THINGS FALL APART

http://marycobham.bandcamp.com/album/mazeway-resynthesis

Above is a lovely set of songs to listen to if you’re attracted to the phrase “mazeway-resynthesis.”

Originally the term was invented and developed by Anthony F. C. Wallace in his book “Culture and Personality” and other places. It refers to the kind of situation where one’s mental life is so scrambled, challenged or stressed that it has to be drastically rethought even to the level of a religious conversion. But it is NOT a religious conversion in the way we think of such a thing, in the terms of our familiar religious institutions, their dogmas and images. It could be entirely secular, even scientific. It is not about madness in the sense of the actual physical organs of thinking and feeling becoming deranged, but it could look like that. Some relate it to shaman death and reintegration.

Like a person, a whole culture could have such a crisis and probably that’s the best way to look at the revolutionary Sixties/Seventies demand to just cancel all the rules and see what happens. My favorite example (I used to use it in sermons) was Carl Rogers’ study of marriage. (“Becoming Partners: Marriage and Its Alternatives.”) People asked, “Why must marriage be only two people of two genders?” and acted on the question (which was actually very old if you consider communal utopian communities centuries ago) by forming households of threes and more, mixed genders, various practices and rules.

The idea was NOT sexual access to each other, which they already had. Rogers, with a straight face, calmly investigated them and discovered that to succeed, relationships must take time to keep communication clear. That meant sitting down to talk. There was only enough time in their lives for a maximum number of five people to maintain a “marriage.” (He didn’t talk about the need for an economic platform of some kind.) Some people can’t manage enough time for two.

We all hope for some kind of understanding, even participation in a congruence, confluence, conflation, fusion -- whatever works to describe your version of intimacy. The more different we are, the more time it takes to figure it all out.

Humans seem to have a great need to share their mazeway, maybe by living similar lives or maybe just by feeling that their explanations are truly grasped by others, maybe only one person. We appreciate having a “tribe” of people who don’t need to have everything explained all the time, who share goals, who have similar affinities. This is the true basis of religious congregations beyond the formal denominations that are many times artifacts of old shifts in thinking (from trinity to unity, from immersion to sprinkling, from predetermination to free will) or former ethnic persistences into a new context.

Today’s denomination may be a left-over institution from a “successful innovation of whole cultural systems.” (I’m quoting at length here but confess that I’ve lost the reference specifics.) Wallace classifies this kind of change under the general rubric of a “revitalization movement” and defines it as “a deliberate, organized, conscious effort by members of a society to construct a more satisfying culture.” This concept implies that at some previous time, people found their culture to be meaningful, believable, and satiable. But over a period of time the growing gap between old social expectations and new social behavior, between old cultural values and new ones, and between local autonomy and foreign domination frequently increase cultural distortions. Unresolved, this type of confusion and disorganization may contribute to ethnic extinction.

We’re about due for another turn on this wheel. Or maybe it’s already happening in the Middle East. The “Occupy” movement qualifies. “Tea Party” does not -- it’s not revitalization, it’s retro.

I. Steady State

Wallace identifies five common stages through which all revitalization movements must pass to reverse this trend. One, the revitalization process begins with a “steady state” characterized by social conformity, acceptance of a common set of values, the fulfillment of individual needs, and the resolution of social conflicts.

II. The Period of Increased Individual Stress

Eventually, internal changes brought about by social, economic, or technological innovations, and external forces, frequently result in increased social competition and ethnic conflicts giving rise to increased social disruptions and decreased levels of individual satisfaction with their present system contributing to a second stage–referred to as a “period of increased individual stress.

III. The Period of Cultural Distortion

If the internal social mechanisms fail to reduce this increasing level of anxiety, then members will experience rising levels of stress, causing the revitalization movement to evolve into a third stage, called “the period of cultural distortion.” This third stage is characterized by disillusionment, apathy, cultural deterioration, decreased birth rates, increased death rates, and internal factionalism.

IV. The Period of Revitalization

Fortunately, during such distressful periods of social unrest some individual frequently emerges with a creative cultural plan for resolving the social malaise, introducing a fourth stage of dynamic change designated as “the period of revitalization”. Successful social adaptation and institutionalization of the revitalization plan produces a new steady state that culminates in an ongoing spiral of continuity and change as societies adapt to innovations.

V. Returning to a new steady state.

Or you could look at Religious Revitalization (think NA Ghost Dance) for five more steps:

A. Mazeway Reformulation

In the first phase of religious revitalization, the “mazeway reformation” phase, a visionary experiences a radical change in personality, assumes a new role in society, devises a new plan for reorganizing society and proposes a new order that promises new meaning and purpose for living.

B. Communication

In the second, “communication,” phase, the visionary successfully transmits the mental blueprint for social and cultural change to other members in the society.

C. Organization

Third, in the “organization” phase, the visionary appoints leaders and organizes the followers into an effective social movement to implement the proposed changes.

D. Adaptation

This is followed by a fourth or “adaptation” phase, in which the new organization devises strategies to counter internal resistance from those who feel threatened by the sweeping changes or external confrontations from powerful groups who are hostile to the changes.

E. Cultural Transformation

In the fifth phase, referred to as “cultural transformation,” the vision of the reformer becomes “owned” by the membership and transformed into the daily behavior of the people.

F. Routinization

Since many of these changes do not come easily, the leadership needs to monitor and encourage the followers to complete the process by integrating the new values, beliefs, and behavior into the cultural norms of the people in the sixth or “routinization” phase.

This is all very logical and self-evident, but in 1956, which was just before Thomas Kuhn (1962), it was the leading edge of a whole deconstruction movement. It was reassuring! There was someplace to go -- a future. All you needed was the courage to let go, fall apart, hit bottom. Counter-intuitive.