James G. Ballard, the science fiction writer, in his books (High-rise, Millennium People, Cocaine Nights) often builds scenarios where, in protected and secure contexts, such as the typical middle-upper class contexts, circumstances causing the wild birth of violence to unleash itself – as a kind of rash caused by the tensions rising in closed, compressed groups based on routines. Do you think that his works can have a sociological dimension going beyond the story-telling needs?
I have not read James Ballard. But it seems that he gives a highly fictionalized view of violence. This is not unusual. Most fictional treatments of violence – and especially violence as depicted in film and TV – is extremely inaccurate. I can’t watch violent films any more – they seem to me ridiculous.

The interaction rituals theory gives us the means to explore the mechanisms generating solidarity among the members of a group. How does this general model feature, in terms of ritual experience, in Islamic terrorist groups?
As I explained above, interaction rituals happen in every aspect of everyday life. But these rituals vary a great deal in intensity. Some of them – which Goffman specialized in studying – are very brief, only minor flickers of entrainment. Some interactions are unsuccessful, producing repulsion on the part of the participants. Some interactions are forced, so that people go through the motions but in the micro-emotional details, hold back from entrainment, or find it coercive and unpleasant. At the other end of the spectrum, some rituals are prolonged, and reach high levels of emotional entrainment. These produce very strong feelings of solidarity. Moreover, it is these kinds of rituals that create and reproduce strong cultural beliefs. If a group can isolate itself and carry on repeated rituals which general strong emotions, the members will feel themselves energized, and also feel very morally righteous about themselves. The most successful ideological groups are those which practice these kinds of ritual techniques.

Are the rituals of solidarity of the groups involved in this hypothetical conflict between East and West both ranked and united thanks to this ideal conflict, somehow similar (in terms of symbols, intensity, density and so on)? Can the mere ideas, maybe artificial, of “East” and “West” be considered as actual symbols by which a common emotional feeling of closeness is produced in the members of the groups, as a driving force in their possible mobilization?
Yes, we could say that any strongly mobilized group is similar to each other, on the underlying level of the social techniques which they use. It is important to remember that the content of a group’s beliefs are carried on the emotional intensity of its rituals. The belief-content becomes what Durkheim referred to as a “sacred object”, a collective symbol which represents membership in the group. That is why highly mobilized groups, although similar on the level of structure and process, nevertheless are sharply divided from each other – they hold different collective symbols, they worship different sacred objects. Sometimes the sacred objects are constructed to be directly antithetical to each other. Each becomes a “negative sacred object” for the other, like God and the Devil. For some persons, East and West becomes these kinds of paired symbols, conflicting dualisms.