Social Performances: Symbolic Action, Cultural Pragmatics, and Ritual (review)

For some time, Jeffrey Alexander and colleagues have been advocating a "strong program" in the study of cultural dynamics. This program asserts that only after analyzing texts, codes, narratives, metaphors, metathemes, values, ritual and other elements of cultural phenomena should efforts be made to connect them to social structural conditions. Social Performance can be viewed as a new installment in this strong program.

After a substantial introduction by Alexander and Jason Mast, Alexander presents a restatement of his general theory of cultural pragmatics in Chapter 1. For Alexander, performances revolve around actors decoding and interpreting background representations, scripts and texts that are then presented by individual and collective actors to often diverse audiences and that, if successful, generate emotional arousal and psychological identification with culture. In simple and relatively undifferentiated social systems where actors, situations, means of symbolic production and distributions of power are closely coupled, the elements of culture and social structure are closely coupled; and hence, commitments to culture can be realized through rituals alone. But, as societal complexity increases, the elements of culture and social structure become internally differentiated, as well as differentiated from each other. As a consequence, efforts to invoke culture in situations often require more elaborate social performances. As is to be expected from Alexander, there is an incredible amount of scholarly detail presented in this theory; and in fact, all subsequent chapters reveal a high level scholarship as the ideas of key figures are examined to see what they offer a more general theory of social performance.

Unlike many edited books, the remaining chapters hang together remarkable well because they explore a variety of topics roughly within Alexander's conceptualization of cultural pragmatics. In Chapter 2, Alexander follows the presentation of his theory with a very engaging analysis of 9-11 which places empirical meat on the conceptual skeleton outlined in Chapter 1. In Chapter 3, Jason Mast offers another empirical illustration of Alexander's approach with an analysis of the Clinton/Lewinsky affair, or the drama and performances surrounding "Monicagate." In Chapter 4, Isaac Reed reinterprets several classic case studies from the perspective cultural pragmatics in an effort explain the shift from ritual to social performance as societies become more complex. In Chapter 5, Tanya Goodman presents a wonderful overview of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission as illustration of how performances can provide the basis for societal reintegration. This essay, in particular, brings out important points about performances in differentiated societies, such as the many layers of audiences located at very different social locations that can witness performances and the critical role of the media in reaching these audiences. Chapter 6, by Ron Eyerman, re-conceptualizes social movements as a form of public and political performance, reviewing and recasting the large literature on social movements within the cultural pragmatics framework; in so doing, Eyerman provides new and creative insights that should be pursued by theorists and researchers. In Chapter 7, David Apter provides a long and highly engaging analysis of politics as theater, revolving around actor-agents, producers, stage managers, drama coaches and other dramatic/staging personnel who transform public space into a stage on which cultural scripts and their logics are played out by political actors. The result is the beginning of a new theory of politics in complex societies that calls into question the rationalistic bias of much contemporary political theory. In Chapter 7, Valentin Rauer offers yet another empirical illustration of cultural pragmatics in Chancellor Willy Brandt's famous "knee fall" at the Memorial of the Jewish heroes (honoring the 1943 Ghetto Uprising in Warsaw, Poland). This one event, lasting only a few minutes but appearing to be authentically spontaneous, was the first public representation of German guilt over the extermination of Jews during World War II; it showed the power of public performances to realign culture in a society and to alter the reaction of far-reaching audiences in other societies...