The trouble with evil : social control at the edge of morality

Resource Information

The work The trouble with evil : social control at the edge of morality represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in University of Missouri-St. Louis Libraries. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

The trouble with evil : social control at the edge of morality

Title remainder

social control at the edge of morality

Statement of responsibility

Edwin M. Lemert

Creator

• Lemert, Edwin M., (Edwin McCarthy), 1912-1996

Subject

• Africa -- Moral conditions
• Africa -- Social conditions
• Afrika
• Electronic books
• Ethnic & Race Studies
• Gender & Ethnic Studies
• Good and evil
• Good and evil
• Heksenvervolgingen
• Het Kwaad
• Hexerei
• Magie
• Melanesia
• Melanesia -- Moral conditions
• Melanesia -- Social conditions
• Melanesien
• Moral conditions
• POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Public Policy | Cultural Policy
• SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Anthropology | Cultural
• SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Popular Culture
• Social Sciences
• Social conditions
• Social control
• Social control -- Africa
• Social control -- Melanesia
• Sociale controle
• Subsaharan Africa
• Witchcraft
• Witchcraft -- Africa
• Witchcraft -- Melanesia
• social control
• witchcraft
• Africa

Genre

• Electronic books

Language

eng

Summary

Edwin Lemert investigates the possibility that a consideration of evil will provide new power to explanations of deviance. He links classic studies of witchcraft and sorcery to the wider problem of social control. The search for prototypical evil (a view that Lemert rejects) turns to an investigation of sorcery because sorcery involves selfish interest and intentions on the part of the sorcerer, who uses cryptic means to harm a victim that he/she dislikes. The author then examines comparatively the conditions that produce evil actions, and social reactions to them, in a variety of societies; and he reviews explanations that previous scholars have offered for the presence and consequences of evil. A tangential consequence of this method is that the work takes on a strong Melanesian flavor, because so many of the classic studies of sorcery were conducted in that culture area. Lemert argues that the fragmented nature of political organization, rapid shifts in political alliance, and the frequency of competitive rituals involving food combine in Melanesia to produce conditions that favor the development of whole cultures that celebrate forms of animosity and violence

Member of

• SUNY series in deviance and social control

Cataloging source

N$T

Dewey number

306.4/096

Government publication

government publication of a state province territory dependency etc

Index

index present

Language note

English

LC call number

GN645

LC item number

.L44 1997eb

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

• dictionaries
• bibliography

Series statement

SUNY series in deviance and social control