Internal rigid ritual can coexist with radical external freedom from social norms

Evidence

In short, in the secret society the nature of ritual objectively often quite senseless and schematically coercive is by no means inconsistent with that group freedom which resembles anarchy, with severance from the norms of the inclusive society. — Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, 8744

Categorization

• XREF: Freemason lodge uniformity under American democracy versus German autonomy contradicts platitudes that democracy sponsors individualism in associational life. — connects to: Spiritual and bohemian protest is absorbed as harmless ceremony by system — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 137
• SHARE: For a reader into secret-society sociology: the Americans-demanding-most-uniform-ritual detail is a nice reversal worth relaying.