Kinds of ritual and the place of transcendence

Abstract

Kinds of ritual and the place of transcendenceI feel very sympathetic with Seligman's article, his reading of modernity, his concern for rituals and their role in social life. I share his criticism of mainstream modern misunderstanding of rituals, and also his analytics of rituals, deeply inspired in turn by Rappaport's work, as Seligman writes in the article. So in a sense my observations and/or criticisms are simply part of 'family quarrels'.Let me say fi rst of all what I fi nd deeply convincing and fascinating in Seligman's article. First, as I said, is the general re-evaluation of the role of rituals in social life. Personally, differently from the author, I inscribe my work on rituals within a Durkheimian frame, but this is a difference unimportant in this context. Secondly, I agree with Seligman's picture of ritual and sincerity as ideal-types of attitudes towards social life, 'that must be continually mediated by the other', more than being two mutually exclusive attitudes. This is an important point, to avoid deep and useless misunderstandings. At the same time, it is obvious that Seligman's work is challenging because of its counter-intuitive nature, because of its emphasis on ritual, and its critical refl ection on the limits of sincerity. Further, I fi nd very appropriate and also fascinating the 'tragic' picture of social life that underlines Seligman's reading of the role of rituals. This is another very Durkheimian point in my understanding: rituals play a crucial role in what I called with reference to The Elementary Forms of Religious Life 1 a 'dialectic of limits': 2 we need to posit boundaries even when we wish to abrogate them; we need social norms even when they cause suffering, as Freud (and Durkheim more or less in the same years) understood very well, 3 and we are always kept in this tragic tension. Rituals are a way to deal with these tensions, not to overcome them for good. In this sense, as the article clarifi es, rituals are a way, maybe the best way, to deal with the ambiguity of social life, with its dissonances. Again, I fi nd crucial and convincing the author's emphasis on the subjunctive

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