Since I love social puzzles, I was pleased to discover the book The Problem of Ritual Efficiency: Ritual has come to be thought of in popular discourse as a kind of action that is ineffective, superficial, and/or purely formal, and this view is the unexamined premise behind much of ritual studies. This attitude explains why …we “know it when we see it” – and what we know to be rituals when we see them are acts that are apparently non rational, in which the means do not seem proportionate to the ends, the intended objects of human action are non empirical beings, or the theories of efficacy that ostensibly explain the ritual acts are inconsistent with modern, scientific paradigms. This reaction is similar to what an archaeologist does when he discovers a structure whose purpose is unclear – he calls it a temple. … The notion that ritual is ineffective is false. … Shamatic rituals heal, legal rituals ratify, political rituals unify, and religious rituals sanctify. Rituals transform sick persons into healthy ones, public spaces into prohibited sanctuary, citizens into presidents, princesses into queens … One of our most important tasks as scholars is to explain how rituals accomplish these things. (pp.6-7)
People generally use and pass on culture without understanding why it works. There's a great paper on this that traces the evolution of the America felling axe, the rudder, and pregnancy food taboos with this model in mind.
Rarely do we understand all the functions of things, including rituals and institutions. That's why it's so hard to design societies (or, really, anything) from scratch. Design failures make themselves known; design "fit" is invisible.
Roughly: he says the difference between chimps and humans is that while chimps can ape actions, humans can understand explanations. R.H. seems to be arguing for ritual as a way to facilitate action-aping.
At least from a far-mode vantage point, this seems the strongest objection: reliance on ritual to transmit culture seems largely gratuitous when you consider the effectiveness of learning by explanation. Rituals spread not on account of their sociological functionality but because of our System 1 (Kahneman) tendency to "ape"; our most important cultural achievements require System 2.
Obviously, conservatives have an ax to grind in extolling ritual, which is part of tradition.
But if I remember correctly, Deutsch has a more particular claim. Roughly: he says the difference between chimps and humans is that while chimps can ape actions, humans can understand explanations. R.H. seems to be arguing for ritual as a way to facilitate action-aping.
In their dual-inheritance theory of religion (and moral realism) [1], Slingerland, Henrich and Norenzayan incorporate this [2] recent study on how much cooler -- ecstatic, liminal, intense -- religious ritual was before agriculture and those big, nosy, know-it-all gods spoiled all the fun with enervating tedium laced with the doctrinal bs.
This resembles David Deutsch's discussion of rational memes and the problem of copying intentionality towards the end of The Beginning of Infinity (no pun intended).
So, by this interpretation, ritual helps to ratify, transmit, and condense culturally inherited behaviors; somewhat analogously to the spread of beneficial genes through a population. That actually makes a lot of sense, and like religion being (partially) an outgrowth of agency detection and the narrative bias, it would also account for many of the non-rational and actively irrational aspects of ritual.
People generally use and pass on culture without understanding why it works. There's a great paper on this that traces the evolution of the America felling axe, the rudder, and pregnancy food taboos with this model in mind.
Rarely do we understand all the functions of things, including rituals and institutions. That's why it's so hard to design societies (or, really, anything) from scratch. Design failures make themselves known; design "fit" is invisible.
The riddle of ritual is a paradox and can only be found in something simpler. Perhaps a purpose or a principle.
Roughly: he says the difference between chimps and humans is that while chimps can ape actions, humans can understand explanations. R.H. seems to be arguing for ritual as a way to facilitate action-aping.
At least from a far-mode vantage point, this seems the strongest objection: reliance on ritual to transmit culture seems largely gratuitous when you consider the effectiveness of learning by explanation. Rituals spread not on account of their sociological functionality but because of our System 1 (Kahneman) tendency to "ape"; our most important cultural achievements require System 2.
Obviously, conservatives have an ax to grind in extolling ritual, which is part of tradition.
Well, I'm currently in the ritual business. We call my niche "accounting".
Thanks. Very good post.
But if I remember correctly, Deutsch has a more particular claim. Roughly: he says the difference between chimps and humans is that while chimps can ape actions, humans can understand explanations. R.H. seems to be arguing for ritual as a way to facilitate action-aping.
Chimpanzees have culture. Of course culture came before language.
> Rituals transform sick persons into healthy ones, public spaces into prohibited sanctuary, citizens into presidents, princesses into queens
One of these things is not like the others.
In their dual-inheritance theory of religion (and moral realism) [1], Slingerland, Henrich and Norenzayan incorporate this [2] recent study on how much cooler -- ecstatic, liminal, intense -- religious ritual was before agriculture and those big, nosy, know-it-all gods spoiled all the fun with enervating tedium laced with the doctrinal bs.
[1] http://bit.ly/OqhKx1[2] http://bit.ly/MSdRTO
This resembles David Deutsch's discussion of rational memes and the problem of copying intentionality towards the end of The Beginning of Infinity (no pun intended).
So, by this interpretation, ritual helps to ratify, transmit, and condense culturally inherited behaviors; somewhat analogously to the spread of beneficial genes through a population. That actually makes a lot of sense, and like religion being (partially) an outgrowth of agency detection and the narrative bias, it would also account for many of the non-rational and actively irrational aspects of ritual.