The Rituals of Modernity
A Philosopher and an Anthroplogist Clash over the Sense of Magic
Nov 12, 2009
In EE Evans-Pritchard’s ‘Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Amongst the Azande’ a fascinating issue is aired. Since Levy-Bruhl’s studies it has become commonplace to regard the thinking process of the "savage" as differing in meaning from that contemporary men and women. According to Evans-Pritchard, a tribe such as the Azande may have a different perspective on living,but it is equally as meaningful. Their habits and mentality are just as rational and as significant as our own. Rituals such as examining the entrails of chickens to check the hazards associated with a venture are just as open to belief structures as modern people’s. Evans Pritchard did the ritual himself and found it provided as useful away of organizing his life as any other.
The End of Magic?
Against this view, some philosophers, such as Peter Winch argue that comparing belief-structures across cultures is a mistaken activity. Modern culture does not depend on ritual and belief but rather on planned responses to scientific investigation. The army does not have to count the poppies on armistice day to decide whether to continue a campaign. If a society resorts to mysticism to draft laws then it would do say against the process of evidence gathering. According to Peter Winch “the European is right and the Zande is wrong.” when it comes to the role that ritual plays in their respective societies.
The Rituals Modernity Still Needs.
Yet Evans-Pritchard seems to be making a subtler point than that attributed to him. Winch is overlooking the fact that the anthropologist is comparing the meaningfulness of ritual, not of science. The Azande may have a science, they may not, but their rituals are as meaningful as Modernity. Society would have concluded that such rituals are no longer believed in. Were the British to abandon marching past the Cenotaph, throw judges' robes away, give up fireworks or abolish titles, life would be duller, but decision-making would be unchanged. What the British believe in however would be changed. If someone examines the entrails of a freshly-killed chicken, it will not help him, or her estimate the expenditure for the week, but it could put him in a mood to do so, just as honoring the monarch in Britain, puts most of the British in the mood to get on with life.
The Modern Unknown
This does not mean Modernity has to believe in spells, ghosts and ghouls, or cease to assess evidence for decision-making, but it should consider the motivational power of ritual and its fellow delight, the creative imagination Winch argues that the panorama of science has replaced ritual in Modernity. Any comparison is a category shift. Magic and matrices don’t line up. Yet when the Azande have to hunt, eat, warm themselves, their technology may be “primitive”, but they do not need beliefs to do these things. What the Azande believe helps them interact with the unknown, the unpredictable and the invisible. What Modernity believes in its social rituals helps Modernity do exactly the same thing.
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