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version seven. http://demongin.org |
MySpace.com: A Cultural Anthropology
Victor Turner, communitas and the language of effects...as they pertain to MySpace.
Thursday, 2005-02-03 | Classic Gin, Commemorative, On the Internet, Social Studies
According to Victor Turner, one of the Brahmin bulls of cultural anthropology, communitas is an unmitigated identity within an undifferentiated group. Thanks to the unusual group dynamic that emerges when solidarity groups form ad hoc in response to some external effect, the 'I' and 'thou' that (Martin Buber says) normally mediate interpersonal exchanges are themselves effected. Specifically, they are rendered ineffective: the normal effects that the use of 'I' and 'thou' produce are not observable.
Whereas the pronouns 'I' and 'thou' connote and, as Turner alleges, effect otherness and mutuality--causing otherness and creating mutuality in the same moment that they are uttered--communitas is a situation in which no such differentiation exists. In a communitas moment, true unity and unanimity are, however momentarily, realized.
The notion that other selves (or just plain 'others') exist in a manner similar to the subject self (insular, complete, unique, etc.) does not exist within communitas. All that exists is an effectively undifferentiated group of humans.
Turner's communitas is therefore a transformative experience that does more than relax social boundaries--in an instance of genuine communitas there exists a shared essence that is unrecognized by each individual such that each party recognizes the other as essentially similar; the group that experiences communitas together is truly undifferentiated since they have lost their ability to differentiate among each other.
As with all temporal phenomena, i.e. phenomena that exist or are present momentarily and then wink out of existence the next, communitas has a beginning and an end. The beginning and end are liminal, bookend periods that link our moment of communitas to prior and subsequent time and also isolate it from prior and subsequent time.
According to our man Turner, the liminal periods on either side of the moment are those periods in which vertical (legislative, hierarchical) boundaries that usually organize social interaction in a group are plastic and mutable--we can call these liminal periods 'spontaneous' communitas because that's what Turner calls them. Spontaneity, of course, cannot last forever; the liminal space can be defined and identified only as such and thus as the space between two structures (the space between pre-communitas and communitas, for example). Liminal moments are those that are responding to the previous moment and anticipating (or moving on to) the next; structures are dynamic here because the situation is changing (but has not yet changed).
Basically, the social cement is wet on either side of communitas.
These liminal spaces, it follows, rely directly upon structured social exchange for definition and constitution: you can't have wet cement moment unless you've got a dry cement moment in front of it or leading up to it. Consider, for example, the first Franciscan friars who identified themselves as lowermost within an existing social order during their liminal moment of 'spontaneous' communitas; existing social structures were maleable for a moment and allowed Francis et al. to monkey with them, but then quickly hardened, reincorporating Francis' adjustments into the previously firm social structure.
Liminal moments are thus moments of structural fugue. Finally, it appears, in these liminal moments where the boundaries and organizing principles of society are suspended, that the inmates are running the asylum, but there is still an asylum; the boundaries are flexible for a second, not demolished and certainly not totally rearranged.
Considering the medieval institution called carnivale or the Roman Saturnalia, we realize that the oppressive organizational structures within society at which the masses famously chafe are made bearable by these liminal moments (whether or not they are, as in our examples, authorized by the state). For one day, Bibulus is allowed to put on his master's tunic and order him around the house and Bibulus is well-pleased at this departure from the customary order.
Similarly, in the office of President of the United States we see a much mythologized and carefully maintained consensus that our president is not some kind of archon but the 'first among equals.' Our president is our princeps, for we shall not under any circumstances tolerate an imperator. There is thus a certain paradoxical nature to the liminal, moments of structural fugue that bookend communitas; we know that there is no such thing as a first among equals, but we are nevertheless content to raise up another over ourselves because we see him standing in line to cast his vote with the rest of us on election day. It doesn't make sense, but if everyone agrees to stop thinking about it, we manage to get a remarkable amount of business taken care of: if our masters permit the occasional moment of structural fugue and momentarily submit to being commoners like us, we, like Bibulus, are well-pleased.
These liminal moments or liminial institutions within society, i.e. these moments or institutions that seem elastic, border Turner's communitas. What makes communitas possible is a suspension of conversation and thus legislation; we all agree, for we are victims to the rapture of communitas, not to question or explain how we understand the present moment and also not to consider, question or otherwise acknowledge the existence of contrary or additional understandings among our fellows. We suspend our critical faculties for a moment, each man understanding his role as he naturally understands it and not reflecting on his understanding, his experience of understanding or how it might contrast with the understandings of others around him; thus communitas is brought into existence by a moment of suspended interrogation.
The utter mindlessness and Monkey House cacophony of MySpace.com was once a moment of communitas.
The liminal, 'spontaneous' moment that prefaced the communitas was that one in which the anonynomity of the internet and the irresistible human urge to construct one's identity were elided in the unexpected emergence of a novel technology. Users were awash in the sheer joy of inventing an identity for themselves that was a complicated or as simple as they wanted. The inaugural structural fugue happened when users realized as a group that they had a venue for self-invention, a blank firmament upon which they could arrange the stars as they saw fit. This premise--i.e. the premise that we're going to meet up and portray ourselves however the motherfuck we want--was understood in as many different ways as there were subscribing users. Thus social boundaries and yea, verily order itself was mitigated, normal social boundaries became esemplastic and all because regular structures of social interaction and communication had lost their binding power when the mass of users agreed to become undifferentiated, to become unique as a group.
This unique group, however, quickly organized and self-legislated. The promise of a Persian-Bazaar of self-expression gave way to a system of structurally enforced norms for behavior, communication, expression, etc.
In short, as quickly as it arrived, the moment had passed.
Having been legislated and adumbrated, the website is now just another on-line community. Once, however, it dangled the carrot of true disorder in front of a teenage user-base that was clever enough to recognize and refute (i.e. affirm) its own oppressive social structures and communitas momentarily existed.
It was a lot like grunge, if you think about it. Which itself was a lot like the Vagina Monologues. Both of which were, of course, very similar to facial piercings, when they were the vogue in the late 90's.
The moral of this story is that, try as you might, there is no escape from the tyranny of socially enforced norms. Which is why I say that there's no sense trying to break your fetters, drop your oar and swim like Hell for the beach: ships don't stop on a dime and they're much faster than swimmers.
Communitas is social fugue, not social exodus.
