Ritual, I think, is primarily a religio-social tool. And I suspect it is most emphasised as a tool (I'm using this word 'tool' in a neutral sense) to define and reinforce closed-group systems. It'd be harder to define in a profession - except perhaps law: what is the courtroom but public ritual? and maybe politics: certainly the campaign trail and the press conference appears to follow certain ritual patterns - than within a workplace: a regular staff meeting is a kind of ritual, or likewise if a certain group within the workplace all go out together on a Friday night.
Hierarchies are attended by ritual. See churches, parliaments, and boards of directors. But I think it's a lot harder to identify rituals whose primary (as opposed to being primarily 'functional', and only as a bonus reinforcing the social hierarchy) function is to maintain the boundaries of said hierarchy in daily life. Mainly because 'class' is not only a dirty word these days, class and hierarchy markers have become increasingly blurred over the course of the last century. Most people find dubious the proposition that some (individual or classes of) people are innately better than others, after all. At least, they don't like to admit that they believe it out loud.
(And since such a proposition is poison to a just society, I wish fewer people believed it in the privacy of their own heads.)
Anything can be ritualised. But ritual itself, I think, serves a social purpose. I've only been thinking about this recently, but I think there's a distinct difference between actions that serve to formalise (or sacralise) relationships between sets of people, or between people and symbols (like flags, nations, football teams) and actions that acquire ritual or symbolic overtones through use and repetition? Does that make any sense?
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2010-04-30 08:36 pm (UTC)Hierarchies are attended by ritual. See churches, parliaments, and boards of directors. But I think it's a lot harder to identify rituals whose primary (as opposed to being primarily 'functional', and only as a bonus reinforcing the social hierarchy) function is to maintain the boundaries of said hierarchy in daily life. Mainly because 'class' is not only a dirty word these days, class and hierarchy markers have become increasingly blurred over the course of the last century. Most people find dubious the proposition that some (individual or classes of) people are innately better than others, after all. At least, they don't like to admit that they believe it out loud.
(And since such a proposition is poison to a just society, I wish fewer people believed it in the privacy of their own heads.)
Anything can be ritualised. But ritual itself, I think, serves a social purpose. I've only been thinking about this recently, but I think there's a distinct difference between actions that serve to formalise (or sacralise) relationships between sets of people, or between people and symbols (like flags, nations, football teams) and actions that acquire ritual or symbolic overtones through use and repetition? Does that make any sense?
*hath not the brain*