This paper will consider how institutional ideologies of deviance are adapted to meet the functionalist histories of the specific institution. Thus, the medical community pathologizes human behaviors, or, for example, the police respond to deviance as violating social law. The academic community must theoretically negotiate and rationalize its contradictory role of both endorsing the structural oppressions in society, and engaging with the consequential social issues in contexts of problem-solving. This paper will be deviating from the ideological assumption that such a thing as "normal" exists. Instead, this paper will attempt to explain how alcoholism and suicide can be understood as rational responses to an inescapably irrational society. 7 pgs. 16 f/c. 3b.