User:Neoksaal/Personal Reader/Political Ritual and Social Integration

[1] by Steven Lukes, 1975

Definition of Rituals

on how ritual is to be identified and interpreted

• Most writers agree in seeing ritual as rule-governed—in the sense of being both patterned and usually involving normative pressure on its participants.
• ...or whether, on the other, ritual need not be inherently religious, so that relevant similarities between religious and non-religious rituals come into view.

↳ ...and indeed at modern political rituals, in which the mystical or supernatural often play little or no role.

• Some anthropologists have traditionally stressed the irrational or non-instrumental character of ritual, others its expressive or symbolic nature.

on rationality:

Leaving aside the question of specifying non-contestable criteria of rationality, this offers a useful account of how the anthropologist actually proceeds: for it is precisely the apparent irrationality of certain activities and beliefs which leads him to see them as symbolic.

this is interesitng

↳ 인류학자는 어떤 행위가 합리적이냐 아니냐를 절대 기준으로 판단하기보다는, 겉보기에 비합리적인 행위일수록 그것이 상징적 의미를 지닌다고 보고 분석한다.

↳ ‘왜 저런 비효율적인 행동을 할까?’라는 의문에서 그 행동이 단순한 도구적 행동이 아니라 상징이라는 판단으로 이어지는 것?

Symbolic nature

what, then, does the symbolic nature of ritual consist in?

It seems unduly loose to see it simply as the 'expressive, even dramatic' aspect of acts which have 'meanings' and involve 'mental associations' (Beattie 1966: 60 and 1970: 240) or, quite generally, as the 'aesthetic' and 'communicative aspect of behaviour', that is, an 'aspect of almost any kind of action', that which '“says” something about the individuals involved in the action' (Leach 1968: 523, 524 and 1954: 13).
On this view, all activities would be rituals.

→ "상징이 있으니까 상징적이다" 라는 순환적 정의가 아니라, 그 상징성이 정확히 어떤 구조로, 어떤 방식으로 작동하는가?

→ like, if we say everything is symbolic, then basically, nothing is especially symbolic.
so when we talk about the symbolism of ritual, we cant just rely on emotional expression or aesthetic qualities, like being said by Beattie and Leach.

↳ Instead, ritual needs to be defined as an act that carries specific kind of social meaning

의례 해석은 단순히 어려운 것이 아니라 진실이 무엇인지에 대한 투쟁의 일부다

1. "ritual symbolism as having a special significance or social value within the relevant social group (a significance and value which the ritual itself serves to reinforce)", Radcliffe-Brown
  의례가 지시하는 대상(사물, 관계, 역할 등)은,
그 사회 집단 안에서 특별한 사회적 가치나 의미를 갖고 있는 것들이다. 
  의례는 그 가치를 단지 표현하는 것이 아니라, 강화하기 위한 구조이기도 하다. 
  의미는 상징 그 자체에 내재되어 있는 것이 아니라,
 의례를 수행하는 집단의 삶과 관계 안에서 구성되는 것.


2. "The observer cannot simply accept the actors' interpretations, the 'rationalizations of the devout', indeed, these will themselves need to be interpreted. On the other hand, he cannot be completely uncontrolled in his interpretations. His task is to interpret the ritual within its context: the objects of thought and feeling which are the referents of the symbolism, and their special significance within a given social context, are matters that must be empirically established."
  의례 해석은 본질적으로 이론 의존적이며, 동시에 토착적 해석과도 긴장혹은 마찰을 겪는다.
  의례 해석은 객관적으로 검증되기 어려우며, 가능한 것은 ‘개연성 있는 해석들’을 나란히 놓고 비교하고 갱신하는 일이라는 것.
  어떨때는 주어진 사회적 맥락속에서 경험되어야만 해석이 가능한 경우도 있음.


3. interpretating ritual symbolism is a matter of power--it's about how society is perceived and understood.
  상징은 개인적 감정이나 종교적 실체를 말하는 것이 아니라, 사회 구조와 집단 정체성, 역할 분배 등을 정당화하고 재생산하는 장치.

Critism

Through the half of the article he criticizes Neo-Durkheimians for viewing rituals just as instruments for promoting social integration--specifically using the cases of US and Britain.
According to Neo-Durkheimians, the political rituals express, produce, and constitute(structure) shared values. And through that, society reaffirms the moral integration and emotional consensus.

• “의례는 모두가 동의하는 가치를 나타낸다”
• “의례는 그런 가치를 만들어낸다”
• “의례는 그 가치 체계를 구조화한다”

examples like coronation, inauguration or national memorials of the dead repeatedly reinforces the belief that the society shares the common moral standard and collective identity.
But the author argues that this approach reduces social integration to an overly simplified model. In reality society doesn’t come together naturally through a single set of values or shared feelings. Instead it often holds together through class tensions, conflicting interests, or invisible forms of repression—which is a way more realistic way of looking at this. So by ignoring the complexity and claiming that “ritual bring society together”, there’s a risk of unintentionally justifying the existing power structure without no questioning.

I suggest, in short, that we should go beyond the somewhat simplistic idea of political ritual expressing-producing-constituting value integration seen as the essence of social integration (which is the banal but widely applied aspect of Durkheim's theory) and take up instead the fertile idea that ritual has a cognitive dimension (this being, in any case, the central and original part of Durkheim's theory), though placing it (as Durkheim did not) within a class-structured, conflictual and pluralistic model of society.

therefore the needed questions are:

• Who (i.e. which social groups) have prescribed their performance and specified the rules which govern them?
• Who (which social groups) specify the objects of thought and feeling they symbolize—specifically, certain forms of social relationship and activity—as of special significance?
• Who exactly holds them to be specially significant, and significant in what ways?
• In the interests of which social groups does the acceptance of these ways of seeing operate?
• And what forms of social relationship and activity are in consequence ignored as of less or no significance?
• Under what conditions are political rituals most effective in getting participants and observers to internalize the political paradigms they represent?
• How are such rituals used strategically by different groups, exerting or seeking power in society?

“누가 언제, 어떻게 무엇을 얻는가” 혹은 “사람들이 정부를 통해 원하는 것을 얻는 방식”에만 집중하는 것이 아니라, 정치가 사람들이 무엇을 원하고, 두려워하고, 가능하다고 여기며, 심지어 자신이 누구인지까지 형성하는 메커니즘에 초점을 맞추는 것.

Ritual as Cognitive Function

"To see ritual as cognitive is to see it as world-shaping."

→ 의례를 인지적 장치로 본다는 건, 곧 그것이 세상을 구성하는 방식이라는 걸 의미한다.

My main positive suggestion is that political ritual should be seen as reinforcing, recreating and organizing representations collectives (to use Durkheim's term), that the symbolism of political ritual represents, inter alia, particular models or political paradigms of society and how it functions.

In this sense, such ritual plays, as Durkheim argued, a cognitive role, rendering intelligible society and social relationships, serving to organize people's knowledge of the past and present and their capacity to imagine the future.

In other words, it helps to define as authoritative certain ways of seeing society:
it serves to specify what in society is of special significance, it draws people's attention to certain forms of relationships and activity—and at the same time, therefore, it deflects their attention from other forms, since every way of seeing is also a way of not seeing.

→ 의례는 무언가를 강조하고 표상함으로써 다른 가능성을 은폐하고, 그 은폐가 반복되면 그것이 당연한 현실로 자리 잡는다. → 인지적 사회 통제의 작동 방식.

Mobilization of Consent

시민들이 정치 체제에 대해 자발적으로 동의하고 있다는 감각을 만들고,
 그것을 반복/상징적으로 재현하는 정치적 장치들(의례 포함)
실제 영향력이나 실질적 평등 여부와는 무관할 수 있으며,
 정치적 정당성을 ‘상징적으로’ 생산하고 유지하는 메커니즘

Cognitive demension of power

Elections

Legislatures

Media

Memorials

The Law

Mobilization of Bias

political rituals can be analysed as part of what has been called the 'mobilization of bias'(Schattschneider 1960: 71)—that 'set of predominant values, beliefs, rituals [sic.] and constitutional procedures ("rules of the game") that operate systematically and consistently to the benefit of certain persons and groups at the expense of others'. And parallel analyses could be made of rituals that are not 'predominant' or hegemonic—whether these are subordinate and oppositional but posing no challenge to the existing social and political order, or else radically oppositional and representing a real challenge to the existing order.

Lukes sees the political ritual as the key mechanism of mobilization of bias. unlike how neo-durkheimians suggests that the political rituals are not warm, feelgood event that bring people together, they are cognitive tools that make certain social structures and power relations seem natural and unquestionable.


definition from [2]:

This is a dimension in the exercise of power within institutions.
It refers to institutional features and knowledge frameworks that tend to admit some issues and agents while excluding others.
It embraces the processes by which some alternatives may remain invisible because proponents lack the resources to affect decision-making processes or because they are excluded from the processes.

another definition from [3]:

모든 형태의 정치 조직이 특정 종류의 갈등에 대해서는 선호하는 반면, 그 외의 갈등에 대해서는 그것을 억압하려는 성향. 계급 갈등의 상쇄를 위해 인종 갈등을 이용하거나 지역 갈등을 이용하는 것 등이 대표적인 예이다.

↳ ‘편향의 동원’은 단지 지배 질서 유지 메커니즘이 아니라, 어떤 갈등이 ‘정치적’으로 인정받고, 어떤 갈등은 사라지는가를 결정짓는 인지적 질서의 통제 방식

정리:

• 권력의 비가시성: 권력이 어떤 이슈를 제도 내로 들여올 것인지 vs 배제할 것인지를 결정하는 데서 편향의 동원이 작동
• 의제 설정 독점화? 경계설정?: 어떤 것은 정치적 이슈로 간주되고 어떤 것은 논의조차 되지 않음. 이 의제의 경계 설정이 편향된 제도적 조건에 의해 유지됨
• 인지적 폐쇄: 어떤 대안은 아예 보이지 않게 되며, 사람들은 그것이 가능하거나 실현 가능한 정치적 선택지라고 생각하지 않게 되는 현상
• 접근자원의 불공정성/비대칭성: 자원 부족이나 과정으로부터의 배제가 편향을 구조화한다는 것

examples i can think of :
1992 Los Angeles uprising, or Rodney King riots

● institutions make some conflicts visible and keep the others hidden, or channeling or reframing the conflict itself

- Rodney King incident was essentially a structural conflict between LA police and black community

- but politics and media reframed it as emotional misundertanding between races or tension between communities

- at the end the responsibility of the police institution became blurred, and the anger against LA police redirected to small shop owners in korea town, they became the easy target

● who gets to speak and who is silenced is how the mobilization of bias works

- korean community in LA was disadventaged in terms of political representation, language access and media presence

- black community expressed their anger but structural framing made it difficult for that anger to be directed at the system itself

mainstream politics fostering gender polarization in SK

- in mainstream politics and media in SK has been intensely spotlighting the gender conflict--especially the "feminism vs. anti-feminism" divide over the last decade

- the framework of this specific "issue" is often presented in more provocative and politically usable ways than actual structural issues like youth unemployment, inequality in labor conditions, housing crisis, etc

- so larger structural inequalities(class, region, generation) are obscured, the problem arises when they are spotlighted only in ways that are politically convenient and good chunk of political actors mobilize that bias to build legitimacy and support