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Ritual Questions

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Ritual Questions

Robin Hanson
May 14, 2010
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Ritual Questions

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I just attended a university convocation (i.e., graduation ceremony), and noticed that people are comforted by its detailed ritual, with its specific standard dress, music, motions, and words. Which leads me to wonder: why don’t we have more rituals?  Why don’t we have as many as we used to? Most rituals we have seem to be left over from long ago: weddings, funerals, graduations, awards. But since rituals aren’t that expensive to create, why not just make more of them?

Workplaces have very few rituals it seems to me. An old-school workplace ritual we no longer use much is creating an insulting nickname for new workers. Being given such a nickname was an indication that you had been accepted by the group. Why don’t we do that anymore?

At that ceremony they announced dozens of particular awards that particular students had won. While the audience is supposed to be impressed by the fact that students had won prizes, I’ll bet there is no web page where I could find stats on the track record of previous award winners. Even if they posted winner names, it would take lots of research to find what had become of them later.  Surely no one in the audience had done that work, or had ever heard from anyone who had heard from anyone who had done such work. Winners will no doubt put these awards on their resumes, and resume readers are supposed to be impressed by such awards merely because the university chose to announce them at a ceremony. No other evidence than this mere fact will ever be presented.

Consider, in contrast, how high we set the standards for acceptable standardized tests, such as IQ tests. Unless someone can prove such tests aren’t biased toward the rich, etc. they are considered unacceptable. Why such a double standard?  Is this just another way we show our deference to arbitrary authority?

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Ritual Questions

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AaronArmitage
May 15

The problem isn't with most folks who practice the ritual, but the first few to practice it. Ritual practices tend to be inherently silly (or boring, or both), with the silliness obscured by solemnity and age. The trouble is getting over that hurdle with the first people, who are aware of the fact that they didn't used to do this stuff. Three ways come to mind: 1) get people are are okay with being silly, 2) pretend to be re-introducing an old ritual which fell out of practice, or 3) gradually ritualize originally non-ritual behavior.

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Overcoming Bias Commenter
May 15

Agnostic --

Science fiction fan conventions go back to the 1930's. Star Trek and comic book and mystery conventions go back to the 1970's. Rodeos and country fairs go back to the 19th century -- properly considered, perhaps back to medieval times.

Our ancestors lacked lives.

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