Deviance, Me, and America

Deviance as it is defined is the fact or state of departing from usual or accepted standards. As I read this definition of deviation I realize that I deviate from the social norms of a society that I live in, and most of my friends in colleges around the world have a same outlook on life, and they tend to deviate along with their friends because no one wants to go along with the norms that society sets forth.

On the Chicago Press website they asses a ook by an author about the space shuttle challenger that deviated from the norms of that time because the challenger was not ready for flight. “When the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded on January 28, 1986, millions of Americans became bound together in a single, historic moment. Many still vividly remember exactly where they were and what they were doing when they heard about the tragedy. In The Challenger Launch Decision, Diane Vaughan recreates the steps leading up to that fateful decision, contradicting conventional interpretations to prove that what occurred at NASA was not skulduggery or misconduct but a disastrous mistake.

Journalists and investigators have historically cited production problems and managerial wrong-doing as the reasons behind the disaster. The Presidential Commission uncovered a flawed decision-making process at the space agency as well, citing a well-documented history of problems with the O-ring and a dramatic last-minute protest by engineers over the Solid Rocket Boosters as evidence of managerial neglect.

Why did NASA managers, who not only had all the information prior to the launch but also were warned against it, decide to proceed? In retelling how the decision unfolded through the eyes of the managers and the engineers, Vaughan uncovers an incremental descent into poor judgment, supported by a culture of high-risk technology. She reveals how and why NASA insiders, when repeatedly faced with evidence that something was wrong, normalized the deviance so that it became acceptable to them.

No safety rules were broken. No single individual was at fault. Instead, the cause of the disaster is a story not of evil but of the banality of organizational life. This powerful work explains why the Challenger tragedy must be reexamined and offers an unexpected warning about the hidden hazards of living in this technological age”.

This Excerpt from the website about the book that describes the challenger deviating from the social norms of that time  and how the challenger deviated from that is a matter of machinery not being  tested quite right because they weren’t afraid to make mistakes in that era. They put their lives on the line to deviate from what society doubted, people in space, those astronauts crossed over the invisible line of deviation because they had a vision of greater things.

In the article above it explains the idea of why one deviates from society “ Why did NASA managers, who not only had all the information prior to the launch but also were warned against it, decide to proceed? In retelling how the decision unfolded through the eyes of the managers and the engineers, Vaughan uncovers an incremental descent into poor judgment, supported by a culture of high-risk technology. She reveals how and why NASA insiders, when repeatedly faced with evidence that something was wrong, normalized the deviance so that it became acceptable to them”. The managers chose to go against these ideas of, being shut down being told that because something can be disproved doesn’t  mean it cant be done and that people who work on something can disprove it, maybe there is also something to be said about the engineers and scientists maybe they were deviating from the norm of conformity and not speaking out about your commanding officers. I just find it all interesting that all these simple things can contribute to such a big idea of standing out and not conforming.

Anyways, I would have to say that along my friends and I we all do different shit that makes us different from each other and this contributes to the idea of standing out from your friends and peers because everyone wants to feel a sense of individualism from themselves to someone else in their college or their hometown and it helps people create who they are because one person might want to go skydiving in his free time whereas another person would want to go out and mash down hills in the summer.

"The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA, Vaughan." The University of Chicago Press | Home . N.p., n.d. Web. 17 May 2013.<http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago