ABSTRACT
Central to Randall Collins's view of ritual interaction is the process of entrainment. At times, Collins writes of 'mutual entrainment', by which he seems to mean mutual attunement, a matter of each party finely adjusting his or her behavior to the behavior changes of the other. For Collins, entrainment is what happens in interaction he deems a dominance ritual. The stronger party or eventual winner sets the tone, the pace, the emotional rhythm; the weaker party or eventual loser is compelled by his crumbling emotional fortitude to submit and to follow the leader. The impression Collins conveys here is something like 'out of control'. In ritual terms, it is collective effervescence of Durkheim's Aborigines, except that there is no clear evidence of solidarity as denouement, perhaps not even among the victors-gone-wild. Collins omitted from his account fact that King Henry V, the victorious commander, ordered his men to kill all prisoners because he feared a French attack from the rear.
