Deviant Behavior Quotes

Yeah, well, I'm crazy, but I'm not stupid, hopefully. And I think we're all a bit crazy if we do anything that's deviant. I've studied a great deal on deviance and aberrant behavior. Most of the interesting people I've ever met have been deviant in one form or another.

Rome tolerated every abominable practice, embraced every foul idea in the name of freedom and the rights of the common man. Citizens no longer carried on deviant behavior in private, but pridefully displayed it in public. It was those with moral values who could no longer freely walk in a public park without having to witness a revolting display. What happened to the public censors who protected the majority of citizenry from moral decadence? Did freedom have to mean abolishing common decency? Did freedom mean anyone could do anything they wanted anytime they wanted, without consequences?

A cardinal American virtue, 'ambition,' promotes a cardinal American vice, 'deviant behavior.

...people who struggle against tyranny are more psychologically healthy than those who are docile and simply conform to current ways of thinking...there is much evidence that some of the most creative people in history were driven individuals who were terribly unhappy and out of sync with their social context. Creativity itself is a form of deviant behavior that requires individuals to break from usual assumptions and understandings in developing entirely new perspectives and approaches.

A slow but steady transformation of deviance has taken place in American society. It has not been a change in behavior as such, but in how behavior is defined. Deviant behaviors that were once defined as immoral, sinful, or criminal have been given medical meanings. Some say that rehabilitation has replaced punishment, but in many cases medical treatments have become a new form of punishment and social control.

Yet, as should become obvious, genocidal events have been common enough to suggest that they cannot be explained as some kind of deviant behavior. On the contrary, given the right circumstances, normal human beings are all too ready to kill by category.

You are hardwired for the pleasure of God. And this works for marriage. Imagine sole sourcing your pleasure receptors to be conditioned habitually to find satisfaction in one person. You build deep-seated emotional, spiritual even biological connection to that one person — this is what you are designed for. Do not build deviant behaviors that cause destruction. Porn is like crack. We can lie to ourselves about it – that we can casually dabble around with it. If you think you are not addicted, try going three weeks without it. You

The more arid and affectless life became in the high-rise, the greater the possibilities it offered. By its very efficiency, the high-rise took over the task of maintaining the social structure that supported them all. For the first time, it removed the need to suppress every kind of anti-social behavior and left them free to explore any deviant or wayward impulses. It was precisely in these areas where the most important and interesting aspects of their lives would take place. Secure within the shell of the high-rise, like passengers on board an automatically-piloted airliner, they were free to behave in any way they wished, explore the darkest corners they could find. In many ways, the high-rise was a model of all that technology had done to make possible the expression of a truly free psychopathology.

Eradication of pain, deviant, or oppositional behaviors does not indicate healing; however, it can signify successful conditioning.

There is deviant behavior and most of the cases it's maladaptive.

It galls me that seeking out the seedy, the sordid, the sexual, and the deviant is the expected (if not altogether acceptable) behavior of male writers; it would surely benefit me, as a writer, if I had the courage to seek out more of the seedy, the sordid, the sexual, and the deviant myself. But women who seek out such things are made to feel ashamed, or else they sound stridently ridiculous in defending themselves -- as if they're bragging. ... Yet there are subjects that remain off-limits for women writers. It's not unlike that dichotomy which exists regarding one's sexual past: it is permissible, even attractive, for a man to have had one, but if a woman has had a sexual past, she'd better keep quiet about it.

Scum America is a select group of low-life assholes. These scummers have become so hardened in their assholery that they excuse almost any kind of bad behavior by anyone who agrees with them—no matter how deviant that person is.

Rome tolerated every abominable practice, embraced every foul idea in the name of freedom and the rights of the common man. Citizens no longer carried on deviant behavior in private, but pridefully displayed it in public. It was those with moral values who could no longer freely walk in a public park without having to witness a revolting display. What had happened to the public censors who protected the majority of citizenry from moral decadence? Did freedom have to mean abolishing common decency? Did freedom mean anyone could do anything they wanted anytime they wanted, without consequences?

One way of understanding masochism has been the simple assumption that these people are mentally ill. In Western society, there is a long tradition of dismissing things that seem to make no sense as being produced by irrational forces. Some have argued that mental illness has replaced demons as an omnibus explanation for deviant behavior. The attitude behind these labels is, “We don’t need to understand these things, for they are incomprehensible.” Masochists and other deviants are simply exempted from all principles of normal human psychology, as if one should not even expect them to make sense.

This person is (pick one): 1. on a perilous journey from which we can learn much when he or she returns; 2. possessed by (pick one) a) the gods, b) God (that is, a prophet), c) some bad spirits, demons, or devils, d) the Devil, 3. a witch 4. bewitched (variant of 2); 5. bad, and must be isolated and punished, 6. ill, and must be isolated and treated by (pick one): a) purging and leeches, b) removing the uterus if the person has one, c) electric shock to the brain, d) cold sheets wrapped tight around the body, e) Thorazine or Stelazine; 7. ill, and must spend the next seven years talking about it; 8. a victim of society's low tolerance of deviant behavior; 9. sane in an insane world; 10. on a perilous journey from which he or she may never return.

The absence of models, in literature as in life, to say nothing of painting, is an occupational hazard for the artist, simply because models in art, in behavior, in growth of spirit and intellect--even if rejected--enrich and enlarge one's view of existence. Deadlier still, to the artist who lacks models, is the curse of ridicule, the bringing to bear on an artist's best work, especially his or her most original, most strikingly deviant, only a fund of ignorance and the presumption that as an artist's critic one's judgement is free of the restrictions imposed by prejudice, and is well informed, indeed, about all the art in the world that really matters.

The need for challenge and exploration arises mostly out of the blockage of fulfillment of lower level needs, giving rise to a pervading restlessness. Out of this restlessness there arises much pathology as searchers collide with established structuring and functioning of the environment. Out of this restlessness there also arises a small cadre of creative deviants whose insights and inventions have provided the leverage which has enabled man to increase his standard of living and his compassionate concern for his fellows. Our success in being human has so far derived from our honoring deviance more than tradition. Template changing has always gained a slight, though often tenuous, lead over template obeying. Now we must search diligently for those creative deviants from whom alone will come the conceptualizations of an evolutionary designing process which can assure us an open ended future -- toward whose realization we can all participate.

SATANIC SEX The prevalence of deviant and/or fetishistic behavior in our society would stagger the imagination of the sexually naïve. There are more sexual variants than the unenlightened individual can perceive: transvestism, sadism, masochism, urolagnia, exhibitionism - to name only a few of the more predominate. Everyone has some form of fetish, but because they are unaware of the preponderance of fetishistic activity in our society, they feel they are depraved if they submit to their "unnatural yearnings. * *Fetishism is not only practiced by human beings, but by animals, as well. The fetish is an integral ingredient in the sex-lives of animals. The sexual odor, for example, is necessary for one animal to become sexually aroused by another. Laboratory tests have shown that when an animal is scientifically deodorized, it loses sexual attractiveness to the other animals. The stimulation provided by sexual odor is also enjoyed by man, although he will often deny it.

We’ve become so focused as a society on the question of whether a given sexual behavior is evolutionarily “natural” or “unnatural” that we’ve lost sight of the more important question: Is it harmful? In many ways, it’s an even more challenging question, because although naturalness can be assessed by relatively straightforward queries about statistical averages—for example, “How frequently does it appear in other species?” and “In what percentage of the human population does it occur?”—the experience of harm is largely subjective. As such, it defies such direct analyses and requires definitions that resonate with people in vastly different ways. When it comes to sexual harm in particular, what’s harmful to one person not only is completely harmless to another but may even, believe it or not, be helpful or positive. If the supermodel Kate Upton were to walk into my office right now and tie me to my chair before doing a slow striptease and depositing her vagina in my face, I think I’d require therapy for years. But if this identical event were to happen to my heterosexual brother or to one of my lesbian friends, I suspect their brains would process such a “tragic” experience very differently. (And that of my not-very-amused sister-in-law would see my brother’s encounter with said vagina differently still.)

To begin with, people radically change their behavior when they know they are being watched. They will strive to do that which is expected of them. They want to avoid shame and condemnation. They do so by adhering tightly to accepted social practices, by staying within imposed boundaries, avoiding action that might be seen as deviant or abnormal. The range of choices people consider when they believe that others are watching is therefore far more limited than what they might do when acting in a private realm. A denial of privacy operates to severely restrict one’s freedom of choice.

What is the relationship between Appointing Authority and Disciplinary Authority? Appointing Authorities are empowered to impose major penalties. It may be recalled that Article 311 clause (1) provides that no one can be dismissed or removed from service by an authority subordinate to the Authority which appointed him. In fact under most of the situations, the powers for imposing major penalties are generally entrusted to the Appointing Authorities. Thus Appointing Authorities happen to be disciplinary authorities. However there may be other authorities who may be empowered only to impose minor penalties. Such authorities are often referred to as lower disciplinary authorities for the sake of convenience. In this handbook, the term Disciplinary Authority has been used to signify any authority who has been empowered to impose penalty. Thereby the term includes appointing authorities also.5. How to decide the Appointing Authority, when a person acquires several appointments in the course of his/her career? CCA Rule 2(a) lays down the procedure for determining the Appointing Authority in respect of a person by considering four authorities.Besides, it must also be borne in mind that Appointing Authority goes by factum and not by rule.i.e. where an employee has been actually appointed by an authority higher than the one empowered to make such appointment as per the rules, the former shall be taken as the Appointing Authority in respect of such employee.6. What should be the over-all approach of the Disciplinary Authority? Disciplinary authorities are expected to act like a Hot Stove, which has the following characteristics: � Advance warning – One may feel the radiated heat while approaching the Hot stove.Similarly, the Disciplinary Authority should also keep the employees informed of the expected behavior and the consequences of deviant behavior. � Consistency: Hot stove always, without exception, burns those who touch it.Similarly, the disciplinary authority should also be consistent in approach. Taking a casual and lenient view during one point of time and having rigid and strict spell later is not fair for a Disciplinary Authority 4

One semester, I was busted for reverse plagiarism, which basically meant I was too lazy to research a paper for my psychology class so cited false references to support my own theories on deviant behavior.

That is, whether or not an act is considered deviant depends upon how it is labeled (defined) by other people. For example, in a well-known study of jazz musicians, Becker (1963) found marijuana use to be considered normal by the musicians, but labeled as illegal, deviant behavior by the larger society, and subject to sanctions like arrest, fines, and jail terms. Although labeling theory pertained to deviance generally, several studies focused on the mental patient experience in which persons once treated for mental illness found it difficult to shed the label of “former mental patient” even if the experience was in the past and the person supposedly cured (Scheff [1966] 1999).

World societies are defining uncontrollable physical actions as deviant behavior, and obstructing, imprisoning, or confining to mental hospitals those who cannot suppress these actions.

I know I belabor this analogy, but I have come to see these teenage years as a construction project. I tell my young patients, and my own children, that this is not their life. Not yet. What they are doing now is building a house. It is a house they will have to live in for the rest of their lives, so they’d better get it right. They will be able to remodel, redecorate, and repair. But they can never rebuild. Everything they put into this house, every emotional scar from a bad relationship, every sexual perversion they give in to, every opportunity they secure for themselves, every drug they allow to interrupt the maturing of their growing brains, will be forever in the foundation of that house. The neuroscientists keep moving their conclusion, but the human brain winds down its developing around age twenty-five. What happens between puberty and the midtwenties in the brain, while it is finishing its development—its hardwiring—involves increased risk taking and peer influence. The reward center is trying to sort out what behaviors lead to rewards so it can lay down some wires, some bricks. Those bricks become part of the foundation, and they are there to stay. If those bricks tell you to like alcohol or cocaine or deviant sex acts, you will be fighting those cravings for the rest of your life. And of course, a child who blows off her grades and winds up at a subpar college will have to move to the back of the line when it comes to finding a job. It all matters.

In Reality Therapy emotions and happiness are never divorced from behavior. Gaining insight into the unconscious thinking which accompanies aberrant behavior is not an objective; excuses for deviant behavior are not accepted and one's history is not made more important than one's present life.

Only a few blacks have publicly attacked this dangerous and patronizing view. Joe Clark, the black high-school principal who won notoriety by disciplining his students with bullhorn and baseball bat, put it this way: The white liberal philosophy cheats them [blacks and Hispanics] by making allowances for their deviant behavior, as though normal behavior patterns were alien to them. It fosters a concept of indolence that keeps them on welfare, keeps them emotionally, academically, and economically disenfranchised. It’s the antithesis of what this country is about: The door of opportunity is open to all. But you have to be willing to work hard.1029

Fourth, along these same lines, some diagnoses remind us of a more central role of the body in a person’s struggle. Psychiatric diagnoses remind us that we are embodied souls. We know this clearly from Scripture! But functionally speaking, we sometimes over-spiritualize troubles with emotions and thoughts. When you consider the spectrum of psychiatric diagnoses, it is clear that years of research demonstrate that some diagnoses may have a stronger genetic (inherited) component of causation than others. These include schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, autistic spectrum disorder, and perhaps more severe and recalcitrant forms of depression (melancholia), anxiety, and OCD.2 Another way of saying this is that although psychiatric diagnoses are descriptions and not full-fledged explanations, it doesn’t mean that a given diagnosis or symptom holds no explanatory clues at all. Not all psychiatric diagnoses should be viewed equally. Some do indeed have long-standing recognition in medical and psychiatric history, occur transculturally, and therefore are not merely modern, Western “creations” that highlight patterns of deviant or sinful behavior, as critics would say. Observations that have held up among various

Sit the fuck down, Deviant. I am your damn president.” “And you’re putting the two people I love in harm’s way.” Oh, fuck. I instantly lost my temper. Had I really said that aloud? Outlaw looked taken aback. I didn’t dare look at Tage. “I meant, you’re putting people in harm’s way that aren’t trained for this.” Yeah, yeah that’s exactly what I fucking meant. “If we go in...” “They’ll

Expunction of pain, deviant, or oppositional behaviors does not indicate healing, but it can signify successful conditioning.

Expunction of pain, deviant, or oppositional behaviors does not indicate healing; however, it can signify successful conditioning.

Eradication of pain, "deviant", or "oppositional" behaviors does not indicate healing; however, it can signify successful conditioning.

I began to have deviant thoughts about economic theory while I was a graduate student

The daughters of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)—whose practices Muslims look to for much of their everyday guidance—were not circumcised. Rather than drawing on religious sources, advocates of circumcision adhere to social customs and scientifically unproven beliefs, which state that the procedure protects the girl from “deviant” behavior by removing her desire for sex.

It’s possible that a meteor will come hurtling in from outer space and wipe out this whole city.” And so on. The neutral and objective view that covered any other experience in Holy Out’s life just couldn’t reach the area of the first shot; that was permanently buried under everything he had ever read about the causes of deviant behavior.

The same process occurs, however, when people who prefer popular culture come into contact with high culture; they are frequently shocked by its espousal of “deviant” behavior, especially on the part of the artist, and they condemn it in terms similar to those in the mass culture critique. For example, during the 1960s, cultural and political satire was often called “sick comedy,” and Lenny Bruce was hounded off the stage and into suicide by the police and the courts. The defenders of high and popular culture attack each other in many ways. High culture condemns popular culture as vulgar and pathological, while popular culture attacks high culture for being overly intellectual, snobbish, and effeminate, inventing pejorative terms like “highbrow” and “egghead” for this purpose.

In many ways, the treatment of animal homosexuality in the scientific discourse has closely parallelled the discussion of human homosexuality in society at large. Homosexuality in both animals and people has been considered, at various times, to be a pathological condition; a social aberration; an "immoral", "sinful", or "criminal" perversion; an artificial product of confinement or the unavailability of the opposite sex; a reversal or "inversion" of heterosexual "roles"; a "phase" that younger animals go through on the path to heterosexuality; an exceptional but unimportant activity; a useless and puzzling curiosity; and a functional behavior that "stimulates" or "contributes to" heterosexuality. In many other respects, however, the outright hostility to animal homosexuality has transcended all historical trends. One need only look at the litany of derogatory terms, which have remained essentially constant from the late 1800s to the present day, used to describe this behavior: words such as strange, bizarre, perverse, aberrant, deviant, abnormal, anomalous, and unnatural have all been used routinely in "objective" scientific descriptions of the phenomenon and continue to be used (one of the most recent examples is from 1997). In addition, heterosexual behavior is consistently defined in numerous scientific accounts as "normal" in contrast to homosexual activity... In a direct carryover from attitudes toward human homosexuality, same-sex activity is routinely described as being "forced" on other animals when there is no evidence that it is, and a whole range of "distressful" emotions are projected onto the individual who experiences such "unwanted advances"... In other cases, zoologists have problematized homosexual activity or imputed an inherent inadequacy, instability, or incompetence to same-sex relations, when the supporting evidence for this is scanty or questionable at best and nonexistent at worst.

This is easier possibly to recognize with reference to the belief that one is a worthy human being. The evidence suggests that, if and when that cognition is altered significantly, then there are widespread and dramatic effects on people's lives. They are not for all intents and purposes the same people with different cognitions about themselves. The range of affect they experience, ways of relating to others, kinds of thought processes thy engage in, ability to mobilize themselves, are radically altered if their sense of self-worth is reduced. If our understanding of the belief in a just world is correct, then we would expect that the effects would be equally dramatic if that belief is shattered, or diminished to any imponant degree. The emotional consequences associated with the loss of this confidence in one's environment, the attempt to find alternative ways of coping with one's needs, fears, and the threats from the environment, would produce "deviant" behaviors in the pejorative sense (Chein et aI., 1964; Jessor et aI., 1968; Menon, 1957). Although our research will not attempt to test this hypothesis by creating such an extreme event in people's lives, we do expect to be able to show the kind of motivational committment to this central belief that would fit this degree of imponance to the person.

While part of good parenting includes being able to prevent deviant behaviors in children and raise happy, healthy and assertive individuals, having a father who is a narcissist means purposefully taking advantage of the fatherly role and exerting extreme authoritarianism and control over the children. They are, deep down, extremely vulnerable to rejection and criticism, are resentful and have bottled a lot of shame in a very deep corner of their subconsciousness. Such a father has no empathy, no sensitivity to their child's needs, but is observant enough to spot what these needs are and use them to gain his narcissistic supply. His children are seen as possessions that belong to him, are emotionally neglected, made to be overly codependent on him for affirmation, money or appreciation even in adulthood. Their emotional scope is very narrow and infantile, so their dealings with children are colored with aging and passive-aggressiveness, rather than maturity and openness.

Dissonance theory cannot, nor was it intended to, enable us to understand why people are strongly committed to cognitions like the belief in a just world. The belief that one lives in a just world, just as the belief that one is a decent, worthwhile person, seems to play a central role in the organization of the persons' life. The clear implication here is that what is at stake for the individual when these cognitions are threatened is not only the negative drive state generated out of holding dissonant cognitions, but the very integrity of their conceptions of themselves and the nature of their world. This is easier possibly to recognize with reference to the belief that one is a worthy human being. The evidence suggests that, if and when that cognition is altered significantly, then there are widespread and dramatic effects on people's lives. They are not for all intents and purposes the same people with different cognitions about themselves. The range of affect they experience, ways of relating to others, kinds of thought processes they engage in, ability to mobilize themselves, are radically altered if their sense of self-worth is reduced. If our understanding of the belief in a just world is correct, then we would expect that the effects would be equally dramatic if that belief is shattered, or diminished to any important degree. The emotional consequences associated with the loss of this confidence in one's environment, the attempt to find alternative ways of coping with one's needs, fears and the threats from the environment, would product "deviant" behaviors in the pejorative sense.

School authorities warn students that any deviant behavior on a child’s part is irresponsible because it could have severe and long-lasting consequences for their future, and then they enforce unreasonably harsh disciplinary standards that have severe and long-lasting consequences for the child’s future. That’s not a warning, it’s a promise.

Don’t be afraid to be firm—especially when it comes to your child’s safety and well-being. As a mature adult, you know better what behaviors are potentially dangerous. Keep in mind also that research shows children whose parents monitor their friends, activities, and whereabouts are less prone to risky behavior. They are less likely to fall into a deviant peer group, get in trouble with the police, abuse drugs, commit pranks and crimes, become promiscuous, and run away.

At the time, Sills said, “the main thing we experienced was the repression of any kind of deviant behavior under the guise of anti-Communism.” None of them could understand why there weren’t more people, especially artists, fighting it. “A pall of McCarthyism lay over the land,” said Bernie Sahlins, a producer at Playwrights, “and all you heard on TV were mother-in-law jokes.

People reminded of death also awarded more generous rewards to people who performed prosocial, or culturally approved behaviors. In both cases, it is as though people reminded of their own deaths hew to actions that defend their culture’s norms—they are more willing to reward culturally sanctioned behavior and to punish culturally deviant behavior.

BUT WILL IT WORK FOR ME? After decades of tireless research, we have now identified about two-dozen accountability skills that, when used at the right time and delivered in the right fashion, separated positive deviants from everyone else. The questions remaining were (1) when taught, would people actually use the skills, and (2) if they did, would doing so yield better results?

Several forms of thinking play a crucial role in preparing and readying us for conflict, violence or crisis.  These include the “if – then or when-then thinking; when X happens, then I will do… Y”. Positive self-talk and visualizing the situation are positive tools that develop patterns in your mind (like any other form of training) in an effort to anticipate threats as we explore the situation, make an situational assessment and plan  an adaptable response to a predator we can’t fully anticipate. We need to become students of human behavior, both normal and aberrant, to rapidly recognize the difference between the two and be ready to instantly respond correctly and accurately.  Inherent in this understands the various dimensions of aberrant behavior between deviant, dangerous, suspicious, under the influence, and psychiatric.

The capacity of sex offenders for denial, rationalization, and minimization of their deviant behavior is confirmed by Salter's (1995) finding that the population she has interviewed seemed rather proud of their ability to manuipulate their victims into remaining attached and loyal to them. Salter notes that frequently child abusers target their victims by calculating their probably vulnerability relative to other children, recognizing that those already being abused by others are better prey than the never-molested children.

people radically change their behavior when they know they are being watched. They will strive to do that which is expected of them. They want to avoid shame and condemnation. They do so by adhering tightly to accepted social practices, by staying within imposed boundaries, avoiding action that might be seen as deviant or abnormal.

Zero tolerance imagines that kids are at risk of being victimized (violence, drugs, general hooliganism), but it also imagines kids as risks to the school and other students. The APA’s research found that zero-tolerance school policing “affected the delicate balance between the educational and juvenile justice systems, in particular, increasing schools’ use of and reliance on strategies such as security technology, security personnel, and profiling, especially in high-minority, high-poverty school districts.” 34 Children—black, indigenous, and Latinx children in particular—are overpoliced, especially within schools (more on this later). When it comes to children’s life chances, zero tolerance is a self-fulfilling prophecy: School authorities warn students that any deviant behavior on a child’s part is irresponsible because it could have severe and long-lasting consequences for their future, and then they enforce unreasonably harsh disciplinary standards that have severe and long-lasting consequences for the child’s future. That’s not a warning, it’s a promise.

Mainstream Muslims are in a bind. The Islamic State professes that there is one God, and that Muhammad is his last and greatest prophet. Denying the Islamic State's faith and its supporters' status as Muslims, excommunicating them because you disagree with their version of Islam, is to concede the match. After all, takfir is the official sport of the Islamic State, and if you practice it, you become one of them. For Muslims who hate the group, the Islamic State's claim that there is no god but God and Muhammad is his prophet is a statement of faith that forces a painful admission: the Islamic State is a Muslim phenomenon. Wicked, perhaps. Ultra-violent, certainly. But Muslim, by definition. No one wants the most well-known practitioners of his religion also to be its most fanatical and blood thirsty. Most religions have zealots that the mainstream would prefer to make disappear, and the Muslim bind is not unique [. . .] The Islamic State is as Islamic as the above are Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist or Catholic, which is to say it is thoroughly Islamic, even though it is, by its own proud admission, a minority sect. Whether it is "legitimate" is a question other believers answer for themselves, overwhelmingly in the negative. But these questions of legitimacy are a matter of opinion and dogma. The fact the majority believes the Islamic State to be deviant does not make them objectively deviant, any more than many Christians' view of Mormonism as deviant makes Mormonism illegitimate or a perversion of Christianity [. . .] Being in a minority, violent or not, does not equate to being illegitimate [. . .] It takes astonishing levels of denial to claim, as uncountable Muslims and non-Muslims have, that the Islamic State has "nothing to do with Islam", merely because the group's heinous behavior clashes with mainstream or liberal Muslim interpretation.

The artifacts are often what people latch on to most in a church, though they are expressions of so much beneath the surface. Imagine growing up in a healthy church. The church is generous, kind, nurturing, full of truth, and loving. You grow up loving your church. This church happens to have some programs that have deeply impacted you. Maybe it was a children’s program or a great worship ministry. In your mind, even without realizing it, your affinity for belief of the church is connected to the visible expressions of the church. Now, years long past that first church experience, artifacts that seem nearest to those original expressions will just feel right. Because of this, people are often really attached to the artifacts. While changing actual beliefs is the most difficult task, changing artifacts often creates the most pain. In order to understand culture, it is critical to recognize the differences in the layers. It is faster to correct unwanted behaviors or artifacts in a culture, but only addressing behavior is insufficient. Unless all the layers of culture are addressed, other deviant behaviors will pop up in the place of recently addressed ones. This game of behavioral whack-a-mole becomes an endless cycle of battling unnamed enemies underneath the surface. The unwanted behaviors are symptoms; an unhealthy culture is the sickness. Wherever we find stubborn sticking points in a church culture, there is always inconsistency between the actual beliefs and values and the stated ones. If there are deeply held assumptions and beliefs within the culture that are incompatible with the desired future that leaders are leading toward, then the beliefs beneath the surface must be addressed. If our churches are going to have strong cultures, there must be actual beliefs driven deeply into the church that are articulated and then expressed in artifacts. There will be harmony and congruence between all three layers of culture. The church won’t settle for mere alignment between the articulated values and the artifacts. The leaders will push for the actual beliefs to be deeply rooted in the church. The true beliefs and assumptions of a church culture are not only written on signs, posters, and e-mail footers. The truly embraced convictions of a local church are written in the lives of believers as they interact with one another and the world. Church leaders often

For a leader to diagnose a church for a culture compatible for developing leaders requires a good bit of courage and even more humility. The leadership task of discovering problems rather than ignoring them is not necessarily a well-worn path in the world of Christian leadership. We struggle to admit something is off or wrong in our cultures. For many, “ministry success” is the only acceptable narrative, and the demand for it has been fertile soil for hubris that has plagued leaders longing for or envious of ministry celebrity status. But if we are to be churches that train the very best leaders, we must put our egos to death. For the leader who longs for the church to repent, change often begins with the leader’s repentance. While we are wasting our time if we only address behavior while ignoring the wrong convictions, to discover what a culture fundamentally believes, a leader must work backward from the behaviors. While it is foolish and futile to attempt to change culture by only addressing behavior, one can learn the culture by watching the collective behavior of the church, by observing what is applauded and what is seen as normal. By observing the aggregate behaviors of the people, one can get a good sense of what the church really believes. We offer the following framework to help church leaders assess if the culture actually believes in and values leadership development. While this list of attributes does not cover everything that can or should be present in a church culture, we believe this list includes critical cultural attributes necessary for leadership development. The framework was built from the theological beliefs outlined in the previous chapter along with potential deviant expressions that corrode a church culture. As you consider your church culture, do the attributes on the left describe the church or those on the right? Working backward from the behavioral analysis, it is possible to make some theological assessments for church culture.

For churches that observe behaviors from the list on the right, this is a strong indication that the associated convictions are not consistently held within the body. Leaders are often surprised when these deviant behaviors manifest, especially in a church with strong, biblical doctrinal and mission statements. We, as leaders, often assume that the things we hold dear transfer by osmosis to our church members. Sadly, it just doesn’t work this way. For example, many evangelical churches pride themselves on having a robust theology and conviction about the immanent return of Christ. And, if a majority of members in one of these churches was asked how they should live in light of that conviction, many would say something like, “I should live ready for His return any day.” Yet the same church may demonstrate consistently a lack of urgency. How can this be? Simple. People don’t always really believe what they say they believe. There is often disparity between actual beliefs and articulated ones. These cultural inconsistencies are pervasive and no church is immune. At Austin Stone, where Kevin serves as lead pastor, there was a time at the start of the church when this truth became so clear. For years, the leadership team talked about the call of every Christian to be a part of the mission of God. Yet, when looking deeply at the church, something was not quite right. The worship services were growing, but impact in the city was not. The team knew it needed more than just a sermon, more than just a class or a strategy. The church needed a cultural change. The Austin Stone was certain that God was calling her to be a church for the city of Austin, but teaching a list of “dos and don’ts” wasn’t going to get her there.4 The seeds for a city-loving, God-honoring church were in there, but until God altered some of the fundamental beliefs as a local church, nothing would have changed. The church needed to really believe the urgency of the mission, needed to really believe that the Lord was inviting His people to join Him on mission in all spheres of life. Culture change is key.

Without cultural change, we are hopeless to change existing results.5 Of all changes, cultural change is the most difficult. It is essentially changing the collective DNA of an entire group of people. To understand how to change culture, it is helpful to know how change works in general. Changing Church Culture Change is extremely difficult. One of the most vivid and striking examples of this painful reality is the inability of heart patients to change even when confronted with grim reality. Roughly six hundred thousand people have a heart bypass each year in the United States. These patients are told they must change. They must change their eating habits, must exercise, and quit smoking and drinking. If they do not, they will die. The case for change is so compelling that they are literally told, “Change or die.”6 Yet despite the clear instructions and painful reality, 90 percent of the patients do not change. Within two years of hearing such brutal facts, they remain the same. Change is that challenging for people. For the vast majority of patients, death is chosen over change. Yet leadership is often about change, about moving a group of people to a new future. Perhaps the most recognized leadership book on leading an organization to change is John Kotter’s Leading Change. And when ministry leaders speak or write about leadership, they often look to the wisdom found in the book of Nehemiah, as it chronicles Nehemiah’s leadership in rebuilding the wall around Jerusalem. Nehemiah led wide-scale change. Nehemiah never read Kotter’s book, and he led well without it. The Lord well equipped Nehemiah for the task of leading God’s people. But it is fascinating to see how Nehemiah’s actions mirror much of what Kotter has observed in leaders who successfully lead change. With a leadership development culture in mind, here are the eight steps for leading change, according to Kotter, and how one can see them in Nehemiah’s leadership. 1. Establish a sense of urgency. Leaders must create dissatisfaction with an ineffective status quo. They must help others develop a sense of angst over the brokenness around them. Nehemiah heard a negative report from Jerusalem, and it crushed him to the point of weeping, fasting, and prayer (Neh. 1:3–4). Sadly, the horrible situation in Jerusalem had become the status quo. The disgrace did not bother the people in the same way that it frustrated Nehemiah. After he arrived in Jerusalem, he walked around and observed the destruction. Before he launched the vision of rebuilding the wall, Nehemiah pointed out to the people that they were in trouble and ruins. He started with urgency, not vision. Without urgency, plans for change do not work. If you assess your culture and find deviant behaviors that reveal some inaccurate theological beliefs, you must create urgency by pointing these out. If you assess your culture and find a lack of leadership development, a sense of urgency must be created. Leadership development is an urgent matter because the mission the Lord has given us is so great.

7. Consolidate improvements and produce more change. Effective change gives leaders freedom and credibility for more change. The reconstruction of the wall was one aspect of the change that Nehemiah implemented. The overriding problem was the disgrace and destruction of the people. After their return from exile, the people did not initially reinstate the worship of God and observance of the Law. Furthermore, there were numerous social injustices that were tolerated and led by the officials and nobles. The completion of the wall was, in itself, a huge short-term win. It only took fifty-two days to complete, but its impact was enormous, as surrounding nations knew it was “accomplished by our God” (6:15–16). The success of the reconstruction allowed Nehemiah to lead bolder changes under the banner of eliminating the disgrace and destruction of the people. 8. Anchor new approaches in the culture. Leaders do not create a new culture in order to make changes; instead, they make changes to create a new culture. Nehemiah inherited a culture of mediocrity, indifference, and oppression. The walls were in ruin, which made the people susceptible to attack at any time. The people were out of fellowship with God. They had lost their sense of identity as God’s chosen people. Nehemiah diagnosed the culture of the people by observing their behavior. He confronted them on the incongruence between how they were living and who they said they were. “We are the people of God!” Every change led to the realization by the people that they were God’s possession, that God was their protector and strength. Every aspect of the change movement was integrated into the unified whole of being the people of God. As the deviant expressions of the church are diagnosed and the inaccurate actual beliefs confronted, right beliefs must be rooted in the culture. Initiating the right behaviors in a church can help change the culture, but the culture will not be crystallized unless the right behaviors are rooted in the right actual beliefs. For example, ministry leaders can initiate mission opportunities for people in the church. These right behaviors can impact the church to think externally, to love the city, to care for those outside the walls of the church. But if leaders are not simultaneously rooting the right behavior in the why behind the mission activity, the actual belief that the people of God are to join God on mission, then the right behaviors will be very fragile and short-lived. Don’t settle for artifact modification; go for cultural transformation. But to get there, the right actions must be connected to the right beliefs.

Free to be oneself" in fact means: free to project one's desires onto produced goods. "Free to enjoy life" means: free to regress and be irrational, and thus adapt to a certain social organization of production. The sales "philosophy" is in no way encumbered by paradox. It advertises a rational goal (to enlighten people about their wants) and scientific methods, in order to promote irrational behavior in man (to accept being only a complex of immediate drives and to be satisfied with their satisfaction). Even drives are dangerous however, and the neo- sorcerers of consumption are careful not to liberate people in accordance with some explosive end state of happiness. They only offer the resolution of tensions, that is to say, a freedom by default: "Every time a tension differential is created, which leads to frustration and action, we can expect a product to overcome this tension by responding to the aspirations of the group. Then the product has a chance of success." The goal is to allow the drives that were previously blocked by mental determinants {instances) (taboo, superego, guilt) to crystallize on objects, concrete determinants where the explosive force of desire is annulled and the ritual repressive function of social organization is materialized. The freedom of existence that pits the individual against society is dangerous. But the freedom to possess is harmless, since it enters the game without knowing it. As Dr Dichter claims, this freedom is a moral one. It is even the ultimate in morality, since the consumer is simultaneously reconciled with himself and with the group. He becomes the perfect social being. Traditional morality only required that the individual conform to the group; advertising "philosophy" requires that they now conform to themselves, and that they resolve their own conflicts. In this way it invests him morally as never before. Taboos, anxieties, and neuroses, which made the individual a deviant and an outlaw, are lifted at the cost of a regression in the security of objects, thus This sales 14 The System of Objects reinforcing the images of the Father and the Mother. The irrationality of drives increasingly more "free" at the base will go hand in hand with control increasingly more restricted at the top.