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Engines of Sacrality: A Footnote on Randall Collins' Interaction Ritual Chains (2013)
(A review of Randall Collins’ Interaction Ritual Chains , with speculative detours into the political theory of ritual) I have previous...
We are literally “pumped up” by a successful ritual – we experience a buzz, exhilaration, enthousiasmos, “ collective effervescence.” A great lecture, a sports spectacle in a vast stadium, a great concert, a fire-and-brimstone sermon, the rituals of solidarity among small military units; these interactions motivate us, that is, they set us in motion, send us on our way to act beyond the immediate confines of the group situation (to read the book discussed in the lecture, follow the news of your sports team or music band and wear the team colors, proselytize for your sect, attack the enemy, and perhaps also to do the crappy jobs necessary to gather the material resources to do all of these things). … [A]lmost without exception, every young creature is incapable of keeping either its body or its tongue quiet, [653e] and is always striving to move and to cry, leaping and skipping and delighting in dances and games, and uttering, also, noises of every description. Collins mostly discusses power in terms of deference rituals or the ability to produce calculable consequences, but the theory he offers can provide resources for thinking about the sources of collective action more generally.
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