“Collective effervescence"

On Being with Krista Tippett

Brené Brown

Strong Back, Soft Front, Wild Heart-

Original Air Date February 8, 2018, rebroadcast January 2020

Finding "collective joy with strangers" at the old ballpark
...Durkheim, the French sociologist, called this experience “collective effervescence.” And interestingly, he was trying to understand the voodoo magic that he believed happened in churches: What is this thing where people seem transcendent? They’re connected. They’re moving in unison. There’s a cadence in song and rhythm. And he tried to understand what it was, and what he realized is — and that’s what he named “collective effervescence” — it’s the coming together in shared emotion.

And we have that today. We have opportunity — trust me. I’m from Houston.

Ms. Tippett:I know, I was gonna say — you’ve just gone through one of those experiences where this rises up in a way no one would have wished for.

Ms. Brown:I’ve gone through two.

Ms. Tippett:Yeah — two.

Ms. Brown:Yeah, I’ve gone through two. So I’ve gone through Harvey, which — there we are, six feet of water in our street. We’re one of only four houses left on our street. Everything else has been torn down since Harvey. Everyone lost everything. You have the Cajun navy, which is 400 fishermen and women coming from Louisiana in swamp boats and jet skis and fishing boats, pulling people out of houses. Never once during this tragedy, which is still unfolding here in Houston — we’ll be in pain for a long time around it. But never once did someone say, “Hey, I’m here to help. Who did you vote for?”

Ms. Tippett:[laughs] Right.

Ms. Brown:That just didn’t happen. We just reached out. And it was collective: It was collective pain; it was collective struggle. But we saw hope in each other’s eyes and stories.

And then you fast-forward to baseball season, and we’ve had this incredible experience of collective joy, with the Astros winning the World Series.

Ms. Tippett:[laughs] Oh, OK, that’s what you mean. All right. OK.

Ms. Brown:Yeah. Yes. It was really — it was — I could give just a short story. I’m at the last game, playoff game against the Yankees. I’m standing — I’m with another couple, me and Steve — the game of inches, as they say — watching every pitch, watching every batter. I cannot take my eyes off. I’m a big sports person, so I am glued. And it’s the second-to-last batter, and I stick my hand — I shove my hand down in my husband’s back pocket, and I’m kind of holding onto his rear, like — ready. And the guy next to me goes, “Excuse me, ma’am.” And it wasn’t even my husband.

He had got up to go to the bathroom, and when he came back, he stood at the end of the aisle. But this guy was like, “But, uh, go, Astros.” And it was just this — when else are you singing with strangers, hugging strangers, high-fiving people around you? Again, the connection between people — you can’t sever it, but you can forget it. So to find moments of collective joy and pain and to lean into those, with strangers, reminds us of that something bigger.