Gambetti 103e self-reflexivity that characterizes liminal situations implies that Th
a qualitative difference exists between dramatic and gradual processes of
change. Whereas daily interaction remains within the bounds of norm-
governed behavior and goes unquestioned, both liminality and what
Turner calls “communitas” refer to “the liberation of human capacities of
cognition, affect, volition, creativity, etc., from the normative constraints
incumbent upon occupying a sequence of social statuses.”^31 This provides
for what Villa would qualify as the sort of positive alienation that allows
for the de-naturalization of the norms of mass society.^32
s creative potential built into the structure of crisis comes as a Thi
misconstruction for ears tuned to the discourse of rational deliberation.
The idea that crisis may not only be awakening, but also liberating has, of
course, been one of the tenets of Marxist thought, from Marx himself to
Gramsci and beyond.^33 What makes Turner’s anthropological account of
crisis particularly apt for theorizing public spheres (as well as revolutions)
in the postmodern era is the indetermination that marks the liminal
moment. Crisis does not reveal any objective structure underlying subjec-
tive belief; it liberates from all belief and structure. As such, neither the
liminal moment itself nor what Turner calls the moments of redress and
reintegration that follow a crisis take on a foreseeable facet or direction.
While the moment of redress may open the way for a “distanced replica-
tion and critique of the events leading up to and composing the ‘crisis,’”^34
the phase of reintegration may reinstitute the former structures or witness
the emergence of totally new ones.
t is this latter possibility (which is only a possibility and not a I
necessity) that links Turner’s discussion of crisis and liminality to my ini-
tial question concerning the particular circumstances of action and poli-
tics in the present era. Leaving unchallenged the austere premonition that
today’s world is characterized by the full internalization of subjectivating
norms, one can still make a case for a salutary “disruption of reference” in
the Heideggerian sense. This would obviously require construing politics
and public sphere formation not only in terms of deliberation and cooper-
ation, but also in terms of breaches and crises. The task owes its meaning
and urgency to the presentiment that today this might be the only other
alternative to passivity or mere resistance.