A Sociological Take on Violating Folkways Sanctions and Reactions

Violating a Folkway

The norm that I have chosen to break is to discuss a subject that is related to politics and religion, which are two subjects that people tend to avoid discussing in polite society. This is a folkway that has consistently been brought to my attention in the past: at my work, our team leader has told us that two things he never talks about with clients are politics and religion, and while he may have strong views about both, he makes it a point to avoid these topics as they can quickly lead to tension in a relationship. On a separate occasion, my mother-in-law also made this point when at a family dinner she noted that the two subjects that are not allowed at the dinner table are politics and religion. I could also add "money" to this folkway as, according to Folkways Nowadays, the three things that one should not discuss in polite society are religion, politics and money (Atkins, 2015) -- and the subject I came upon that I concluded would be a violation of the first two would also be a violation of the third. Thus, I decided to break this folkway by bringing up a subject that I determined would make just about everyone uncomfortable: that was the Jewish Holocaust. Now, just bringing up the Holocaust wasn't likely, I considered, to make anyone upset because it is something that virtually everyone agrees was a horrible tragedy. So, I decided that I would bring it up and then deny that it ever happened and see how people reacted to this violation of the folkway of not discussing politics, religion or money -- in this manner, by provoking a reaction.

The Jewish Holocaust plays a part in the American political spectrum because it is viewed as the greatest evil ever perpetrated. It plays a part in religion because it was Jews who were targeted, and it plays a part in the subject of money because of the gold that was said to be confiscated. Some revisionist historians claim that the Holocaust is a hoax and that there has never been any proof of its actually happened (Cole, 2015). Now, while I could have just broken this folkway by bringing up politics, such as something about Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton, I wanted something that would really be provocative to almost everyone (and since I don't know any Holocaust Deniers, I believed this would be a safe and perceivably rude way to make sure of violating this folkway).

The first time I broke this folkway was at family dinner. Present were my mother, father and brothers and sisters and a couple of their kids. I said that I'd been reading and that I'd found out that the Holocaust never happened, that 6 million Jews did not die in gas chambers and that Hitler was not the evil man he has been made out to be. The response from my father was instantaneous: he was visibly shaken and stated that he knows a man whose mother was a prisoner in a German concentration camp. His voice trembled and he was emotionally upset by my comment. A sister made a snarky comment that I was a "Holocaust Denier" and dismissed my assertion as absurd. My brother, on the other hand, stated that he had also read things about this subject that made him question the official narrative. My mother had no reaction and made no comment but she did seem disturbed that this was a conversation that we were having over dinner.

The next time I attempted to break this folkway was with a group of friends. We were gathered at a bar -- there was six of us -- and I asked everyone, "So what do you guys think about the Holocaust?" There was blank staring. One said, "Uh, it was bad?" I pushed it and said, "Yes, well what would you say if I told you it never happened?" Another said, "I'd say you were retarded." Still another said, "Pretty sure it happened there. I think that you can go see the camps and all that." "I've seen photos of dead bodies," another said. I attempted to make arguments to see how far I could push it and since I had read up on the revisionists, I stated, "Yes, well most of those people died from typhus and starvation. The Allies had blown up the supply routes and nothing could get through to the camps at the end of the war. The whole gas chambers myth is based on the lie that Zyklon B was used to gas the people but it was actually used to kill lice, which carried typhus and which was killing people. The Germans weren't killing Jews, they were trying to save them. That is why they would shave hair and make them shower." This so offended and shocked my friends that they actually turned against me at this point. They called me names and acted like I was out of my mind. This was another emotional response that I did not expect. Clearly questioning the Holocaust was something approaching a taboo issue. In fact, I learned later that denying the Holocaust is actually illegal in Germany and that people go to jail for doing this.

In our own country I had imagined that this would simply be a clever way to violate the folkway of never discussing politics or religion in polite society. Looking back, I think a more prudent way of doing this may have been to quote the Pope and ask people what they thought about whatever latest comment he made: perhaps something about how the Pope commented that building walls is not Christian in response to Trump's decision to build a wall between Mexico and the U.S., to which Trump responded by tweeting a picture of the wall around Vatican City. Still there is something about Trump that I felt would not really disrupt the folkway -- not in the same way that the Holocaust subject did. So I continued with this method. And my next experiment was at work.

At work, I waited till I was in the break room with a number of other co-workers -- there were about half a dozen or so -- and then I broke the ice by saying, "So I saw this interesting documentary on the Holocaust the other day. Supposedly it was all a big lie -- it didn't happen." "Oh boy," said one co-worker and he immediately got up and left. My other co-workers said absolutely nothing. One or two made sounds of affirmation that they had heard me, such as, "Hm," or "Mm-hm," but that was all. None of them looked at me or made eye contact. In fact, I thought the silence was very eerie and decided not to push it as I began to get the feeling that by pushing it I might actually get myself in trouble with my bosses should someone complain. So I switched the subject to something else entirely -- and got the conversation moving about a new series on Netflix and then we talked about sports. Thus, at work I learned that one may talk about movies and sports -- but religion and politics are off limits.