Religion functioned as a shared communicative idiom bridging tribal trust and urban fear.

Evidence

In the towns, there was specialization, no trust, and order based on fear. Religion provided an idiom in terms of which the various elements of the total society could communicate with each other. It provided the terminology for both tribal trust and urban fear. It could intermittently help tribal cohesion to extend its scale, and to revitalize the polity by providing a new set of rulers. — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 2078

Categorization

• XREF: Religion as the medium that lets tribal trust scale up and regime-challenge communicate — a functional parallel to Luhmann’s point that trust requires some shared system of familiarity, here provided scripturally rather than by direct observation. — connects to: Rural folk religion reinforces group boundaries through local sacred markers; Urban high religion teaches rule-following rather than group loyalty; The ritual view of communication maintains society in time through shared beliefs — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 161 (+5 more)
• DEFINE: Contrasts cohesion-and-trust in countryside versus specialization-and-fear in towns; defines trust as a distinctly rural good in this society.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 2078

Broader Connections

• The ritual view of communication maintains society in time through shared beliefs #corroborates (0.82) — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 161
• Political movements must engage the religious terrain where religion is the dominant ideological domain. #expands (0.78)