Action supposes a rational agent. Many choices appear emotional rather than rational. How do we reconcile them?
This theory is based on Randall Collins' Interaction rituals.
Beings are in motion to reach a more satisfying configuration of energy. In the case of men, we talk about emotional energy.
Each action is mentally matched with a quantity of emotional energy. We act in order to maximise immediate emotional energy. It is why we can act for future consequences. Even if the reward is far in the future, initiating the action immediately rewards us with emotional energy.
Either we create emotional energy, or we get it from somebody else. The latter process is called an interaction ritual. Watching a football match is an interaction ritual.
Many conditions must be checked. First, the border between participants and non-participants must be clear. The supporters of a team. Then, the attention must be focused on a common source of emotion. A football player. The emotion spreads through the participants, allowing them to receive more emotional energy than they spend. During this process, the conceptual separation between a participant and the others is blurring because of the common attention and emotion. Participants feel they are one. A wave following a goal. There is a common rhythm in the variations of emotion. Finally, the attention is reported on the community itself, making the participants the source and the sink of emotional energy.
During the interaction ritual, the object of attention becomes the source of the community. As such, it is sacralised. Any attempt to threaten this object is seen as an attack against the community. This is the origin of morality.
Even alone, people can then invoke a sacralized symbol to regain emotional energy. Of course, this depletes the symbol, which must be regularly recharged, such as in weekly rituals.
If the interaction ritual is directed, the director is called a priest. He can influence people by directing their attention, modifying their sense of self, invoking sacred objects, sacralising and desacralising.
Because of its sacred nature, the symbol cannot be questioned. If people managed to question it, then it would not be sacred.
A priest is charismatic when he successfully directs the attention on himself, making himself sacred. Because of this sacrality, people cannot understand whence charisma comes. It appears as a "divine gift".
When a couple falls in love, each one is a priest, creating and receiving emotional energy. The other becomes sacred, they feel one. Because of the sacrality, the also cannot understand whence love comes.
Injustice is the purer source of emotional energy. Energy is by definition a difference in potential. Injustice happens when what someone deserves mismatches reality. In social networks, we can expect the most viral communications to stem from injustice.
A party whose main value is justice will rule any other party, such as one whose main value would be freedom. Look at the United-States. We can imagine a "bad" freedom. Can we imagine a "bad" justice?
Civilisation is the greatest sacrality, shared with all mankind, past as future, to the Divine. As before, sacrality prevents an explicit definition of civilisation. Let us simply quote de Maistre:
Wherever an altar is found, there civilisation exists.
- Next: Mimesis