Why don’t deviants just conform? Conformity is certainly easier in some ways. As Émile Durkheim points out, we can incur negative consequences for being deviant, so while it’s possible for us to free ourselves from social facts, we can’t do it without struggle. Yet he also observes that deviance exists in every society. (Again, note that Durkheim’s use of the word “deviance”—and my own use of it—does not imply judgment; it is simply a neutral, sociological term for non-normative behavior.) And while some people may just be naturally “pathological,” Durkheim concedes, there are social
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