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A general anxiety, disconnection and
dissatisfaction affects our modern, globalised
societies, if we are to believe the reports coming followed by the reinvention of new forms of
from many quarters. Even advocates for the ‘collective joy’. The medieval Christian church,
free market acknowledge the damage to social for example, inadvertently invents carnival in its
cohesion and the deleterious consequences relentless efforts to expel rapturous music and
for individual happiness wrought by unceasing dancing from church grounds − transforming
competition and the pursuit of profit. This social ritualised activity into more secular forms of
malaise has been considered from two aspects in celebration. As the higher strata of society
particular. Firstly an obsession with community continuously sought to distance themselves from
as an alternative, or at least a necessary adjunct, ‘the rabble’, the ecstatic behaviour of large groups
to the ties that bind us together as economic came to be perceived − often correctly − as a
rivals and consumers. Secondly, there’s been threat to the social order. But while carnival (in
a critical examination of pleasure or (a more Paris in 1789) or ecstatic rituals (as with voodoo
psychoanalytically loaded term) enjoyment − in Haiti) sometimes provided cover for resistance
usually castigating popular or commercial forms and revolution, the mistake would be to think
of hedonism and entertainment. of collective festivities in politically instrumental
Regardless of the political inflection given terms: the passion that cements large numbers of
to these investigations, there’s often an intrinsic people together in a wilful loss of self is political
conservatism in operation: an attempt to heal the a priori in so far as everyone comes together as
structural causes of conflict and resentment with social equals.
the sticking plaster of harmonious respect on This raises the question of how festivals
the one hand; a rejection of excessive pleasure such as the Roman Saturnalia or the medieval
which resembles the very puritanism that formed Feast of Fools, which involved the overturning
the bedrock of capitalism on the other. Barbara of hierarchies and social roles for one day only,
Ehrenreich’s book cuts across both these aspects function as a harmless outlet for potent desires.
to make a case for the kind of ecstatic rituals and But it also allows Ehrenreich to distinguish true
festivities that have bound large groups of people collective passion from the stage-managed
together in communal joy since prehistoric times, spectacles that so often pass for it today, and
but have largely disappeared today. These which have given the whole notion such a bad
passionate collective attachments denote a name (most notoriously the Nuremberg Rallies).
‘more intense form of pleasure than anything This is where Freud comes in for a bashing.
implied by the word community.’ His inability to conceive of pleasure except in
The story that unfolds, from the wild sexual terms meant that crowds of people losing
ritual worship of Dionysus by the Greeks up to themselves in states of effervescence were
the rock concerts and raves of the present day, is perceived as the individual’s love for the leader
one of continuous suppression by the authorities − their wish to be dominated. Ehrenreich’s plea is that we move from spectacle to carnival, from
enjoyment to joy. Dean Kenning
DANCING IN THE
STREETS: A HISTORY
OF COLLECTIVE JOY
By Barbara Ehrenreich
Granta Books, £16.99/$26 (hardcover)
p138-141 Books AR Jul07.indd 138 6/6/07 03:08:25
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