Why Do We Ritualize - Essay Example

Why do we ritualize, even within daily behaviour Throughout the centuries people's behaviour changed and passed an evolution. Just like every othercreature human beings have written, and unwritten social, moral, ethical norms about how to behave in public, at home, with strangers. Therefore, social evolution transformed and modified people's reactions and daily routine. Berger's (1972) "Ways of Seeing" is one of the most influential and inspiring books of art ever written. The main idea that Berger (1972) tries to communicate to his readers is that seeing the world precedes the linguistic abilities - speaking and verbal expressions. The best example given is with the child, who can see, recognize and enjoy the world which surrounds him, without the ability to say and name subjects and emotions. Our sense of seeing comes before we learn any words. This establishing seeing as the greatest and most powerful sense and determines our place in the surrounding world. What is why very often we find it difficult to express emotions, especially if we are surrounded by the natural environment (Berger, 1972). We are constantly struggling to appropriate what we see with the correct words we feel about that. So, we people have never settles a proper relationship between what we witness through our eyes and what we know through words about the world around (Berger, 1972). "It is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world; we explain that world with words, but words can never undo the fact that we are surrounded by it (Berger, p.7)." Within the context of seeing we may say that people perform rituals in order to repeatedly record their actions in customary series which transcend through time and will remain part of their social behaviour. Berger (1972) states that words play reduction role compared with the image. That is why in attempt to capture image in its most memorable way, in its purity and essence, people have rituals, some occur on a daily bases, others like traditions and saints days elude this role. Even though rituals are usually associated with religious beliefs and cultural belonging, there are activities that exist throughout our lives under different names - routines, responsibilities, duties or merely as habits. All these are patterns followed meticulously day in, day out. The daily rituals, and actions makes us feel in place and tend to signify our societal tasks. Berger (1972) notes that rituals are visual acts, because they situate the viewer in different perspectives, and people perceive actions through images - cultural or historical. In the act of viewing and witnessing rituals people build up their relations with others and construct their own perspectives about the surrounding. "Everything converges on to the eye as to the vanishing point of infinity (Berger, p.16)." If we remove or alter our daily patterns of behavour, this will instantly cause tremendous stress over us. Individuals feel secure performing the familiar habits and when the norms are changed from outside, they think that everything is going out of control. So, if people are acting in improper way, society disconnects them. An intriguing moment is how Berger (1972) interprets relations between men and women. He observes that "according to usage and conventions which are at last being questioned but have by no means been overcome - men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at (Berger, p.45)." furthermore, Berger (1972) claims that in European art from the Renaissance period onward, women were depicted in which a manner as showing that they are "aware of being see by a spectator (Berger, p.49)." The presentation rituals are what determine human relationships - class division, social differentiation, and formal and informal attitudes. Detaching proper social behaviour to both men and women serves as trajectory and protocol to who is in charge and who has to be submissive. Fuller (1981) reaffirms Berger's (1972) disposition on this matter noting that his book contrasts the aesthetic value, with the historical reality with "bogus religiosity". Fuller (1981) comments that Berger possesses the ability to reveal the mystifications with the outlook of a professional art critic. From the seventeenth century, paintings of female nude bodies reflect the submission that woman has to "the owner of both woman and painting (Berger, p.52). Berger (1972) advances the idea that the depiction of objects in oil paintings and after that in colour photography portrays things and people within touching distance. This represents the zest to have the things that you are looking at, and also applied to women. Berger is a liberator of the image, because he allows the painting to affect us directly, consequently we have a better perspective to make a more meaningful evaluation of it (Fuller, 1981). Berger depicts the spiritual dimensions of art as anachronistic, a combination of penumbra of the functions that art has in terms of commodity and property and the aesthetic feelings it evokes in spectators (Fuller, 1981). Berger (1972) insists that women even nowadays are portrayed differently than men. They carry the ideal of the image, the desire to flatter and lavish care on her. Creating rituals reinforcing the role of dominant and submissive are obvious especially in art, which is a mirror image of the social environment. Berger (1972) asserts that technologies of photography and motion photography work to deprive the image of its initial claim to a perspectival centrality: "What you saw was relative to your position in time and space. It was no longer possible to imagine everything converging on the human eye as on the vanishing point of infinity" (18). Namely, the point of infinity and making life more meaningful is what rituals are about. Formally, or customarily reproduced in a serious of actions, rituals are like extensions for your corrective behaviour. Human behaviour has drastically changed throughout centuries and nature had played a crucial role in the formation of rituals and appraisal of the surrounding habitat. People's outlook of life and nature had also passed different stages over the course of time and there are numerous approaches and practices - from naturalists, realists and materialists. Diana Ackerman's (1996) book "Natural History of the Senses" is the case in point. We can say that smells are in fact rituals by itself - the most simplifies way to attract others and to convey information in a non-verbal communication. Natural history as discipline emerges from the different scientific branches in an attempt to explain how nature works and what it means to living creatures. In her book Ackerman (1996) explores human sense from the very same perspective. She centers her attention on how senses - smell, touch, hearing, taste and vision influence our daily lives. I believe that senses are ritualized in a way, since they reflect the cultural, social and economic status of the people and they vary from country to country. Senses evolve just like us and their range and reputation is included in the folklore and traditions. Within most public appearances there is generally a natural striving to maintain relationship privacy while at the same time express true pleasure and respect for others. Public meetings are the best barometer to verify the power of smell and how it affects others. Smell has cultural and physiological meaning and Ackerman (1996) addresses themes such as the existence of proper odour and what emotional responses certain smells provoke in us. Odours are perceived differently among nations and we can clearly say that they are socially and culturally constructed as rituals. It is important to note that this is so, because people have to possess the knowledge to differentiate between their own cultural and aesthetic belonging and it forms a strong community sense. The type of social protocol demands that people keep distance. This formal etiquette does not allow strangers to demonstrate close relations, and the only way to indicate whether someone is attractive to the other is through senses. Thanks to evolution people began to recognize attractiveness automatically, thus senses are an integral part of maintaining contact with the people around. Senses are internalized habit through which we gain knowledge of the atmosphere and establish connections between ourselves and the habitat. Ackerman (1996) divides her book into chapters each of them focusing on different sense. One of the most fascinating elements is her interview with Sophia Grojsman. Sophia explains that the greatest purpose of a perfume is to create harmonious feelings and to be irresistible and seductive. One of the most important parts of putting a creation together is harmony. You could have layers of notes coming through the fragrance, but yet you still feel it's pleasing. If the fragrance is not layered properly, you'll have parts and pieces sticking out, it will make you feel uncomfortable, something will disturb you about it. A fragrance that's not well balanced is not well accepted. (Ackerman, p.49). Smell is not simply a biological or psychological experience or disposition. Smell is most of all cultural and social phenomenon. Smell reminds us of the primitive, uncivilized and irrational human being, who detached emotions only on the bases of the information from his senses. Therefore, the way to perceive others is culturally determined by the way to view the surrounding through our senses. That is why we may positively claim that senses are rituals enforced by our social belonging. Rituals, rites of passage and ceremonies are formal modes to conduct social norms and to follow the established etiquette. Rituals appears in various forms from the way we speak to the rules of politeness, religious events and state celebrations. Rituals are inseparable part of our daily life and symbolize social actions and communications. What is more, rites create realities for people and organize their date to date responsibilities and implicate individuals in the social order. Rituals aid people to express ideas and to form their conception of the world and attitudes towards others. The performance of the rituals involve the society and make people feel accepted and included. Rothenbuhler (1998) provides a unique perspective on the rites of passage and demonstrates their supreme role in human everyday communication. "Ritual is the voluntary performance of appropriately patterned behaviour to symbolically effect or participate in the serious life (Rothenbuhler, p.27)." What he means by "serious" is a conditional category designating important facts, moral norms, and obligations within the context of social life. Serious matters might be sickness, birth, death, education. His book is a combination of bibliographic essays and theoretical background, outlining the different definitions of ritual from sociology, anthropology, literature and media studies. Rothenbuhler (1998) states that ritual communication is no longer perceived as a static, motionless concept and that it involves primarily the transmission of different views of communication which are independent, dynamic and individualistic. Our knowledge of rituals encompasses the community and religious element, whereas we fail to recognize the social role of the rituals (Rothenbuhler, 1998). While rituals have been acknowledged as primarily utilizing community ceremonies by reflecting the established and shared meanings, Rothenbuhler (1998) enriches our perspectives claiming that rituals might be regarded as means of power, authority and control.Ultimately, rituals today are an integrative part of our daily activities and have the potential to become tools for recognizing socially diverse groups. Rituals reflect the cultural approach that we have towards life and transmit this view from generation to generation through cyclic repetitions. We embrace the rites from the moment we were born and assess their value through the realistic dimensions they hold. Moreover, ceremonies indicate our aesthetic predisposition and teach us how to communicate in our social group. Ritual behaviour is mainly admitted to exist in human society. However, Dr. Gillian Rice (2003) found throughout the animal kingdom similar behaviour patterns intermingled in life at all levels. In her presentation she explores the reasons behind the rites and affirms that people obey rituals, because they help us to reduce stress and to enter society smoothly. In the program she investigates what happens when instead of producing calm and meditative effects, actions cause agonizing, inflicting and destroying effects. Mental illnesses such as obsessive-compulsive disorder make people repeat the same actions (rituals) thousand times a day, for instance washing. What we learn from Dr. Gillian Rice (2003) is that there is a thin boundary from the normal, ritual and habitual behaviour to the severe illness which forces individuals to madly repeat their daily tasks. We also discover an intriguing and fascinating relation between human and animal rituals, which resemble in that they organize socially the group and teach the young. In this essay, I tried to examine different sources in attempt to show that our daily lives are abundant in rituals, and they accompany us from the moment of our birth. Different authors provided various perspectives how rituals are embodies in our social, cultural, and religious life and how we can interpret the symbols they signify. Rituals stand for the constancy in life, and at the same time trace the changes in social order, hierarchy and age transition. We ritualize even within our daily activities, because this makes us feel secure, it establishes a feeling of belonging and inclusion, life makes sense somehow and eventually connects us with nature and others through a non-verbal communication. Reference List Ackerman, Diana. 1996. Natural history of the sense, London: Phoenix. BBC Radio Four (2003), 'Ritual' radio programme in which Dr Gillian Rice looks at human and animal rituals, [online], Available at: www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/ritual.shtml [Accessed on 5 February 2010] Berger, John. 1972. Ways of seeing: based on the BBC television series with John Berger .London : British Broadcasting Corporation, London : Penguin. Fuller, Peter, 1981. Seeing Berger : a revaluation of "Ways of seeing". London : Writers and Readers. Rothenbuhler, Eric. 1998. Ritual communication: from everyday conversation to mediated. Thousand Oaks, Calif. ; London : Sage Publications. Read More