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| Nachman Ben-Yehuda, emeritus professor, department of sociology and anthropology, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel. Former chair of the department, and former dean of the Faculty of social sciences. His work focuses on forms of deviance and their cultural meaning. | |||
| '''Nachman Ben-Yehuda''' ({{lang-he|נחמן בן יהודה}}) is a professor and former dean of the department of ] and ] at the ] in ], ]. | |||
| '''Life''' | |||
| One of his notable subjects of research is the fall of the fort of ], the last refuge of a Jewish group, the ], to the Romans in 73 CE. The Sicarii committed mass suicide rather than surrender to slavery. | |||
| Nachman Ben-Yehuda was born on March 8, 1948 to Dina (Kushnir) and Yitzhak (Schindelkroit) Ben-Yehuda in Jerusalem’s Sha’arey Tzedek hospital. Living in Kerem Avraham, Jerusalem he attended “Tachkemony” elementary religious school for boys. He later joined the Gimnasia Ivrit high school in Jerusalem from which he graduated from the science-biological section in 1966. He was drafted in August of that year to a 3 year compulsory military service in the IDF as an investigator in the military police criminal investigation unit (Metzach), and continued to serve there in reserve duties. He retired from reserve duty in 1995 at the rank of a major. Having completed his compulsory service in the summer of 1969, he studied psychology and sociology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and served as a Teaching Assistant in the department of sociology. In 1973 Etti (Esther, Grosswasser) and Nachman were married in Jerusalem. Having graduated from the university Cum Laude, the young couple travelled in 1974 to the University of Chicago, department of sociology, where he received his M.A. in 1976 (on a thesis analyzing the European witchcraze) and Ph.D. in 1977 with Morris Janowitz, Barry Schwartz and Jerald Suttles on his dissertation committee. His dissertation focused on success and failure in methadone maintenance as a form of benign coercion. Upon completing his studies he returned to the Hebrew University, department of sociology, where he remained throughout his career. Ben-Yehuda served as the elected chair of that department for 3 years, and was later elected (three times) to serve as the Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the Hebrew University for 6 consecutive years. He served in numerous roles and committees in that university, including as the head of the university’s teaching committee, tenure committee (for the social sciences, humanities, business administration, law and social work) and director of the Halbert Center for Canadian Studies. Ben-Yehuda served as a visiting scholar in the State university of New York at Stony Brook, New York University, University of Toronto and the London School of Economics. | |||
| ]'')]] | |||
| He views the story of Masada as a modern legend. According to his book ''Sacrificing Truth'', the rendition of ] was embellished before and after the establishment of the State of Israel. Based on transcripts of the 1963-65 archaeological dig, he claims that the team, led by ], a former chief of staff of the ], fraudulently misrepresented findings and artifacts to fit within a pre-scripted narrative. | |||
| '''Intellectual Background''' | |||
| Ben-Yehuda compared the story as reported in the sole historical source, Flavius Josephus, to the myth that developed during the Zionist movement from the 1940s to the 1960s. He examined how archaeologists, notably Yigael Yadin, interpreted their findings to conform to the myth. | |||
| Ben-Yehuda’s main academic and professional interest is the study of non-conformist and deviant behavior vis-a-vis the social order, in the broader sense of the term. His work pointed out that since its inception in the early decades of the 20th century, the sociological study of non-conformist and deviant behavior suffered from at least two major problems. The first is a lack of an integrated theoretical focus, giving rise to numerous theoretical approaches with labeling theory dominating for a while, and the second is a failure to consider total social structures and consequently sliding into a deep (yet interesting…) trap of small scale studies about various esoteric, sensational types of deviance. Some scholars (e.g., British sociologist Paul Rock) even claimed that the emphasis of the sociology of non-conformist and deviant behavior on studying these phenomena has given rise to a radical type of phenomenalism which views society as a collection of small units lacking an overall structure thus giving rise to an artificial contradiction between phenomenalism (emphasizing the need for an accurate and reliable reconstruction of the social world as seen by those living in it) and essentialism (searching for the underlying properties of the social order). In simpler terms, the claim is that the sociological study of non-conformist and deviant behavior may have become trivialized. | |||
| According to Ben-Yehuda, Josephus describes the Sicarii unflatteringly. They assassinated their Jewish opponents, and would not help the Jewish ]s who were besieged in Jerusalem. They raided nearby villages, including ], where they murdered 700 Jewish women and children. They offered no resistance to the Romans, and their suicide was cowardly, unheroic and unwise. | |||
| A major goal of Ben-Yehuda’s professional and academic work has been to suggest a broader sociological interpretation within which the understanding of non-conformist and deviant behavior can - and should - be made, in a way that integrates the specific interpretation of non-conformity and deviance within larger sociological processes. In his view, in order to try and solve what may be referred to as the "trivialization issue," the sociological study of non-conformity and deviance needs to consider total social structures and/or processes by examining these behaviors as relative phenomena and as part of larger social processes of social change and stability. This examination can be conceptualized within the theoretical context of looking at the myriad of the cultural cores and symbolic-moral universes that constitute the wider societal cultural mosaic and their boundaries, within a methodological and substantive stand of contextual constructionism. This approach is consistent with the suggestions made by other researchers which emphasize that the study of non-conformity and deviance should be framed (in Erving Goffman's terminology) within general societal processes, in a dynamic historical and political perspective. Deviance, in Ben-Yehuda’s conceptualization, reflects various combinations of moral challenges and regulatory processes, coupled with the use of social power. | |||
| Ben-Yehuda himself was brought up on the Masada myth, and climbed Masada himself to watch the sun rise over the ]. Israeli youth movements visited Masada, and it was the location for military swearing-in ceremonies. According to the myth, the Jews at Masada were Zealots who escaped the destruction of Jerusalem and continued to harass the Romans. Ben-Yehuda quotes ] calling Masada "a symbol of heroism and of Liberty for the Jewish people to whom it says: Fight to death rather than surrender." | |||
| Durkheim’s late 19th and early 20th century works had a clear and decisive influence on Ben-Yehud’a work. Durkheim suggested that one can examine unconventional and deviant behavior from two different points of view. One, as challenging and disturbing the status quo, and eliciting a punitive response which tends to re-affirm symbolic-moral boundaries and thus help maintain cultural stability (and social ossification…). Two, as challenging the status quo and introducing vital elements of changes into cultures, sort of mutations, if you like, which enable cultures to adapt to (and create) different symbolic-moral universes and new social environments. In this evolutionary biological analogy Durkheim’s view may be interpreted to imply that “nuts, sluts and perverts” (a-la sociologist Alexander Liazos’ early 1970s work) are behaviors that have always been part of human cultures, and will continue to be so. Some of these will help solidify cultures against the perpetrators while others may become beacons for processes of social change. Indeed, Durkheim did not fail to note that a culture without non-conformity and deviance is not possible. Illustrating this is sociologist Pat Lauderdale’s observation that some of those defined as terrorists may become later heroes. Nelson Mandela is only one example from a not too distant past. The example Durkheim himself used was Socrates. | |||
| Contrary to Josephus, the myth claims that the rebels are "Zealots" rather than Sicarii, Masada was a rebel base for attacks on the Romans. The massacre in Ein Geddi disappears. | |||
| Contextual constructionism argues that while non-conformity, deviance and social problems are the results of "claim making" activities, the so called "objective" dimension can be assessed and evaluated by an expert, on the basis of scientific evidence. Sociologists working from this theoretical perspective typically contrast the "objective" and the "constructed" versions of reality. Contextual constructionism offers a solution for the problem focusing on the nature of reality. It cuts the defining parameters of reality at a particular point and hence provides the researcher with a powerful analytical docking anchor. | |||
| Ben-Yehuda compared Yadin's tape-recorded notes during the excavations with Yadin's later statements. For example, Yadin found three skeletons, of a woman, a man and a child. On the tape, Yadin said that they could not have been a family. In later writings, Yadin said that they were the remains of an important commander, his wife, and their child. Ben-Yehuda believes that Yadin's distortions were ideologically motivated. | |||
| Ben-Yehuda’s work raises the age-old Hobesian question "how is the social order possible?" by focusing on the Hegelian concept of antithesis. This general plot is occasioned by directing attention to how, why, where and when challenges to the status quo emerge and function as catalysts for processes of social change or stability. By examining that which is considered as "deviant," Ben-Yehuda points out that we can gain interesting and fascinating insightful understandings and glimpses into the nature of the non-deviant social order and of cultures. | |||
| == Books == | |||
| Ben-Yehuda’s various research projects demonstrate this analytic commitment and can be seen throughout his works. | |||
| Include: | |||
| '''Work – research projects''' | |||
| * ''Fraud and Misconduct in Research: Detection, Investigation, and Organizational Response,'' with Amalya Oliver-Lumerman (University of Michigan Press, 2017, {{ISBN|978-0-472-13055-9}}) | |||
| * ''Atrocity, Deviance, and Submarine Warfare: Norms and Practices during the World Wars'' (University of Michigan Press, 2013, {{ISBN|978-0-472-11889-2}}) | |||
| Ben-Yehuda’s first two research projects examined issues of social control. His analysis of the 15th-17th European witchraze showed how a new form of deviance was created as significant changes and challenges took over various European countries. The creation of the demonic witch and the craze attempted to bring back older moral boundaries and forms of authority. Coping with what mind altering drugs are allowed and what not, was Ben-Yehuda’s second attempt to examine issues of boundaries. He observed methadone maintenance as a form of benign coercion and examined who succeeds on such program and who does not. | |||
| ==References== | |||
| * Mid-60's Masada excavations forged a past through falsified evidence and concealed facts. By Nachman Ben-Yehuda (Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, an imprint of Prometheus Books) © 2002. Chapter One. Introduction: The Puzzle. Internet Archive. | |||
| * {{in lang|he}} | |||
| His next work integrated his work on the European witchcraze together with an examination of challenges to moral boundaries in science, the occult, science fiction, deviant sciences and scientist. His 1985 book of this project was selected by Choice as one of the most outstanding academic books. | |||
| ==External links== | |||
| * , Department of the Sociology and Anthropology, Faculty of Social Sciences. The Hebrew University. Faculty page and CV. | |||
| Issues of power, politics and morality caught Ben-Yehuda’s attention in his next project. In it he examined issues of moral panics, reversed stigmatization, policies towars the usage of mind altering psychoactive substances and deviance in science. Issues of power and morality are salient in each of these cases as challenges to morality are dominant in each. And, indeed, two of these cases will continue to occupy his attention in later projects. | |||
| * Book Review by Arnold H. Green, BYU Studies Quarterly, 36:3. | |||
| The next two projects he investigated reflect Ben-Yehuda’s intellectual interests in a forceful way, and both are based on historical observations. Political assassinations illustrate in a powerful and tragic way conflicts of power and morality. Ben-Yehuda examined all the available cases of political assassination by Jews from 1982 to 1980 focusing on Palestine-Israel. The conclusions of this study were quite amazing. Most cases took place prior to the establishment of Israel as a state, and about 60% of them were aimed at other Jews defined as “traitors.” Comparing this pattern to other cases, he suggested that one needs to view political assassinations as an alternative form of justice, where formal systems of justice do not exist. In this way, one needs to view assassinations as one more expression of a system of control. This project was the catalyst for two other related projects. The first focused on Masada. Following the defeat of rebel Jews in the called Great Revolt (66-70 AD) Judea province against the Roman Empire, a group of Jews ended up in in the fortress of Masada near the southern part of the Dead Sea. In 73 AD the Roman 10th legion place a siege around that fortress and realizing that the end is close, more than 900 besieged Jews committed collective suicide, with only two women and five children survivors. Since the 1920s Israeli secular Zionists have transform Masada – a place of defeat and death – into a myth of heroism. Ben-Yehuda contrasted the original and only text about what happened on Masada, written by Josephus Flavius, to the way various mora and memory agents in Israel transformed this tragic event to a tale of a last stand heroic tale, as well as examining the rhetoric used by archaeologists who excavated Masada to interpret their findings. | |||
| The second project that was initiated following the political assassination study focused of betrayal and treason. This project examined a large number of cases worldwide and suggested that the combination of violating moral values of trust and loyalty will make suspicions and accusations of betrayal and/or treason almost unavoidable. | |||
| How are new definitions of deviance, and attempts to repress then, come into being is an issue that has always been in Ben-Yehuda’s intellectual interest. One of his works supported the concept of positive deviance, suggesting that there can be, and in fact there have been, acts of unconventionality that do not necessarily exhibit negative results. Another project began with his 1986 article on moral panics and continued to two editions of Erich Goode and Ben-Yehuda’s book on moral panics. The concept of moral panics was suggested originally by British sociologist Jock Young and developed into a book by Stanley Cohen in 1972. Moral panic suggests that, at times, moral entrepreneurs express an inflated and exaggerated concern about a moral issue, focus on folk devils whose behavior supposedly reflects a grave moral threat, and demand that these folk devils be stigmatized and punished. Doing that, claim these entrepreneurs, will stop the moral malaise in its tracks and challenges to the moral boundaries of society be squelched. Goode and Ben-Yehuda went beyond Cohen’s work and suggested a set of empirical criteria for moral panics, as well as suggesting what the origins of such panics are, what routes such panics take, as well as examining the role of the media as amplifying deviance. An interesting theoretical insight was originally suggested by Ben-Yehuda in a 1987 article in which he pointed out that using power and morality can be used to reverse processes of deviantization and stigmatization, that is, that potential folk devils can fight back. | |||
| Issues of reversing stigmatization, deviance and violence within the typical power struggle that takes place on issues of state-religion in Israel, focused Ben-Yehuda on his next project. Examining the social construction of ultra-orthodox and secular Jews in Israel he concluded that most ultra-orthodox deviance has a violent nature and is planned to achieve theocratic goals. The 2010 book which summarized this research project won the 2011 Distinguished Book Award from the Division of International Criminology of the American Society of Criminology. | |||
| Searching for a project that would illuminate deviance within the concept of social change, Ben-Yehuda’s next project focused on submarine warfare during the two world wars. Technological developments made the appearance of attack submarines possible during WWI. Their use became clear during that war. In theory, and according to various agreements, submarines had two ways to fight. One was referred to as restricted warfare. It meant that before sinking a ship, the submarine had to verify that it was carrying contraband war materials and make sure that ship’s crew and passengers were led and landed in safe places. Such warfare, however, compromised the major advantage of submarines – that is to attack silently and in stealth. Consequently, a different submarine warfare developed – referred to as “unrestricted warfare”. It meant violating all pacts and agreements regarding naval warfare and practicing a new, ruthless and cruel form of warfare, with grave and tragic consequences. That included launching – without warning, unprovoked and in stealth - torpedoes against merchant, passenger and hospital ships, as well as in quite a few cases killing survivors in the water. Such warfare was clearly consisted of war crimes. Examining the moral shift in cultural cores from practicing restricted to unrestricted submarine warfare was the focus of Ben-Yehuda’s 2013 book on submarine warfare. | |||
| '''Selected Publications''' | |||
| "Success and Failure in Rehabilitation: The Case of Methadone Maintenance," ''American Journal of Community Psychology'', 1981, 9 (#1):83-107. | |||
| "The European Witch Craze of the 14th - 17th Centuries -- A Sociologist's Perspective," ''American Journal of Sociology'', 1980, 86 (#1), 1-31 (lead article). | |||
| ''Deviance and Moral Boundaries: Witchcraft, the Occult, Science Fiction, Deviant Sciences and Scientists''. 1985, University of Chicago Press. Selected by Choice as one of the most outstanding academic books for 1987. | |||
| "Deviance in Science: Towards the Criminology of Science," ''The British Journal of Criminology'', 1986, 26 (#1), 1-27 (lead article). | |||
| "The Sociology of Moral Panics: Toward A New Synthesis," ''The Sociological Quarterly'', 1986, 27 (#4): 495-513. | |||
| "The Politicization of Deviance: Resisting and Reversing Degradation and Stigmatization," ''Deviant Behavior'', 1987, 8: 259-282. | |||
| "Positive Deviance: More Fuel for a Controversy''," Deviant Behavior'', 1990, 11 (#3): 221-243. | |||
| "Political Assassinations as Rhetorical Devices: Events and Interpretations," ''The Journal of Terrorism and Political Violence'', April 1990, 2,(#3): 324-350. | |||
| "Deviantization and Criminalization as Properties of the Social Order," ''The Sociological Review'', February 1992, 40 (#1): 73-108. | |||
| ''Political Assassinations by Jews: A Rhetorical Device For Justice''. 1993, Albany: State University of New York Press. | |||
| ''Moral Panics. The Social Construction of Deviance''. 1994. England: Blackwell Publications. By Erich Goode and Nachman Ben-Yehuda. | |||
| ''The Masada Myth. Collective Memory and Mythmaking in Israel'' . December 1995. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. | |||
| ''Betrayals and Treason. Violations of Trust and Loyalty''. 2001. Boulder: Westview Press. | |||
| ''Sacrificing Truth. Archaeology and the myth of Masada''. 2002. Amherst: New York: Prometheus Books / Humanity Press. | |||
| “Terror, Media and Moral Boundaries,” The International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 2005. 46 (#1-2):33-53 | |||
| "Contextualizing Deviance Within Social Change and Stability, Morality and Power," Sociological Spectrum, 2006, 26 (#6): 559-580. | |||
| Phillip Kohl, Mara Kozelsky and Nachman Ben-Yehuda (eds.). 2007. ''Selective Remembrances: Archaeology in the Construction, Commemoration, and Consecration of National Pasts.'' Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. | |||
| ''Moral Panics. The Social Construction of Deviance''. 2nd completely revised Ed. 2009. England: Wiley - Blackwell Publications. By Erich Goode and Nachman Ben-Yehuda. | |||
| Guest editor of a special issue of ''the British Journal of Criminology'', 2009, vol. 49. titled: “Moral Panics – 36 Years On.” | |||
| ''Theocratic Democracy. The Social Construction of Religious and Secular Extremism''. 2010. Oxford University Press. Winner of the 2011 Distinguished Book Award from the Division of International Criminology of the American Society of Criminology. | |||
| ''Atrocity, Deviance, and Submarine Warfare. Norms and Practices during the World Wars''. 2013. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. | |||
| “The Sicarii suicide on Masada and the foundation of a national myth” Pp. 11-28 in James R. Lewis and Carole Cusack ed. 2014. ''Sacred Suicide'', Ashgate (opening chapter). | |||
| ''Fraud and Misconduct in Research''. October 2017. With Amalya Oliver. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. | |||
| "Moral Panics and Folk Devils", 2020, ''Oxford Research Encyclopedia, Criminology and Criminal Justice'', https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264079.013.559 | |||
| '''References''' | |||
| Durkheim, Emile. 1933, 1964. ''The Division of Labor in Society'', N.Y., The Free Press. | |||
| Durkheim, Emile. 1938. ''The Rules of Sociological Method'', N.Y., The Free Press. | |||
| Goffman, Erving. 1974. ''Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience''. New York: Harper and Row. | |||
| Liazos, Alexander. 1972. "The Poverty of the Sociology of Deviance: Nuts, Sluts and Perverts". ''Social Problems'', 20 (#1): 103-120. | |||
| Rock, Paul. 1973. "Phenomenalism and Essentialism in the Sociology of Deviance," ''Sociology'', 7:17-29. | |||
| External links | |||
| Prof. Nachman Ben-Yehuda, Department of the Sociology and Anthropology, Faculty of Social Sciences. The Hebrew University. Faculty page and CV. | |||
| History and Fable, Heroism and Fanaticism: Nachman Ben-Yehuda's The Masada Myth. Book Review by Arnold H. Green, BYU Studies Quarterly, 36:3. | |||
| {{authority control}} | {{authority control}} | ||
Revision as of 11:05, 19 December 2020
Nachman Ben-Yehuda, emeritus professor, department of sociology and anthropology, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel. Former chair of the department, and former dean of the Faculty of social sciences. His work focuses on forms of deviance and their cultural meaning.
Life
Nachman Ben-Yehuda was born on March 8, 1948 to Dina (Kushnir) and Yitzhak (Schindelkroit) Ben-Yehuda in Jerusalem’s Sha’arey Tzedek hospital. Living in Kerem Avraham, Jerusalem he attended “Tachkemony” elementary religious school for boys. He later joined the Gimnasia Ivrit high school in Jerusalem from which he graduated from the science-biological section in 1966. He was drafted in August of that year to a 3 year compulsory military service in the IDF as an investigator in the military police criminal investigation unit (Metzach), and continued to serve there in reserve duties. He retired from reserve duty in 1995 at the rank of a major. Having completed his compulsory service in the summer of 1969, he studied psychology and sociology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and served as a Teaching Assistant in the department of sociology. In 1973 Etti (Esther, Grosswasser) and Nachman were married in Jerusalem. Having graduated from the university Cum Laude, the young couple travelled in 1974 to the University of Chicago, department of sociology, where he received his M.A. in 1976 (on a thesis analyzing the European witchcraze) and Ph.D. in 1977 with Morris Janowitz, Barry Schwartz and Jerald Suttles on his dissertation committee. His dissertation focused on success and failure in methadone maintenance as a form of benign coercion. Upon completing his studies he returned to the Hebrew University, department of sociology, where he remained throughout his career. Ben-Yehuda served as the elected chair of that department for 3 years, and was later elected (three times) to serve as the Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the Hebrew University for 6 consecutive years. He served in numerous roles and committees in that university, including as the head of the university’s teaching committee, tenure committee (for the social sciences, humanities, business administration, law and social work) and director of the Halbert Center for Canadian Studies. Ben-Yehuda served as a visiting scholar in the State university of New York at Stony Brook, New York University, University of Toronto and the London School of Economics.
Intellectual Background
Ben-Yehuda’s main academic and professional interest is the study of non-conformist and deviant behavior vis-a-vis the social order, in the broader sense of the term. His work pointed out that since its inception in the early decades of the 20th century, the sociological study of non-conformist and deviant behavior suffered from at least two major problems. The first is a lack of an integrated theoretical focus, giving rise to numerous theoretical approaches with labeling theory dominating for a while, and the second is a failure to consider total social structures and consequently sliding into a deep (yet interesting…) trap of small scale studies about various esoteric, sensational types of deviance. Some scholars (e.g., British sociologist Paul Rock) even claimed that the emphasis of the sociology of non-conformist and deviant behavior on studying these phenomena has given rise to a radical type of phenomenalism which views society as a collection of small units lacking an overall structure thus giving rise to an artificial contradiction between phenomenalism (emphasizing the need for an accurate and reliable reconstruction of the social world as seen by those living in it) and essentialism (searching for the underlying properties of the social order). In simpler terms, the claim is that the sociological study of non-conformist and deviant behavior may have become trivialized.
A major goal of Ben-Yehuda’s professional and academic work has been to suggest a broader sociological interpretation within which the understanding of non-conformist and deviant behavior can - and should - be made, in a way that integrates the specific interpretation of non-conformity and deviance within larger sociological processes. In his view, in order to try and solve what may be referred to as the "trivialization issue," the sociological study of non-conformity and deviance needs to consider total social structures and/or processes by examining these behaviors as relative phenomena and as part of larger social processes of social change and stability. This examination can be conceptualized within the theoretical context of looking at the myriad of the cultural cores and symbolic-moral universes that constitute the wider societal cultural mosaic and their boundaries, within a methodological and substantive stand of contextual constructionism. This approach is consistent with the suggestions made by other researchers which emphasize that the study of non-conformity and deviance should be framed (in Erving Goffman's terminology) within general societal processes, in a dynamic historical and political perspective. Deviance, in Ben-Yehuda’s conceptualization, reflects various combinations of moral challenges and regulatory processes, coupled with the use of social power.
Durkheim’s late 19th and early 20th century works had a clear and decisive influence on Ben-Yehud’a work. Durkheim suggested that one can examine unconventional and deviant behavior from two different points of view. One, as challenging and disturbing the status quo, and eliciting a punitive response which tends to re-affirm symbolic-moral boundaries and thus help maintain cultural stability (and social ossification…). Two, as challenging the status quo and introducing vital elements of changes into cultures, sort of mutations, if you like, which enable cultures to adapt to (and create) different symbolic-moral universes and new social environments. In this evolutionary biological analogy Durkheim’s view may be interpreted to imply that “nuts, sluts and perverts” (a-la sociologist Alexander Liazos’ early 1970s work) are behaviors that have always been part of human cultures, and will continue to be so. Some of these will help solidify cultures against the perpetrators while others may become beacons for processes of social change. Indeed, Durkheim did not fail to note that a culture without non-conformity and deviance is not possible. Illustrating this is sociologist Pat Lauderdale’s observation that some of those defined as terrorists may become later heroes. Nelson Mandela is only one example from a not too distant past. The example Durkheim himself used was Socrates.
Contextual constructionism argues that while non-conformity, deviance and social problems are the results of "claim making" activities, the so called "objective" dimension can be assessed and evaluated by an expert, on the basis of scientific evidence. Sociologists working from this theoretical perspective typically contrast the "objective" and the "constructed" versions of reality. Contextual constructionism offers a solution for the problem focusing on the nature of reality. It cuts the defining parameters of reality at a particular point and hence provides the researcher with a powerful analytical docking anchor.
Ben-Yehuda’s work raises the age-old Hobesian question "how is the social order possible?" by focusing on the Hegelian concept of antithesis. This general plot is occasioned by directing attention to how, why, where and when challenges to the status quo emerge and function as catalysts for processes of social change or stability. By examining that which is considered as "deviant," Ben-Yehuda points out that we can gain interesting and fascinating insightful understandings and glimpses into the nature of the non-deviant social order and of cultures. Ben-Yehuda’s various research projects demonstrate this analytic commitment and can be seen throughout his works.
Work – research projects
Ben-Yehuda’s first two research projects examined issues of social control. His analysis of the 15th-17th European witchraze showed how a new form of deviance was created as significant changes and challenges took over various European countries. The creation of the demonic witch and the craze attempted to bring back older moral boundaries and forms of authority. Coping with what mind altering drugs are allowed and what not, was Ben-Yehuda’s second attempt to examine issues of boundaries. He observed methadone maintenance as a form of benign coercion and examined who succeeds on such program and who does not.
His next work integrated his work on the European witchcraze together with an examination of challenges to moral boundaries in science, the occult, science fiction, deviant sciences and scientist. His 1985 book of this project was selected by Choice as one of the most outstanding academic books.
Issues of power, politics and morality caught Ben-Yehuda’s attention in his next project. In it he examined issues of moral panics, reversed stigmatization, policies towars the usage of mind altering psychoactive substances and deviance in science. Issues of power and morality are salient in each of these cases as challenges to morality are dominant in each. And, indeed, two of these cases will continue to occupy his attention in later projects.
The next two projects he investigated reflect Ben-Yehuda’s intellectual interests in a forceful way, and both are based on historical observations. Political assassinations illustrate in a powerful and tragic way conflicts of power and morality. Ben-Yehuda examined all the available cases of political assassination by Jews from 1982 to 1980 focusing on Palestine-Israel. The conclusions of this study were quite amazing. Most cases took place prior to the establishment of Israel as a state, and about 60% of them were aimed at other Jews defined as “traitors.” Comparing this pattern to other cases, he suggested that one needs to view political assassinations as an alternative form of justice, where formal systems of justice do not exist. In this way, one needs to view assassinations as one more expression of a system of control. This project was the catalyst for two other related projects. The first focused on Masada. Following the defeat of rebel Jews in the called Great Revolt (66-70 AD) Judea province against the Roman Empire, a group of Jews ended up in in the fortress of Masada near the southern part of the Dead Sea. In 73 AD the Roman 10th legion place a siege around that fortress and realizing that the end is close, more than 900 besieged Jews committed collective suicide, with only two women and five children survivors. Since the 1920s Israeli secular Zionists have transform Masada – a place of defeat and death – into a myth of heroism. Ben-Yehuda contrasted the original and only text about what happened on Masada, written by Josephus Flavius, to the way various mora and memory agents in Israel transformed this tragic event to a tale of a last stand heroic tale, as well as examining the rhetoric used by archaeologists who excavated Masada to interpret their findings. The second project that was initiated following the political assassination study focused of betrayal and treason. This project examined a large number of cases worldwide and suggested that the combination of violating moral values of trust and loyalty will make suspicions and accusations of betrayal and/or treason almost unavoidable.
How are new definitions of deviance, and attempts to repress then, come into being is an issue that has always been in Ben-Yehuda’s intellectual interest. One of his works supported the concept of positive deviance, suggesting that there can be, and in fact there have been, acts of unconventionality that do not necessarily exhibit negative results. Another project began with his 1986 article on moral panics and continued to two editions of Erich Goode and Ben-Yehuda’s book on moral panics. The concept of moral panics was suggested originally by British sociologist Jock Young and developed into a book by Stanley Cohen in 1972. Moral panic suggests that, at times, moral entrepreneurs express an inflated and exaggerated concern about a moral issue, focus on folk devils whose behavior supposedly reflects a grave moral threat, and demand that these folk devils be stigmatized and punished. Doing that, claim these entrepreneurs, will stop the moral malaise in its tracks and challenges to the moral boundaries of society be squelched. Goode and Ben-Yehuda went beyond Cohen’s work and suggested a set of empirical criteria for moral panics, as well as suggesting what the origins of such panics are, what routes such panics take, as well as examining the role of the media as amplifying deviance. An interesting theoretical insight was originally suggested by Ben-Yehuda in a 1987 article in which he pointed out that using power and morality can be used to reverse processes of deviantization and stigmatization, that is, that potential folk devils can fight back.
Issues of reversing stigmatization, deviance and violence within the typical power struggle that takes place on issues of state-religion in Israel, focused Ben-Yehuda on his next project. Examining the social construction of ultra-orthodox and secular Jews in Israel he concluded that most ultra-orthodox deviance has a violent nature and is planned to achieve theocratic goals. The 2010 book which summarized this research project won the 2011 Distinguished Book Award from the Division of International Criminology of the American Society of Criminology.
Searching for a project that would illuminate deviance within the concept of social change, Ben-Yehuda’s next project focused on submarine warfare during the two world wars. Technological developments made the appearance of attack submarines possible during WWI. Their use became clear during that war. In theory, and according to various agreements, submarines had two ways to fight. One was referred to as restricted warfare. It meant that before sinking a ship, the submarine had to verify that it was carrying contraband war materials and make sure that ship’s crew and passengers were led and landed in safe places. Such warfare, however, compromised the major advantage of submarines – that is to attack silently and in stealth. Consequently, a different submarine warfare developed – referred to as “unrestricted warfare”. It meant violating all pacts and agreements regarding naval warfare and practicing a new, ruthless and cruel form of warfare, with grave and tragic consequences. That included launching – without warning, unprovoked and in stealth - torpedoes against merchant, passenger and hospital ships, as well as in quite a few cases killing survivors in the water. Such warfare was clearly consisted of war crimes. Examining the moral shift in cultural cores from practicing restricted to unrestricted submarine warfare was the focus of Ben-Yehuda’s 2013 book on submarine warfare.
Selected Publications
"Success and Failure in Rehabilitation: The Case of Methadone Maintenance," American Journal of Community Psychology, 1981, 9 (#1):83-107.
"The European Witch Craze of the 14th - 17th Centuries -- A Sociologist's Perspective," American Journal of Sociology, 1980, 86 (#1), 1-31 (lead article).
Deviance and Moral Boundaries: Witchcraft, the Occult, Science Fiction, Deviant Sciences and Scientists. 1985, University of Chicago Press. Selected by Choice as one of the most outstanding academic books for 1987.
"Deviance in Science: Towards the Criminology of Science," The British Journal of Criminology, 1986, 26 (#1), 1-27 (lead article).
"The Sociology of Moral Panics: Toward A New Synthesis," The Sociological Quarterly, 1986, 27 (#4): 495-513.
"The Politicization of Deviance: Resisting and Reversing Degradation and Stigmatization," Deviant Behavior, 1987, 8: 259-282.
"Positive Deviance: More Fuel for a Controversy," Deviant Behavior, 1990, 11 (#3): 221-243.
"Political Assassinations as Rhetorical Devices: Events and Interpretations," The Journal of Terrorism and Political Violence, April 1990, 2,(#3): 324-350.
"Deviantization and Criminalization as Properties of the Social Order," The Sociological Review, February 1992, 40 (#1): 73-108.
Political Assassinations by Jews: A Rhetorical Device For Justice. 1993, Albany: State University of New York Press.
Moral Panics. The Social Construction of Deviance. 1994. England: Blackwell Publications. By Erich Goode and Nachman Ben-Yehuda.
The Masada Myth. Collective Memory and Mythmaking in Israel . December 1995. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Betrayals and Treason. Violations of Trust and Loyalty. 2001. Boulder: Westview Press.
Sacrificing Truth. Archaeology and the myth of Masada. 2002. Amherst: New York: Prometheus Books / Humanity Press.
“Terror, Media and Moral Boundaries,” The International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 2005. 46 (#1-2):33-53
"Contextualizing Deviance Within Social Change and Stability, Morality and Power," Sociological Spectrum, 2006, 26 (#6): 559-580. Phillip Kohl, Mara Kozelsky and Nachman Ben-Yehuda (eds.). 2007. Selective Remembrances: Archaeology in the Construction, Commemoration, and Consecration of National Pasts. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Moral Panics. The Social Construction of Deviance. 2nd completely revised Ed. 2009. England: Wiley - Blackwell Publications. By Erich Goode and Nachman Ben-Yehuda.
Guest editor of a special issue of the British Journal of Criminology, 2009, vol. 49. titled: “Moral Panics – 36 Years On.”
Theocratic Democracy. The Social Construction of Religious and Secular Extremism. 2010. Oxford University Press. Winner of the 2011 Distinguished Book Award from the Division of International Criminology of the American Society of Criminology.
Atrocity, Deviance, and Submarine Warfare. Norms and Practices during the World Wars. 2013. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
“The Sicarii suicide on Masada and the foundation of a national myth” Pp. 11-28 in James R. Lewis and Carole Cusack ed. 2014. Sacred Suicide, Ashgate (opening chapter).
Fraud and Misconduct in Research. October 2017. With Amalya Oliver. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
"Moral Panics and Folk Devils", 2020, Oxford Research Encyclopedia, Criminology and Criminal Justice, https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264079.013.559
References
Durkheim, Emile. 1933, 1964. The Division of Labor in Society, N.Y., The Free Press.
Durkheim, Emile. 1938. The Rules of Sociological Method, N.Y., The Free Press.
Goffman, Erving. 1974. Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. New York: Harper and Row.
Liazos, Alexander. 1972. "The Poverty of the Sociology of Deviance: Nuts, Sluts and Perverts". Social Problems, 20 (#1): 103-120.
Rock, Paul. 1973. "Phenomenalism and Essentialism in the Sociology of Deviance," Sociology, 7:17-29.
External links
Prof. Nachman Ben-Yehuda, Department of the Sociology and Anthropology, Faculty of Social Sciences. The Hebrew University. Faculty page and CV.
History and Fable, Heroism and Fanaticism: Nachman Ben-Yehuda's The Masada Myth. Book Review by Arnold H. Green, BYU Studies Quarterly, 36:3.
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