The Need for Ritual

From The Libertarian Enterprise, via Serge, is an interesting story about the importance of ritual in our individual and family lives. The author is describing his experience running a home for troubled youths, most of whom had been abused or otherwise had little family life in their backgrounds:

One thing each of my friends there seemed to long-for was meaningful rituals. What I brought to them was meaningful ritual, like the kind I had grown up with myself. Birthdays were a cause for celebration, for our friend had lived another year through, despite the poverty, crime and homelessness. We celebrated Thanksgiving for much the same reason, with wine to toast our warmth and comfort of the "family" we had become. The most extensive gift at Christmas was love; and with it we made popcorn strings, paper chains, and paper snowflakes to decorate the tree that had most likely been given to us. But through it all was shared a sense of (at least for this brief moment) family and home, where we were safe and warm; a sense of belonging to something greater than ourselves.

These are little things, perhaps, but in the grand scheme of things they add up to a society that works. Their absence has not been helpful (emphasis added by me):

My point is simple but its meaning huge, without real, meaningful rituals our society has bred and continues to breed people who; won't take responsibility for their own children, refuse to be responsible for their animals, and deny all responsibility in their jobs where it is usually most needed. My last example illustrates this point very well.

In the summer of 1993 four police officers were found not guilty of irresponsibility in the felony arrest of Rodney King, an arrest (and beating) viewed by millions across the US and around the world, the police department that they worked for refused to take responsibility for the policemen's actions, the City of Los Angeles refused to take responsibility for their jackbooted thugs performing their duties as prescribed, and in response a city exploded in anger. Had those responsible accepted their responsibility to their citizens, Fifty-Four (54) people need not have died while hundreds-of-millions of dollars damage was done, by people who will never take responsibility—because if their leaders don't have the guts to do so, then why should they?

Full story

So what's a ritual? Anything that brings us out of our regular routine and into a collective recognition that we are part of something bigger. It doesn't happen much anymore. The clearest recent example I can think of is 9-11. On a grand scale, we all went through a terrible, traumatic experience together - as a nation, as families, as co-workers, as fellow citizens. It brought us all together.

Of course this is not the desirable kind of ritual. It should happen in smaller ways: holidays, family events, church services, etc. These bring us together and make us realize that we are individual parts of a larger whole. At the same time, we retain our individual identities, strengths and weaknesses. Ritual helps us become complete persons. Without it, we rarely reach outside of our own selves.

We all crave ritual, even if we don't recognize it for what it is. Why do so many people watch big-event television, like 24, Lost, American Idol ? A big part of it is that we look forward to going to work the next day to discuss the show with our friends. This is fine, but there are even other ways to achieve the same ends. We could sure use it.