Meaning and Moral Order: Explorations in Cultural Analysis

CHAPTER FOUR. Ritual and Moral Order

C H A P T E R F O U R Ritual and Moral Order Mary Douglas has written that the term "ritual" has become "a bad word signifying empty conformity" (1970:19). In her view this is not only a mistaken but also an unfortunate understanding of the term. Modern society cries out for a sense of community, for an enlivened spirit of commitment to moral obligations. All around are signs of fragmentation into purely self-interested competing social units, from the selfish individual to the self-servingnation-state. Yet the role of ritual, both actual and potential, in maintaining moral order has gone largely unrecognized. Although ritual is profoundly important in all the world's great religions and is found in every society and in virtually every aspect of social life, its character and functioning remain poorly understood. To the enlightened Westerner, ritual is simply a bad word, a troublesome vestige of some other time and place, or a symptom of personal maladjustment. It remains shrouded in stereotyped imagery even among otherwise educated people. Indeed, the stereotypic,quality of the word itself is evident in the contradictory usages to which it is generallyput. On the one hand, the idea of ritual conjures up stereotyped conceptions of wildly emotional, frenetic activity. Half-naked primitivetribesmen dance before our eyes, mutilatingtheir flesh in hopes of appeasing the demonic requests of animisticspirit-gods. Navaho Indians rise up in our imaginations ready to perform frenzied rites under themind-numbing influence of peyote, hoping to revitalizesome long lost civilization. Perhaps the anthropologist is to blame for these conceptions. Most of the best research on rituals has, of course, been done by anthropolo97 98 Ritual and Moral Order gists, often in primitive or emotionally charged settings.1 But modern rituals are also tainted by these impressions of emotion-laden irrationality . The mass media graphically capitalizeson the collective hysteria of a ritual like the Super Bowl; introductory social science texts show pictures of saffron-robed Hare Krishnas dancing themselves into blind oblivion ; educational films recount adventures in snake-handling cults in order to tell freshmen what ritual is all about. On the other hand, mention of the word "ritual"—and especiallythe adjective "ritualistic"—evokes the image of perfunctory, meaningless routine. This connotation is almost exactly the opposite of the first. White-collar Christians sit impassively in Sunday morning worship services performing their duties to God "ritualistically." Daily life becomes habitual and unthinking, a matter of performing "rituals"—brushing one's teeth, driving to work, going through the motions without knowing or caring why. Robert Merton's (1968) discussion of ritual (in his much-cited essay on anomie) exemplifies this perspective. For Merton, ritual consists of blind conformity to standard social practices without really believing in the values and principles underlying them. Both these popular conceptions of ritual, contradictory as they are, cannot possibly be correct. The essence of ritual cannot be captured by crazed emotionality if the same concept creates visions of impassive routine . Neither view tells very much about ritual or its role and importance in modern society. We would indeed be wise to reject ritual if these notions told the whole story. THE NATUREOF RITUAL What is needed is a concept of ritual that transcends these popular stereotypes —a concept that identifies an important dimension of social life even in the modern context. Let us begin, rejecting at least temporarily both of the stereotypic images of ritual, by simplylistingsome widely diverse kinds of activities: tribal dances jury trials the Eucharist revolutions Muslim prayers etiquette brushing one's teeth weddings turn signals holidays political witch-hunts protocol protocol Ritual and Moral Order 99 By taking a list intentionally this diverse, we can begin to develop a concept of ritual that may have fairly broad applicability. Some of the activities listed here clearly seem to qualify, even on the surface, as examples of ritual. Others will take more careful consideration. We can partially grasp the nature of ritual by contrasting some of the more obvious candidates on the list with some kinds of behavior that would in all likelihood not qualify as examples of ritual. Take, for example , the contrast between a wedding and repairing a flat tire. What is the essential difference? It is emphatically not a difference in the level of emotion involved. The anger and frustration associated with fixing a tire may be as intense as the joy or anxiety experienced...