Why Ritual?
Knight, C. (1994). Why ritual? Introduction to C. Knight & C. Power (eds), Ritual and the origins of symbolism. Papers presented to the Human Evolution Interdisciplinary Research Unit conference on ritual and the origins of culture. London: University of East London Sociology Department, pp. 1-3.
ABSENT-MINDEDNESS IS A HUMAN SPECIALITY. Professors in particular are known to get lost in theoretical problem solving, unaware, perhaps, that they are crossing a busy road. Or think of a Siberian shaman, lost in trance, forgetting entirely to eat.
Other primates apparently avoid such problems, and in convening the conference, Ritual and the Origins of Culture (School of Oriental and African Studies, March 18/19th 1994), I had in mind particularly to ask what could have driven humans to begin systematically mapping “invisible worlds”. At a preliminary meeting on “gesture, speech, time and contract”, convened in December 1993 in Ann Arbor (Michigan) by Professor Paul Wohlmuth of the University of San Diego Law School, a small group of sociologists and psychologists joined forces with anthropologists and others in an attempt to shed light on how and whether human communication differs from that of other animals. The event on March 18th/19th is a sequel, focusing specifically on ritual.
Why ritual? Let me try to explain why this topic seemed to me so important. Imagine an astrophysicist modelling the origins of the universe whilst journeying to a conference of specialists. Her bus stops at traffic lights, at which point she makes an intellectual breakthrough. No word is spoken. Regardless of her elation, she simply cannot explain her excitement to those in the vehicle around her. She may be fluent in her native language; they may be equally fluent. But this doesn’t help at all with communication. Like any scientist, she has spent years mapping “invisible worlds”, and it has been a secret, esoteric experience. If she tried unburdening herself to the uninitiated, even with the best translator of scientific terminology in the world, her words would come across as gibberish. In order to feel intelligent and coherent, she needs to arrive at that conference. Then, possibly, people might understand.