II. SEVEN SOCIABLE CONVENTIONS - Festivity

Festive conversation might be deliberately playful, departing from normal in the direction of being trivial, silly, exhibitionistic, impulsive, noisy, or stereotyped. It might move toward expression of ideas and emotions usually surrounded by taboos: aggressive or sexual impulses; non-responsible, destructive, or nihilistic views. Or it might take the form of culture-building, in which participants cooperated in using fantasy, nonsense, or artifacts of the party to build a verbal product that was resonant for them while they were together, but that would not outlast the party. The content of such conversation was almost irrelevant. People were not supposed to think, but to feel and do, express, using humor and often talking nonsense.

Example: Festivity

(This episode is taken from a report obtained when the host invited guests to reassemble at his house on the Sunday afternoon two weeks after a Saturday night party. In the presence of a tape recorder, they reconstructed the party. Report was divided into sequences.)

(Kevin, a pharmacist) ... and rat ... rat ... rat poison ... warfarin. (all laughing; Pete says:) What? (Kevin) Warfarin. Todd and I had a discussion on rat poisons and warfarin ... (laughter) (Betty:) The main thing ... (Kevin:) ... and that was brought up at least a dozen times. (Pete:) We kept returning to it. Like the theme in Beethoven's Fifth. How does that sound? The party would get going and .. What do you call that? (Kevin:) Warfarin. (Pete:) ... and somebody would say, Well, now, what about warfarin? And then everybody just roared. (laughter)

Festivity was a fragile art form. It needed cooperation among the guests in taking risks - fun comes partly from the element of novelty, or challenge to ordinary taboos - but it also was important for guests to know which norms they would observe while disregarding others. When guests had to manufacture their own festivity out of conversation, they had to know and trust each other. Festivity could not succeed unless guests had it within their power to relate successfully to one another and/or to the festive resources. Otherwise, there might be a single moment of pleasure -- perhaps a shout of "surprise!" - followed by a period of silence or embarrassment as guests struggled to find a way to talk together.

© 2008 Jeanne Watson Eisenstadt. All Rights Reserved
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