The Remarkable Persistence of a Flawed Theory:

Abstract

Cultural deviance theorists' standard response to theoretical critiques is that the critics have not carefully read the original sources, resulting in a misunderstanding of the perspective. In response to my recent critique of the cultural deviance perspective, Matsueda (1997) follows this standard practice. He claims that my critique is based on false premises, thereby obviating the need to respond to my argument that cultural deviance theory is logically untenable.

Anticipating such reactions, I adopted the strategy of relying heavily on direct quotes from cultural deviance theorists' original works to support my arguments (Sutherland, 1947; Akers, 1973, 1996; Matsueda, 1982, 1988; Sutherland, Cressey, and Luckenbill, 1992). But because Matsueda did not sufficiently use the same strategy, many of his points are unconvincing. Here I provide additional evidence supporting my original positions, and demonstrate that many of Matsueda's responses to my critique create additional logical and empirical problems for the theory.