TURKOMANS BETWEEN TWO EMPIRES: THE ... - Bilkent University

community to whom he/she belongs. It is of primary importance to notice that this
narrowness in the sphere of individual freedom is not limited merely to the economic or
social aspects. One might well argue that individual has a very limited sphere of liberty
in intellectual, mental, and the religious level in nomadic societies as well. 146
This is not just a lack of ‘freedom’, however, but a lack of psychic development
that would lead to the introspective contemplation and the strengthening of individual
consciousness as well. Of course it is due to first and foremost the external constraints
surrounding individual. Before all, in such societies, social relations and the basis of
social structure rest primarily on face-to-face interactions, through which not the words
and meanings are shared, but the sentiments as well. Face-to-face relations stick
individuals sentimentally together and tighten cohesive bonds. Due to the fact that in
such a communication, fundamentally different from that of through literal media,
shared emotions and sentiments soon become cohesive forces holding individuals
together. As Daniel Goleman puts it succinctly, “emotions are contagious.”
Most emotional contagion is far more subtle, part of a tacit exchange that
happens in every encounter. We transmit and catch moods from each other in
what amounts in what amounts to a subterranean economy of the psyche in
which some encounters are toxic, some nourishing. This emotional exchange is
typically at a subtle, almost imperceptible level…We catch feelings from one
another as though they were some kind of social virus. We send emotional
signals in every encounter, and those signals affect those we are with…We
unconsciously imitate the emotions we see displayed by someone else, through
an out-of-awareness motor mimicry of their facial expression, gestures, tone of
146 Barth also calls attention to the passive situation of individual in relations with other societies, such as
other tribes or sedentary societies. He attributes the primary affect to the institution of centralized
chieftainship, for it constitutes the only media of contact with others. According to him, “The institution of
centralized chieftainship effectively insulates the tribesmen from contacts with their environment and
establishes them as a centripetally oriented linguistic community, with a few contacts with neighboring
friendly tribes.” Thus, they form a close society, with hardly interactions in terms of culture, belief,
tradition etc. with other societies. See Barth, Nomads of South Persia, p. 133.
54