Deviant, conformist and (ab)normal tendencies in the context of the crisis postmodern age - a criminological analysis

Abstract

A prize question for prospective millionaires would be: What is today deviant, conformist or (ab)normal? The answer is not at all self-evident in this chaotic postmodern times, at least far less so than in the period of "Fordist" ("or organised") capitalism or industrial - and still predominantly traditional - society. You can only imagine the indignation (and opposition) that would have been provoked, for example, by a prohibition of smoking in social forums (or at the workplace) if it had been imposed by a former "totalitarian" regime. It is standard now, though. It is equally normal that the Slovene professional army serves in Afganistan, although it is not at all clear why, for what reason and in honour of what it is doing so. It is normal to claim that Slovenia is an independent state, although all key political decisions are taken "somewhere else". It is also normal to pretend that the Slovene Constitution represents the supreme legal document, although a whole range of its principal "norms" are systematically violated without entailing any sanctions. It is equally normal that people no longer know whether a food that they are consuming is normal or fake, i.e., falsified and only looks normal. And so on and so forth. How can we know what is a "main path" is and what a "side path", if it is not clear at all in what direction contemporary "society" will be oriented. Even worse, does contemporary society pursue any concrete political aim, other than panic-stricken "flight forward" (or maybe "backward", for example into new era "feudalism") or the endless "art pour art" competitive struggle?