Wine Country

Wine country was great...if you have never gone, you should go. Santa Barbara may not have the name of Napa, but the Dutch-ness of the area is pretty cool. Which brings me to the word or concept of the week: collective effervescence. Long hailed in my classes as the coolest sociological idea ever, effervescence is the bubbly, excited, ephemeral yet lasting feeling of group life. Emile Durkheim, the hero of this site and a French sociologist at the turn of the previous century, coined this term when he was considering what made people act voluntarily or conform to the basic normative structure of a society or in altruistic ways with close kin or really good friends.


In essence, we all know what it is like to be alive and deal with the drone of everyday life, right? Nearly all decisions, interactions, and thoughts in our head are self-interested or instrumental (means-->ends). The work world, going to the store to pickup something for dinner or shampoo or something like that, dealing with co-workers, dealing with strangers on the subway or bus, dealing with people on the highway in their little worlds with their music blaring, text messaging, putting on their makeup...everything is self-interested because there is little "moral" (nor religious, but a deeper word for social) bindings between most people - that is, we are Americans, and that is about the furthest most social ties go. How do you feel after work? After a week of work? Drained, right? Your batteries are expended.


Well, Durkheim reasoned that all groups (and a group could be two people in love with each other or just friends) have highly sanctified rituals ranging from how they greet each other to how they enjoy each other's company. A ritual, by the way, is three things: synchronized behavior, shared common focus (on some type of physical, social, or intellectual object), and shared emotional focus. In the process of being in a group and participating in its ritual, emotions which are exchanged normally and make interactions feel good or bad (you notice the bad most often when an interaction with another person turns sour and you get that butterfly feeling in your gut telling you something is wrong), become intensified to the point where you lose your self-interest temporally, or for as long as the interaction has occurred. Political rallies, religious ceremonies, concerts are all examples of large scale moments of collective effervescence, though going out to dinner on your anniversary or meeting up once a year with old college buddies can do the same.

The group recharges our batteries. For hours, days, or weeks afterwards we feels the buzz of the group. When we hear the music of our band or reminisce with someone about a great time in the past, we rekindle the faint emotions of the past and prime ourselves to feel them again. The wine trip was a good bonding time. It created a situation where emotions were heightened, by the fourth winery behaviors were synchronized, and the focus of our actions and attitudes was shared. The result: good feelings, continued buzz, and recharged batteries. Humans are emotional creatures in more ways than we realize. Relationships collapse when effervescence is no longer generated either because of a lack of effort or because of other factors. We need to engage in social rituals regularly with our significant others, otherwise we risk the unraveling of social fabric. The nation, albeit loosely connected, needs these things too; the intensified polarization of people along party lines has made this a difficult proposition. We are a house divided because we never come together and affirm the social order!