Hacker News Reader

Comment by megaman22 | Hacker News Reader

> “Hey, what’s this?” asks the first guy. “I dunno, probably a toy … or a religious object,” says the second.

> Archaeologists have long tended to choose the second option

One of the many reasons archaeology frustrates me. If you can't figure out why somebody built something in the past, its always for ritual reasons, rather than more mundane reasons.

For example, I went to Chichen-Itza last week. If something happened, and all the street vendors' stalls were abandoned, it's almost certain that archaeologists of a thousands years in the future would conclude that it was a major religious pilgrimage site, of a culture obsessed with miniature pyramids, obsidian miniatures, marble chess sets, and brightly glazed ceramic skulls. What they would make of the multitude of ceramic phallic hash pipes, I'm not sure I want to speculate about...

View on HN

In your example, the activities are not religious.

However, to me, the tiny pyramids and other trinkets are a kind of modern day ritual - if something that has no clear explanation or practical purpose can be called a ritual.

Let's take a moment and think: why do we carry those items home after journeys? I've observed most of the time we toss them in a drawer and smile aftre discovering them 5 years later. We place them on the shelves. Do we use them to signal social status? Not really, they can usually be readily bought locally. When we gift them, do we expect the other person to remember what they meant 2 years later?

Or do we do it because "this is what people do"?

Of course, maybe there is a different answer, but to me, it looks like we produce these things to fulfill some irrational, ritualistic? need. If we do that now so often, then people in the past most likely did that too.

It’s to have a present symbol to remind us of our past. It’s reflective of emotional attachment to who we are through where we were.

The problem is not the label "ritual", it's the way the word shuts down all further discussion.

Why? "Ritual." Done.

But that doesn't actually answer "why" it just gives it another word.

Another example in the same light: "How was the world created?" "God" vs "How was the world created?" "Big Bang".

In both cases you have answered nothing. You just used another word. "How was God created?" "Don't know", "How was the Big Bang created?" "Don't know".

Using a scientific sounding word does not actually answer the question, anymore than using the word "ritual" answers the question.

Instead the lack of knowledge should be made explicit, and not hidden behind a "comfort" word. (I.e. a word used to make you feel better about not knowing.)

Totems of memories. Put them in a drawer. Forget them. Discover them years later and savor the rush of memories it triggers of that one trip you took.

Irrational is not the way I'd frame rituals. There is always a reason for theSe things and the reason can be explained, which does not lie in the object of the ritual itself but the purpose. We give gifts from our travels because it tells our loved ones we were thinking about them even while we were so far away from them. It retrospectively bridges a time-space gap. We bring these objects home for ourselves for various reasons but one might be that the object somehow represents the place we were, maybe it has the look of the place, maybe it literally just acts as a physical reminder, or maybe we have a collection of those things already-- and a collection being an explorative fixation on the multitude ways that a particular type of object can express itself.

”it’s always for ritual reasons, rather than more mundane reasons.”

In common English the definition of “ritual” is a lot more restricted than in sociology and archaeology. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritual:

”They include not only the worship rites and sacraments of organized religions and cults, but also rites of passage, atonement and purification rites, oaths of allegiance, dedication ceremonies, coronations and presidential inaugurations, marriages and funerals, school "rush" traditions and graduations, club meetings, sporting events, Halloween parties, veterans parades, Christmas shopping and more. Many activities that are ostensibly performed for concrete purposes, such as jury trials, execution of criminals, and scientific symposia, are loaded with purely symbolic actions prescribed by regulations or tradition, and thus partly ritualistic in nature. Even common actions like hand-shaking and saying hello may be termed rituals.”

With such a definition, it isn’t much of a stretch to call about anything that isn’t clearly a tool ritualistic in origin.

I think that point is that using current methods, future archeologists will think there was a cult that worshiped snowmen.

I think that the point is that using current methods, future laymen will look at the work of future archeologists and through a misunderstanding of their terminology will think that there was a cult that worshiped snowmen.

One example I heard was that, in 1000 years, people may discover strange yellow arches and assume that they had religious significance. But what kind of significance _does_ McDonalds have in today’s society? Is going to the pub followed by burger and chips an important ritual followed by many in modern society?

Going to McDonald's was certainly an important ritual for my dad and I.

Many of the things we do in modern society are ritualistic, if we want it or not. For example, the energy and money we spent in watching superhero movies and buying related literature and promotional products can clearly be described as ritualistic. Superheroes are true gods of our generation, even if we don't pray to them.

Exactly. They are representative of what we think of ourselves as human, what we could be, what is possible, and what should be. They are just as important as any deity of old. We take cues from our idols, we listen to them and often do what they do or say. We put ourselves in the world of our idols all the time.

I think we lose the significance of ritual when we try to be "rational". For me, ritual is entirely rational. Without it we'd almost be stuck in a stagnant loop, trying to rationalize all of our behaviors without actually making any definitive action because we know at the brain-level it's "just" neurons firing, it's just "feelings". Ritual is an immersion in creative processes, providing not only stability but possibility.

It seems natural for any worldview examining another to see as ritualized emotional cultivation the actions and objects that to the older were part of the daily acknowledgement of reality.

The same thing happened with the ancient Venus statues being considered fertility objects. The truth is your guess is as good as anyone's.

But that thing, is a toy. We played with similar things as kids. Tons of fun.

The overarching term ist cultic, I believe.

For sure there are great difficulties in understanding what has passed when primary sources är long gone and we only have silent artefacts. But don't you think the remains of today, compared to the now considered ancient, due to todays obsession with and more long lasting documentation?

> due to todays obsession with and more long lasting documentation?

I'm not sure it's longer-lasting. I've got VHS and audio tapes I don't have the equipment to play. I've got two voice recorders - each one requiring proprietary software to extract the audio from. The last time I checked, a few years ago, the software was no longer maintained, and may not run on modern Windows machines.

If I put in the effort, I could probably figure out how the files are stored, and how to decode them, but it's not exactly a casual task.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com