What About Mozart? What About Murder?: Reasoning From Cases

by Howard S. Becker

In 1963, Howard S. Becker gave a lecture about deviance, challenging the then-conventional definition that deviance was inherently criminal and abnormal and arguing that instead, deviance was better understood as a function of labeling.  At the end of his lecture, a distinguished colleague standing at the back of the room, puffing a cigar, looked at Becker quizzically and asked, “What about murder? Isn’t that  really  deviant?” It sounded like Becker had been backed into a corner. Becker, however, wasn’t defeated! Reasonable people, he countered, differ over whether certain killings are murder or justified homicide, and these differences vary depending on what kinds of people did the killing. In  What About Mozart? What About Murder?,  Becker uses this example, along with many others, to demonstrate the different ways to study society, one that uses carefully investigated, specific cases and another that relies on speculation and on what he calls “killer questions,” aimed at taking down an opponent by citing invented cases.

Becker draws on a lifetime of sociological research and wisdom to show, in helpful detail, how to use a variety of kinds of cases to build sociological knowledge. With his trademark conversational flair and informal, personal perspective Becker provides a guide that researchers can use to produce general sociological knowledge through case studies. He champions research that has enough data to go beyond guesswork and urges researchers to avoid what he calls “skeleton cases,” which use fictional stories that pose as scientific evidence. Using his long career as a backdrop, Becker delivers a winning book that will surely change the way scholars in many fields approach their research.

Genres: Sociology, Nonfiction, Academic

204 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2014

About the author

Howard Saul Becker was an American sociologist who taught at Northwestern University.

Reviews

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sociologist and jazz pianist Howard Becker touches on a number of seemingly disparate topics in this collection of essays. His narrative is, for the most part, very engaging. Unlike many social scientists, he presents his account without resorting to statistics or regression analysis. His case studies range from how value is determined in the marketplaces of contemporary art, and how seemingly well-meaning professionals of unimpeachable rectitude suddenly find themselves guilty of embezzlement, to how drug use or abuse is comprehensible only by studying a vast matrix of variables that include politics, law, commerce, and the personal and social suggestibilities of the individual users. ('Matrix' and 'variable' not used in a mathematical sense, here.)

Mainly, my disappointment is not reading more about any up-to-date thoughts that Becker may have about 'deviance', to follow up on his 1963 study Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance. Given that this initial study was during a time of great national turmoil (think Cold War, Cuban Missile Crisis, Oswald and the assassination of Kennedy), I am guessing that 'deviance' along social-political-religious lines could be updated to take into account the fragmentation of the world post 9/11, or even in the shadow cast by the Great Recession. Who are the deviants now— surely not a high percentage of marijuana users in the state of Colorado? Instead, might it be those 'hustlers' or 'tricksters' who engineered bailouts and government contracts for entire sectors of the world economy to their own advantage? If Becker had addressed these contemporary issues, I would have found the book riveting.

As a Marxist, Becker is always aware of power structures: shop foremen as mediators between owners and production workers, or jazz musicians as intermediaries between club bosses (or cocktail waitresses, for that matter) and club patrons. In an early chapter, he cites the archetype of the mediator who can be found within any group of people—the “‘middleman’, the guy who knows how to get impossible things done”. Becker relied on such a person to get needed departure visas when he was on sabbatical in Brazil, during a period when his own efforts through official channels became fruitless. Indeed, it seems that in Becker’s critique of things, it is these ‘unofficial’ representatives—‘middlemen’, ‘expediters’, or ‘tricksters’—who really provide the goods. Creation of value isn't just an economic metric, it resides in what might be called 'social capital', or 'local knowledge'. These ‘hustlers’ (he doesn’t use the term) are the people self-consciously in the position of guaranteeing outcomes (or outputs) in a given set of circumstances.

In my favorite excerpt quoted by at least one other book reviewer Becker outlines his approach to the milieu of a classical symphony concert. Sociologists, he writes, “try to identify and understand everything at work in a situation that contributes to the result they want to understand, the composer and the performer and the copyist and the parking attendant.” In this well-tuned system, every performer is some kind of hustler, and vice-versa.

[Ari Stillman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book that any social scientist – especially those still going through their PhD – would benefit from reading. In characteristic approachable prose, Becker walks the reader through lessons he learned over the course of his academic journey (beginning as a master's student). In one chapter, he reproduces an article he published and provides commentary on what he is saying every few paragraphs to illustrate the lesson of reasoning from cases. In doing so, the reader comes to throughly understand how to identify various inputs towards demystifying black boxes of related cases – as well as when to stop seeking perfect knowledge in considering the relationship between expenditure and outcome. The title itself refers to hecklers who seek to counter an argument by a reference resting upon an unspoken proof and often epistemological assumptions – often when their own beliefs seem under attack. Today, we might say "because science" as shorthand for not understanding the science behind something but nevertheless deferring to it. This book on methodology packaged as wisdom told through anecdotes and reflection is well worth the read.

[Diego Binayan · Rating 3 out of 5]

El libro no me aportó nada, honestamente. Debería haberle puesto dos estrellas, pero el título es tan original (y vendedor o marketinero) que ganó una estrella más.
Es un libro destinado a alguien que nunca hizo o leyó una investigación social con cierto rango científico. Explica muy coloquialmente como realizar una investigación esquivando en todo momento cualquier caracterización científica. Probablemente los trabajos del autor en distintos journals puedan ser más atractivos pero, de ser así, es un desperdicio que el autor haya escrito un libro así.
Varios errores en la edición (en cuanto a tipeo), una traducción que da la impresión de ser bastante liviana y analogías con casos de estudio poco relevantes, hacen del libro una suerte de charla de café. Si ese era el objetivo, le sobran la mitad de las páginas escritas. Una pena que siglo XXI edite un libro así.

[Ralph · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good title. Captured my interest so ordered it, expecting more of a legal or hard science type of approach. It is actually a serious sociology book and I enjoyed it for a while but found myself looking forward to finishing it. No fault of the author, I just wasn't ready to exercise my mind that much.

[Debora Deb · Rating 4 out of 5]

En general me gusta mucho este autor y este libro me ha propuesto interesantes ejercicios para el análisis y la investigación. Lástima que hacia el final se vuelva un poco contradictorio

[Charlotte Dunn · Rating 2 out of 5]

There was some value in this but an awful lot of explaining a simple point in far too many words. Notes to add to notion.

[Mills College Library]

301.01 B3956 2014