issue207 给大家一点启发？抛砖引玉啊：）

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Issue207
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作者：寄托家园作文版普通用户     共用时间：43分27秒     483 words
从2005年6月23日14时55分到2005年6月23日15时43分
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Rituals and ceremonies help define a culture. Without them, societies or groups of people have a diminished sense of who they are.
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It is true that rituals and ceremonies can help define a culture? Without them, do societies or groups of people have a diminished sense of who they are? The speaker's claim is too extreme and he overlooks some phenomena.

First and foremost, it is of greatest importance to illuminate the actual meaning of Culture. What is the meaning of culture? Maybe to clarify it, we need to learn two aspects about this word. On the one hand, for the whole human beings, culture is some totality of socially transmitted behaviors, and on the other hand, as for some special time, culture is to express or measure something to reflect such period, community, or population. Therefore, from this point, rituals and ceremonies just as some methods to express some special groups, and the members of such community will be easily recognized each others through the same methods to express their cultural believes. For example, different religions have different behaviors and those are distinct to be recognized by their members. Additionally, different rituals and ceremonies will help to distinct cultures, and just because of them, we can tell these cultures, which are dissimilar ones ultimately.  Thus, it is an effective way to define a culture from rituals and ceremonies.

Secondly, rituals and ceremonies not only reflect the unique characteristics of diversity cultures, but also facilitate the recognition about the core spirit of our culture and help us to recognize other ones who have the same belief or same inclinations. One case in point, for instance, is the charities. In western culture, it is pretty popular with being a volunteer, whose work includes servicing the communities or other places for free. This activity could be concerned as one ritual and express some information about fair, trust and other good morals. Lots of volunteers have learnt more than charity---through such ceremonies, man can be nearer to the center of western culture of love. Therefore, with them, societies or groups of people have a sense of who they are more efficiently.

Admittedly, every thing has its both sides, and this one is not expected. Paying too much attention on rituals and ceremonies is futile to help us recognizing our culture. Since they are the extensional contents of a culture and they are some methods culture used to transmit or development, we are supposed to emphasize them, but not over-enlighten them. Provided a culture uses most of its energy to develop those details but not focus on developing the spirit of itself to attract more people, for the long run, this culture will life-shorted and less influence on the world.

To sum up, it is entirely possible that rituals and ceremonies can help us with defining a culture more efficiently, but too more is as bad as too little, overemphasized rituals as well as ceremonies will lead to a lose of the true spirits of a culture.
7.26鼎均：）

[ Last edited by staralways on 2005-7-23 at 15:43 ]