issue 207! 小弟第一篇issue,跪请各路大侠猛拍！拍死最好！！感激不尽！

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Issue207
"Rituals and ceremonies help define a culture. Without them, societies or groups of people have a diminished sense of who they are."

Speaker asserts that societies or groups of people have a diminished sense of who they are without rituals and ceremonies which help define a cultural. I firmly believe that rituals and ceremonies are the parts of the cultural; however, they are not the core of societies or groups’ identities.

To begin with, I agree with that rituals and ceremonies attribute to definite a culture, a common thinking, idea, customs, behavior, habits, which are produced by societies or groups during a certain period of time. They are the some concrete representations of culture, bringing to our attention in process some striking and special symbol, which reinforce societies or groups’ sense of common cultural identities. For example, in a popular movie ‘Avatar’, in order to let the audiences better know who are Na’vi people which is a fictitious race, director establishes an independent and devotional ethos for them by present a soul-string panorama of their rituals. It is also a summary of the real society and describe by an exaggeration way.

But, rituals and ceremonies neither are the only factor to constitute the culture, nor play the key role to embody the culture identities. The culture includes numerous aspects, art, customs, literature, tradition, etc. Rituals and ceremonies are only parts of them, although they may give people some direct impression of the culture. Moreover, in my view, ideas and spirit, instead of rituals and ceremonies, are the soul of the culture identities. For example, Olympic games originate from ancient Greeks, including varies kinds of significant and spectacular Olympic ceremonies such as Torch Relay, Opening and Closing ceremony. Nevertheless, the transmission of Olympics is based primarily on the sense of competition and cooperation, sportsmanship and the Olympic spirit, rather than being based on the rituals and ceremonies which have changed completely compared with the past.

Furthermore, some rituals and ceremonies have lost their specialty or disappear under this globalization environment. Now many countries’ people celebrate Christmas despite they don’t believe in Christianity at all and some people in western nations celebrate Spring Festival to establish friendly relation with each other. Currently, bar mitzvah is ignored by some families; while the adults who did not participate in the ceremony do not mean that they are not mature and may not assume responsibilities and obligations. Hence, rituals and ceremonies can not keep cultural identifications forever when they change or disappear.

In a sum, I partly agree with the speaker that rituals and ceremonies help to define a culture. But they are not the only factors to keep some societies or groups’ identity and do not have some lasting specialty to play a core of the culture identification.

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