When I wrote what was for me the first collegiate piece that I felt went beyond rote academic exercise, it came back from Rory with a letter grade and a three-word addendum: "Say it, man."
Eighteen years later, he and some friends have started blogging and it's nice to return the favor, in response to a short introductory treatise that we'd all do well to consider.
Communitas and social value
May 18th, 2009 by Rory Turner
Community is one of the great mysteries of human experience. In what ways are we or are we not connected with other people, and other being, animate and inanimate? The notion of communitas proposes that a sense of fellowship is primary to human beings, that through the gifts of presence, resonance, and sharing, we can and do find deeper relationship with one another. A key element of cultural sustainability is to foster that urge to come together in culturally meaningful ways to share through play and other forms of cultural performance, a place to discover and feel communitas. What are some of the ways that you have been able to witness or participate in communitas? What moved you about the experience? What impact did these experiences have for your life?
I believe that such experiences are defining of human life, culture and community. I believe that by helping encourage the human capacities and condition that make communitas possible, we significantly improve the quality and value of life.
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Communitas
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Communitas is a Latin noun referring either to an unstructured community in which people are equal, or to the very spirit of community. It also has special significance as a loanword in cultural anthropology and the social sciences.
Communitas is an intense community spirit, the feeling of great social equality, solidarity, and togetherness. Communitas is characteristic of people experiencing liminality together. This term is used to distinguish the modality of social relationship from an area of common living. There is more than one distinction between structure and communitas. The most familiar is the difference of secular and sacred. Every social position has something sacred about it. This sacred component is acquired during rites of passages, through the changing of positions. Part of this sacredness is achieved through the transient humility learned in these phases, this allows people to reach a higher position.
Communitas is an acute point of community. It takes community to the next level and allows the whole of the community to share a common experience, usually through a rite of passage. This brings everyone onto an equal level, even if you are higher in position, you have been lower and you know what that is.
Turner (1969, Pg.132) distinguishes between:
existential or spontaneous communitas, the transient personal experience of togetherness
normative communitas, communitas organized into a permanent social system
ideological communitas, which can be applied to many utopian social models
Communitas as a concept used by Victor Turner in his study of ritual has recently been criticised by anthropologists. See John Eade & Michael J. Sallnow's Contesting the Sacred (1991)
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As I sit on the Eastern Shore of Delaware reading those words, it gives me pleasure to think that the minds of New Albany are still searching for something beyond NO.
As I sit here recumbent on the northern shore of the Ohio River, I'm exhilarated to know that NAC continues to promote an open-mindedness, an awareness, an appreciation for communitas.
I will say, again, WHAT is a vacation?
John makes a point that I think needs to be further expounded upon. Community has a spiritual component to it.
I find that often we speak a great deal about our 'rights' as individuals, but rarely about our responsibility towards others. Most often, when responsibility is spoken of it is about being responsible for yourself and your family. From a theological perspective, however, responsibility is about much more than self, but a responsibility for others as well.
Much of what passes for modern day thought via talk radio is actually the philosophy of Ayn Rand who was totally opposed to any idea of mutual responsibility. It was, from her perspective, very much the survival of the fittest. For her, being charitable was almost the worst thing one could do. Tragically I hear people who profess themselves to be Christians cite her ideas not seeming to recognize that her views were, in so many ways, the antithesis of the Gospel message.
Early in the Bible the character of Cain asks one of the seminal question in the Bible: "Am I my brother's keeper?"
The rest of the Bible answers that question in the affirmative.
That, to me, is the foundation of communitas.
Thanks to John Manzo for crediting me for such deep thoughts. I can't take that credit. I simply followed the link provided by bluegill and referenced it by way of illustration.
I think the northern shore of the Ohio is a fine place for the Bookseller. May he live long and prosper in his chosen venue.
If he wants to place pins on the map, I'm now in the Shenandoah Valley heading back to the center of all.
A vacation is that which you do, when you aren't doing what you do.
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