Collective Effervescence and the Political Ethos of the HONK! Movement
Geoffrey Lee
Seminal sociologist Emile Durkheim theorized that ecstatic musical rituals play an important role in catalyzing social bonding and cementing moral communities through creating an emotional experience he called “collective effervescence.” HONK! bands might see themselves as vehicles for creating collective effervescence, particularly those political bands that use music to create a sense of community at protests. This meshes well with a popular narrative of human socio-political development, according to which we have become increasingly socially isolated under liberal capitalism, and so “restoring lost community through music” is a political role to which musicians should aspire. This chapter develops but also challenges this idea, suggesting that the contemporary American left culture to which the HONK! movement belongs in fact incorporates an attractive and distinctive combination of both communitarian and individualistic values, which distinguish it in important ways from superficially similar left cultures (e.g. Soviet socialist culture), and which are beautifully embodied in the performances and culture of HONK! bands.
Geoffrey Lee is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. His philosophical work focuses on philosophy of mind and the foundations of cognitive science and neuroscience. He is also a musician and composer, playing sousaphone in two HONK! bands, the Brass Liberation Orchestra and Mission Delirium.
Geoffrey Lee
Seminal sociologist Emile Durkheim theorized that ecstatic musical rituals play an important role in catalyzing social bonding and cementing moral communities through creating an emotional experience he called “collective effervescence.” HONK! bands might see themselves as vehicles for creating collective effervescence, particularly those political bands that use music to create a sense of community at protests. This meshes well with a popular narrative of human socio-political development, according to which we have become increasingly socially isolated under liberal capitalism, and so “restoring lost community through music” is a political role to which musicians should aspire. This chapter develops but also challenges this idea, suggesting that the contemporary American left culture to which the HONK! movement belongs in fact incorporates an attractive and distinctive combination of both communitarian and individualistic values, which distinguish it in important ways from superficially similar left cultures (e.g. Soviet socialist culture), and which are beautifully embodied in the performances and culture of HONK! bands.
Geoffrey Lee is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. His philosophical work focuses on philosophy of mind and the foundations of cognitive science and neuroscience. He is also a musician and composer, playing sousaphone in two HONK! bands, the Brass Liberation Orchestra and Mission Delirium.
