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Issue 207.
"Rituals and ceremonies help define a culture. Without them, societies or groups of people have a diminished sense of who they are."

I fundamentally agree that "Rituals and ceremonies help define a culture", but the declaim that without rituals and ceremonies, societies or groups of people have a diminished sense of who they are seems too presumptuous and hasty.

What is the culture or how to define the "culture"? It is a difficulty question to answer in simple words. But it is true that the rituals and ceremonies will help define a culture. When a foreign tourist comes to a new country at the first time, maybe it is the effective way for he or she who wants to learn the culture to learn their rituals and ceremonies. Because different people have the different culture, and different culture contain and nurture different rituals and ceremonies.

Human being is a social animal, and they need the sense of who they are. In most time, the societies and groups of people can define who they are by the rituals and ceremonies, but the rituals and ceremonies maybe changed even diminished under the influence from the outside, especially in the advanced developing society. For one thing, some of the traditional rituals and ceremonies are losing the original meaning after people know more about the nature and society with the help of development of the technology and society, gradually they will be discarded. For another, nowadays, the earth is becoming a village under the globalization of the whole world. The foreign culture is impacting on the native and local culture, and with the generalization of the multi-media and the Internet, more and more people are willing to accept the foreign rituals and ceremonies. For instance, in China, many young people will send rose to express love in the Valentine’s Day and celebrate the Christmas Day as the traditional festival. That is to say, some rituals and ceremonies are losing the influence on helping society or people have the sense who they are.   

Fortunately, the ritual and ceremonies is not the only one that can help people to find the sense who they are, there are so many other methods to let them feel the same sense. And some signs will go with people forever and hard to be changed or diminish, such as the gender, the ancestry, the skin color or other character of body, the native language. Maybe these factors are more apparent and easer to find the sense than the rituals and ceremonies. At the first glance, you can see the looking of a people, the color of the skin, the eyes, and the hairs. And it is easy to sure what is his or her native language when you talk to or ask the question directly him or her. And another character of these factors is that it will not take you long time to know or realize, maybe these factor are easies to keep steps with the high-speed develop of the society. Just like the famous Derwin’s theory of evolution "survival of the fittest".

To sum up, the rituals and ceremonies will help define a culture, but societies and groups of people will have the sense of who they are though many other methods except for rituals and ceremonies.

[ Last edited by staralways on 2005-7-24 at 12:59 ]