenagers deviant because the society considers them as ill children because of lack of manners.
Conclusion
Typically, folkways are not restricted as other laws or traditional norms, but they give the order in the way people are expected to live in the society. Therefore, it is imperative to observe and keep the folkways according to how every society perceives the rights on various daily life experiences.
References
Downes, D., & McLaughlin, E. (2016). Understanding deviance: a guide to the sociology of crime and rule-breaking . Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hall, S. (2014). Social Deviance. In Concise Encyclopedia of Comparative Sociology (pp. 402-409). Leiden, The Netherlands ; Boston : Brill, 2014.
Heckert, D. M. and Heckert, D. A. (2015) Positive Deviance. In The Handbook of Deviance (ed E. Goode ), John Wiley & Sons, Inc, Hoboken, NJ.
Thio, A. D., Taylor, J. D., & Schwartz, M. D. (2012). Deviant behavior . Boston: Pearson Higher Ed.
