Problem setting. Human actions and deeds that tend to deviate from institutionalized expectations are becoming less predictable, contrary to existing cultural and moral norms, social rules and responsibilities in a given society, and can be seen as a potential threat to the social order. That is why the need to analyze the problem of the nature of mass deviations is relevant.
Recent research and publications analysis. The results of scientific investigations of deviant behavior as a social phenomenon have found theoretical justification in the numerous works of sociologists, conflictologists, philosophers, culturologists, psychologists, jurists: I. Bakum, K. Bartol, G. Becker, R. Blackborn, T. Garasimov, J. D. Downs, P. Rock and Y. McLaughlin, I. Zhdanova, T. Zelinskaya, M. Inderbitsin, K. A. Bates, R. R. Heine, N. Kivenko, Z. Kisil, R.-V.Kisil, J. Kleiberg, L. Kozer, L. Kotlyarova, A. Crossman, C. Lombroso, E. Manuilov, Y. Kalinovsky, N. Martyniuk, V. Mendelevich, T. Parsons, B. Tkach, K. Horne, E. Erickson and many others.
Paper objective ‑ disclosure of the functional conditionality of the objective nature of deviation as a social phenomenon inherent in any society.
Paper main body. A methodological distinction between deviance as a system of certain individual and social anti-values has been made. The methodological basis of this distinction was the comparative analysis of nonconformist (“fundamental deviation”) and aberrant (“appropriate deviation”) behavior proposed by R. Merton. It is shown how the morphogenesis of aberrant behavior forms the mechanism of transition of individual anti-values into social ones. Initially, aberrations remain in the private sphere and have no social consequences, but over time, deviations spread, especially when most people see that violators thrive and become a “role model” (according to R. Merton), and the deviation becomes regular. The next step ‑ common in society aberrant behavior seeks to weaken or even destroy the legitimacy of institutional norms in force in the system, resulting in the institutionalization of deviations. This is due, firstly, to the regular nature of aberrations, secondly, the transition of deviations from the private to the public, thirdly, the well-established “social mechanics” of deviations and, finally, the rarity of penalties for aberrant behavior or its symbolic sanctions. As a result, three variants of institutionalized deviations are formed: “normative erosion”, which is associated with the slow liberalization of certain norms; "Resistance to norms", when new norms are introduced by order “from above”; “Substitution of norms”, when the current norms are not refuted, but common deviations seem to become legal due to the scale and duration of their application. Regardless of which option is implemented, it is through aberrations that the transition of individual anti-values into social ones is completed.
The objective nature of social deviations has a functional conditionality. First, society's desire for development requires a change in the usual ways of acting, which, in turn, involve deviations from social norms. The destruction of the standards of action proposed by the norms, due to mass repetitive deviations, performs a signal function of the obsolescence of those existing norms and values that inhibit social progress. Secondly, the increase in the number of interactions and, consequently, social roles that are simultaneously performed by a socially active person in the development of society, leads to the fact that within the system of social norms governing social interactions, contradictions arise when compliance with one rule effective need to violate another. Therefore, there are forced deviations. Based on this, a classification of deviant behavior is proposed, where the criterion for typology is the rationality / irrationality of the choice of actions: unconscious (is the result of mental disorders that lead to violations of human adaptation to social norms, when deviations from officially established or actually existing standards in society have no rational explanation) and conscious, which is divided intovoluntary (is a form of disorganization of human social behavior, which on the basis of their own rational moral choice consciously demonstrates inconsistencies with expectations and/or requirements of society) and forced (is a kind of behavior influence of objective external factors, characterized by the inevitability of violation of one rule in favor of another due to the presence of logical contradictions in the system of norms governing a certain type of social relations).
Conclusions of the research. Violation by the individual of the internalization process of social experience can lead to impoverishment of the role repertoire, its deformation, entry into the antisocial plane and, as a consequence, the emergence of various manifestations of personality antisocialization, its desocialization, and subsequent social maladaptation. At the same time, the transfer of emphasis in the value orientations of people from spiritual priorities to material ones intensifies the emergence of zones with a high level of social entropy in the social space. Social entropy provokes the spread of aberrant behavior - actions associated with a conscious hidden violation of social norms by the individual, when he is clearly aware of the asociality of their actions, creating a system of individual anti-values. Unlike nonconformist (“fundamental deviation”), which usually initiates normative innovation, aberrant behavior (“appropriate deviation”) produces normative deviations. The lack of choice in the dilemma “to violate - not to violate the norm” leads to forced deviations, the analysis of the possible consequences of which requires further study.
On the way to eliminating theoretical difficulties of sociology of morality