Ritual and cohesion. What is the place of euphoric arousal?
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2014 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Current Anthropology |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Doi | http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/678698 |
| Field | Philosophy and religion |
| Keywords | ritual; cohesion; cooperation; dysphoria; group identity; identity fusion |
| Description | In this target article, Whitehouse and Lanman present a general and testable theory of the relationship between ritual, cohesion, and cooperation. They frame their theory in terms of empirically verifiable hypotheses by fractionating key concepts like ritual and cohesion and examining the relationship between certain of their constituent parts. This is an admirable and ambitious undertaking and an approach that constitutes a welcome contribution to ritual studies, a subdiscipline which has been known for neither the precision nor the testability of its claims. Although I agree with much of the overarching argument and most of the specific hypotheses put forward, I worry that the breadth required by a general theory is often at odds with the narrow focus of a fractionating strategy, which is by definition selective. One example of this clash is related to dysphoria, which is the most discussed concept in this paper. |
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