The Ritual Effect by Michael Norton review – standing on ceremony

From Rafael Nadal ’s ball-bouncing to families’ Christmas traditions, what purpose does ritualistic behaviour serve?The adjective “ritual”, from Latin via French, means related to religious rites. (A rite, according to the OED, is “a prescribed act or observance in a religious or other solemn ceremony”.) As soon as it appeared, however, the word “ritual” could be used in a derogatory fashion to denote things empty of authentic spiritual content. In his Ecclesiastical History (1570), for example, the martyrologist John Foxe complained about two epistles erroneously (so he argued) attributed to the third-century pope Zephyrinus: they contained “no manner of doctrine” but only “certain ritual decrees to no purpose”. Today one may disparagingly speak of some writer’s “ritual genuflection” to fashionable norms, to accuse them of a kind of moral and intellectual cosplay.Perhaps, then, we are long overdue a defence of the value of ritual, in all its style-over-substance glory? That is what the Harvard business professor Michael Norton aims to provide in his book, an amiable and diverting-enough essay in the genre of airport-friendly smart thinking. Though he notes the power of longstanding social rituals such as the wedding or the funeral, Norton ’s interest is mostly in the other kind: “idiosyncratic behaviours that can emerge spontaneously”. From Rafael Nadal’s interminable routine of ball-bouncing and shirt-pulling before every serve, to a ro...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Society books Health, mind and body books Psychology Culture Science Source Type: news