The Architecture of Collective Intimacy: Masonic Friendships as a Model for Collective Attachments

Abstract

Despite a growing recognition that interpersonal friendship informs wider forms of solidarity, there is little systematic analysis as to how community members extend the logic of friendship and intimacy to broader organizational and societal context. Masonic organizational practices provide a useful model for this inquiry. Drawing on an ethnographic study of contemporary Israeli Freemasonry, I examine the intersections of interpersonal, public, and collective intimacy in members' ritual activities and everyday life. The juxtaposition of mundane sociability and Masonic sacred rituals serves to rescale the distance between interpersonal friendship and communal solidarity.As members take on the roles of citizen, bureaucrat, priest, and president concomitantly, they partly collapse the distinctions between personal and collective ties, between the familiar and the revered. These intersections of intimacy are offered as a programmatic research strategy to study how institutionalized patterns of sociability inform civic and national attachments. [Freemasonry, friendship, solidarity, nationalism, fraternity, Israel] RESUMEN Pese al reconocimiento creciente que la amistad interpersonal informa maneras más amplias de solidaridad, hay muy poco análisis sistemático de cómo los miembros de la comunidad extienden la lógica de amistad e intimidad a contextos organizacionales y sociales más amplios. Prácticas de organizaciones masónicas proveen un modeloútil para esta investigación. Utilizando, un estudio etnográfico de la francmasonería israelí contemporánea, examino las intersecciones de la intimidad interpersonal, pública y colectiva en actividades rituales y la vida diaria de sus miembros. La sobreposición de sociabilidad mundana y rituales sagrados masónicos sirven para modificar la escala de la distancia entre la amistad interpersonal y la solidaridad comunal. En la medida en que los miembros toman los roles de ciudadano, burócrata, sacerdote, presidente simultáneamente, parcialmente colapsan las distinciones ente los lazos personales y colectivos, entre lo familiar y lo reverenciado. Estas intersecciones de intimidad son ofrecidas como una estrategia de investigación programática para estudiar cómo patrones institucionalizados de sociabilidad informan apegos cívicos y nacionales. [fracmasonería, amistad, solidaridad, sociedad civil, nacionalismo, fraternidad, Israel]

O PAPEL DA MAÇONARIA NA CONTEMPORANEIDADE: princípios e valores universalistas na criação de uma sociedade inclusiva, solidária e ética social

“…Em conclusão, e reforçando esta perspetiva acima descrita, Kaplan (2014) realizou um estudo que procurou analisar a estrutura da intimidade coletiva usando como modelo o modo como os maçons desenvolvem sentimentos de amizade e fraternidade, assim como estes são vivenciados na sua esfera privada e pública.…”

Public intimacy in social media: The mass audience as a third party

“…The meaning of such a performance emerges only in and through the social interaction, reminiscent of the way that interactive message exchange is characterized by relatively spontaneous and unpredictable turn-taking, in which the content of the exchange is often clarified only after the other parties respond (Rafaeli and Sudweeks, 1997). I initially developed the concept of public intimacy to account for men’s friendship practices in semi-public settings (Kaplan, 2005) and expanded it to examine sociability in social clubs and organizations (Karazi-Presler 2020; Kaplan, 2014, 2018) as well as in televised media events (Kaplan and Kupper, 2017). Although the original formulation referred to offline face-to-face interactions, this concept is all the more relevant to online social media.…”

“…It does this by tying together the Simmelian focus on the transition from dyad to triad and from triad to larger grouping, the use of interactive communication, and the significance of phatic exchange. Building on a critical review of social media literature related to these three conceptions of online interactions and drawing on insights from previous observations of offline dynamics of public intimacy (Kaplan, 2005(Kaplan, , 2014(Kaplan, , 2018) I have identified six characteristics of online public intimacy:…”

Freemasonry as a playground for civic nationalism

“…Freemasonry adheres to Anderson's Constitutions of 1723 (Anderson ), perceived not only as formal guidelines to standardize Masonic practices, but also as consecrating a Masonic ritual system. Scripts from these essentially bureaucratic practices are ceremonially staged with pomp and circumstance during lodge work in ways that stimulate members' sense of identification with a long‐standing Masonic tradition (Kaplan ). Yack () and Xenos () have argued that the emphasis in CN on ‘rational attachment to principle’ does not hold water – that national identity in the so‐called civic nations, as in their ethnic counterparts, entails emotional attachments to tradition and contingent communities of memory.…”