Maffesoli and Tribes

The Time of the Tribes focuses on the importance of the everday lives of individuals in the postmodern society.  Meffesoli asserts that “We are witnessing the usurping of linear History by the restorative myth; there is a return to vitalism” (3).  Rather than having one group History for the “masses” we have a renewed importance on the movements of individuals into and out of smaller “micro-groups” he refers to as “tribes” (6).

Rather than going from here and reiterating many of the same points touched on in most of the other posts (a difficulty one has when one posts late), I would rather focus on the curious analogy Maffesoli makes throughout to the “restorative myth” in the realm of religious practices.  Okay so it’s not that “curious,” but I found it an interesting way to enter this discussion of tribes, though I suppose it is rather fitting.

“It is certainly possible, if only as a working hypothesis to apply the double process of social reliance and of negotiation with the holy characteristic of the early Christian communities to the various tribes that are made and unmade in praesenti” (22).

Relation of words to the transmission of food and drink: comparison with the unifying affect of the Christian eucharist: “This leads back to the confirmation, expressed countless times, of the link between the divine, the social whole and proximity” (25).

“the divine issues forth from daily realities and develops gradually through the sharing of simple and routine gestures” (25).

Experience of “life”: “We might call the spiritual attitude ‘dionysian’ and the more sensual perspective ‘dionyisac’” however, they are both founded on the primacy of experience, on a deep vitalism and a more or less explicity vision of the organicity of hte various elements of the cosmos” (32).

The “social divine”: “We could also use the word ‘religion’, if it is used to describe that which unites us as a community; it is less a content, which is the realm of faith, than a container, that is, a common matrix, a foundation of the ‘being-together’” (38).  Why all the religion stuff.

“a relativization of the unifying structures and institutions is underway.  There is no reason to get upset about it; on the contrary, since the effervescence flowing from this polytheism is on the whole the surest sign of a renewed dynamism in all aspects of social life, whether the economy, spiritual or intellectual life or, of course, the new forms of sociality” (48)

“It is the demonic figure found in all myths and religions, the biblical Satan who refuses to be subjugated.  Although it is occasionally destructive, the satanic figure continues to exert a basic function” (48).

Oh wait, can’t forget the entire section in “Tribalism,” “3. The ‘religious model’” (82 ff).   “it is important to use religious images in order to sieze in nuce the forms of social aggregation.  This transversal or comparative view recognizes that it is from a collectively experienced imagination that human history is inaugurated.  Despite the caution we must exercise when dealing with etymology, religion (religare) – reliance – is a useful way of understanding social ties” (82).

In this it’s all about “affinity groups” (85). 

I would probably quote more than half the book if I kept going, but I feel this covers most of the basis for this use of religion as an analogy or “model” for Maffesoli’s discussion of the creation and interaction and networking of these things he (or rather the translator) calls Tribes.

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