RELATIVE AND ABSOLUTE DEVIATION.
Most people in modern societies are neither completely conformist nor completely deviant. A completely deviant person would have a hard time staying alive. Even the more spectacular deviants, such as pyromaniacs, revolutionists, or hermits, are generally fairly conventional in some of their activities. And nearly all “normal” people are occasionally deviant. Kinsey [1948, pp. 392, 5761 has shown how over half our adults could be imprisoned for using techniques of lovemaking which were (and still are) forbidden by the laws of most states. A number of studies have shown that most people have committed a number of major crimes for which they could be prosecuted if all laws were fully enforced [Porterfield, 1946; Wallerstein and Wyle, 1947; Gold, 1970]. It is clear that nearly everyone in our society is deviant to some degree; but some are more frequently and broadly deviant than others, and some conceal their deviant actions more fully than others. yo some extent the deviant is one who does openly what others do secretly.
