Communitas strains toward universalism and openness; it must be distinguished, for example, in principle from Durkheim’s notion of “mechanical solidarity,” which is a bond between individuals who are collectively in opposition to another solidarity group.

Here communitas is asserted for the “part” at the expense of the “whole,” hence denies its own distinctive quality. In “solidarity,” unity depends on “in-group, out-group” oppositions, on the We-They contrast.

The historical fate of communitas seems to have been to pass from openness to closure, from “free” communitas to the solidarity given by bounded structure, from optation to obligation, from W. H. Auden’s “needless risk” to the “endless safety.”

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It is sadly likely that Malcolm X’s discovery through pilgrimage of what he calls the “true brotherhood of men of all colors and races,” in sharp contrast to his previous antiwhite stance and his announcement of this in the United States, led swiftly to his assassination by racist fanatics.

The Center out There: Pilgrim’s Goal

Victor Turner

History of Religions

Vol. 12, No. 3 (Feb., 1973), pp. 191-230

Published by: The University of Chicago Press

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Paseo por una guerra antigua: memoria fragmentaria from B Prummer on Vimeo.