A Song For Thinking About Robert Merton's "Strain Theory"

I spend some part of every day thinking about Robert Merton's "strain theory." I think a lot about the cultural goals--those "things worth striving for," as Merton described them. What do we aspire to? What do we seek to attain? Those questions never go out of style. They will always be relevant.

One of my favorite songs from the past few years is "Beach Comber" by Real Estate. It's an all around nice tune with lyrics that bring Merton to mind. The first line is a beauty: "What you want is just outside your reach, you keep on searching." There's always a risk to interpreting song lyrics. This song could be about anything--a lost love, for instance--but I'm brought back to the cultural goals with the lines "until you find your Rolex in the sand, you won't be stopping. Until that solid gold is in your hand, you won't be happy." There's a chance I've got the lyrics wrong, too. No matter how many times I listen to the song, I don't always hear each word exactly the same way. But even leaving room for error, the song gives us a chance to think about how we pursue the things we think will make us happy. But as the song suggests, what we think will make us happy isn't necessarily what will make us happy.

As I've written before, when we teach strain theory I think the main objective is to get students to think critically about the disjunction between cultural goals and the approved means for obtaining those goals. I love thinking about the cultural goals and talking with students about what those goals supposedly are. My students give a variety of answers when I ask questions like "How important is making money in this culture?" and "How important is it to you to make money in your life?" Questions like these get us engaged in the topic and lead us to the various deviant responses that Merton delineated: innovation, ritualism, retreatism, and rebellion.

Strain Theory: A Student's Perspective

Thank God Sociology class is over. My professor just rambled on about something called Strain Theory. He went on and on about Robert Merton. I think he's in love with Robert Merton. He came in and drew this ridiculous chart on the board with plus and minus signs. I could barely see it. There's a bunch of categories that don't make a lot of sense. Something about bank robbers being innovators. Whatever. I stopped listening after ten minutes. At the end of class he gave a speech about how the categories probably aren't the most important part of the theory. And that we shouldn't get too consumed about plus and minus signs. So why did he spend the entire class working on that idiotic chart? He finished his speech by saying the crucial part of the theory is thinking about the disjunction between cultural goals and approved means for obtaining those goals. He said Merton was interested in how people responded to the pressure of not being able to obtain the cultural goals. That everyone is aware of the goals, but sometimes lack of opportunities or resources make it impossible to obtain those goals. That creates strain, and strain produces deviance. He mentioned that some people respond by scaling down the goals or rejecting them altogether. Okay, all of that made sense. He got my attention with his little speech. So why did he wait until the end of class to say that? And why didn't he let us talk about it?

If I was teaching Strain Theory I would focus attention on the cultural goals and the acceptable ways to achieve the goals. And then I would get into the categories and have students give some of their own examples. And then I would have students write a story about one of the categories. For example, they could write a story about someone who took the path of ritualism or retreatism. Or they could write a story about someone who didn't take a deviant path. So they could write about someone who stayed on the socially acceptable road. That would be a fun class, and we would all learn more in the process.

The End.

Author's note: I wrote this story after thinking about what it must be like for students to listen to someone teach Strain Theory in a traditional, linear, textbook fashion. I doubt students love strain theory as much as we do. Don't be afraid to teach Strain Theory in an alternative way. The textbook presentation of Strain Theory is typically stale. So it's up to us to bring it alive.