COMMUNITAS! My roommate Laura Stiles and I took this picture during the day we all hiked out to the Lion's Bridge for ULLC 223. This is a picture of three boys in our class sharing a moment while urinating in the lake in the middle of the woods. Lovely, boys. Lovely.
While this is a rather normal thing, think about it. Would you feel comfortable standing next to any stranger this close and pulling your pants down? I think not. ...or at least I would not. These boys share a bond. They have grown up together and shared times together. They feel very comfortable around each other and have nothing to hide nor fear within their relationships of each other. This "bond" is communitas. The Turner's explain communitas to be an undifferentiated, egalitarian, direct, extant, non-rational, existential, I-Thou. It is a spontaneous act, also immediate and concrete. It does not merge identities; it liberates them from conformity to general norms.
These young men are sharing a moment together that is not abstract in any way. It is a simple act, shared among those who understand, subliminally, how great their friendship to have that comfortability.
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