Shared symbolic meanings within movements generate empirical regularities needing causal explanation
Evidence
Within a given symbolic world, furthermore, agreement on the meanings of certain performances, repertoires, and types of episodes sometimes generates empirical regularities that cry out for explanation. In the world of contemporary North American social movements, for example, participants spend enough energy emulating, interpreting, and labeling each other’s actions that their interaction follows recurrent, recognizable patterns. To explain the patterns, however, we must step out of the symbolic frames within which participants operate. — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 303
Categorization
- DEFINE: Draws the boundary between causal and symbolic coherence that governs the chapter’s analysis.
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 303
- XREF: connects to: Social movements show symbolic but not causal coherence distinct from general contention — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 1152; Many phenomena are symbolically unified but lack causal coherence; Decline of shared symbolic meaning heightens exposure to unassimilable excess and generates immediacy — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 98 (+2 more)
Broader Connections
- Shared meanings can generate real empirical regularities among contenders
#corroborates(0.95) — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 303 - Social movements show symbolic but not causal coherence distinct from general contention
#contradicts(0.88) — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 1152 - Many phenomena are symbolically unified but lack causal coherence
#complicates(0.82) - Unidimensionality enables causal explanation rather than mere correlation
#qualifies(0.76) — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 671 - Decline of shared symbolic meaning heightens exposure to unassimilable excess and generates immediacy
#qualifies(0.74) — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 98