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Issue 104
"Rituals and ceremonies help define a culture. Without them, societies or groups of people
have a diminished sense of who they are."
The speaker asserts that rituals and ceremonies are needed for any culture or group of
people to retain a strong sense of identity. I agree that one purpose of ritual and ceremony is to
preserve cultural identity, at least in modern times. However, this is not their sole purpose; nor
are ritual and ceremony the only means of preserving cultural identity.
I agree with the speaker insofar as one purpose of ritual and ceremony in today's world is to
preserve cultural identity. Native American tribes, for example, cling tenaciously to their
traditional ceremonies and rituals, which typically tell a story about tribal heritage.
The reason for maintaining these rituals and customs lies largely in the tribes' 500-year
struggle against assimilation, even extinction, at the hands of European intruders. An outward
display of traditional customs and distinct heritage is needed to put the world on notice that
each tribe is a distinct and autonomous people, with its own heritage, values, and ideas.
Otherwise, the tribe risks total assimilation and loss of identity.
The lack of meaningful ritual and ceremony in homogenous mainstream America
underscores this point. Other than a few gratuitous ceremonies such as weddings and funerals,
we maintain no common rituals to set us apart from other cultures. The reason for this is that
as a whole America has little cultural identity of its own anymore. Instead, it has become a
patchwork quilt of many subcultures, such as Native Americans, Hasidic Jews, Amish, and
urban African Americans--each of which resort to some outward demonstration of its
distinctiveness in order to establish and maintain a unique cultural identity.
Nevertheless, preserving cultural identify cannot be the only purpose of ritual and ceremony.
Otherwise, how would one explain why isolated cultures that don't need to distinguish
themselves to preserve their identity nevertheless engage in their own distinct rituals and
ceremonies? In fact, the initial purpose of ritual and ceremony is rooted not in cultural identity
but rather superstition and spiritual belief. The original purpose of a ritual might have been to
frighten away evil spirits, to bring about weather conditions favorable to bountiful harvests, or
to entreat the gods for a successful hunt or for victory in battle. Even today some primitive
cultures engage in rituals primarily for such reasons.
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