Ritual and its Consequences
Subtitle: An Essay on the Limits of Sincerity
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; Oxford University Press
Published: February 22, 2008
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 248
ISBN-13: 9780195336016
Subjects: Religion & Beliefs; Religious rites & ceremonies; Religion / Comparative Religion; Anthropology - Cultural; Comparative Religion; Sociology of Religion; Religion; Religion - World Religions
Description: "This pioneering, interdisciplinary work shows how rituals allow us to live in a perennially imperfect world. Drawing on a variety of cultural settings, the authors utilize psychoanalytic and anthropological perspectives to describe how ritual - like play - creates "as if" worlds, rooted in the imaginative capacity of the human mind to create a subjunctive universe. The ability to cross between imagined worlds is central to the human capacity for empathy. Ritual, they claim, defines the boundaries of these imagined worlds, including those of empathy and other realms of human creativity, such as music, architecture and literature." "The authors juxtapose this ritual orientation to a "sincere" search for unity and wholeness. The sincere world sees fragmentation and incoherence as signs of inauthenticity that must be overcome. Our modern world has accepted the sincere viewpoint at the expense of ritual, dismissing ritual as mere convention. In response, the authors show how the conventions of ritual allow us to live together in a broken world. Ritual is work, endless work. But it is among the most important things that we humans do."--Jacket.