January 19, 2006
by Russell Cole

Sociologists usually consider two dynamics when providing explanations for the social systems that are instantiated by the interactions of the individuals comprising a pocket of humanity; a cultural group; a society: The first consideration is the actual structure of the social system, itself.  I shall refer to this as a synchronic description of a social system.  The second dimension to be included in the analysis is a description of the processes that lead to social change.  I shall refer to this domain of analysis as the diachronic element to the sociological explanations provided for the observable social events occurring within the context of a social group, or aggregate.

Sociologists typically tend to concentrate their efforts on one of the before mentioned elements of analysis or the other, but rarely conceptualize theoretical frameworks that integrate the two dynamics of social interaction.  However, there is an exception to this generalization regarding sociological discourse.  It is provided by an anthropologists of the latter half of the previous century.  I am referring to Victor Turner, and his conception of communitas, which is the process through which social change occurs while continuing to maintain a social group or body.

Communitas is a liminal state; a state that falls in between two to other states, which possess structural properties.  The intermediary state, communitas, however, fails to instantiate structural properties, and is, in fact, defined by its absence of structure.  Therefore, communitas is a state of flux; a point of in-determinability; where the next state is decided by unpredictable factors which consist of the agencies of the individuals comprising the social group.  Communitas is a condition where the only aggregate property, which continues to persist, is the pure solidarity between and among the individuals within the culture.  It is a state of pure community, void of the structural elements that we often associate with society.  This aggregate property can be thought of as the pure emotive attraction between and among the individuals, who are involved in the communitas, and comprise the social group.

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I now want to connect the concept of communitas with the concept of Extreme Democracy.  Extreme democracy is a form of organization that is also constantly in flux, undergoing revision and change, due to the fact that there is no institutionalized structure.  The shape that the organization assumes is always dependent upon the innovation and unpredictable inventiveness of the agents included in this network, who are not constrained by any objectified statuses and roles, connected with those statuses.  There is affiliation but no institutionalization. By extension:  there is community, but no society;  there is solidarity, but there lacks any structural impositions that are reinforced by the regulatory mechanisms, which maintain the integrity of a social structure.  An Extremely Democratic organization is completely voluntary and completely egalitarian in the respect that there are no per-established statuses forming a hierarchical, vertical formation.  Statuses are constantly subject to revision based upon the agency of the individuals who are emotively attached to one another by virtue of the fact that they identify one another with a collective history and a shared teleology, or purpose, with regards to the fact that the agents perceive one another as working in conjunction under the pretense of a shared cause; although that cause can be reinvented by the agents who remain in the organization, in an ongoing basis, but is typically maintained in a form that does not alter its predecessor too abruptly, because such a change would alienate much of the membership.  In short, the telos that unites the agents included in the organization is subject to Extreme Democracy.  It is shaped and formed through the decisions made by the agents.

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Russell Cole [send him email] is a contributing author to the Populist Party of America, and is the coordinator for the Populist Party's Midwest Alliance, the Midwest Populist Party.  Read more from Russell Cole at the Midwest Populist Party blog.