In his short book The Disappearance of Rituals, the Korean-German philosopher and cultural critic, Byun-Chul Han, offers a genealogy of the disappearance of rituals. He does not “interpret [the disappearance] as an emancipatory process,” but rather as a decline of culture and society. In ten chapters he offers a profound analysis of the significance and importance of rituals, not just for the West, but for human nature. Written within the framework of a neoliberal critique, he attacks “production as compulsion,” in other words, the predominant worldview that all dimensions of human life are (or should be) subject to work and production. In his customary declarative style, he makes sweeping criticisms and invites the reader to rethink the topic from a fresh angle.
Han defines rituals as “symbolic techniques of making oneself at home in the world.” They transform “being-in-the-world into a being-at-home,” borrowing terms from the German philosopher Martin Heidegger. Rituals are also “symbolic practices, practices of symbállein, in the sense that they bring people together and create an alliance, a wholeness, a community.”
A plethora of affairs in human existence has been void of ritual, including one’s relation to the world, to time, to community, to the political realm, interpersonal etiquette, and even war and pornography. In all these dimensions, the absence of ritual bespeaks a merely “horizontal” existence that lacks depth, meditation, reflection, and existential force, all so essential for a meaningful human life.
In reference to time, Han says it “lacks a solid structure, it is not a house but an erratic stream. It disintegrates into a mere sequence of point-like presences; it rushes off.” Whereas ritualized time, by contrast,—in the context of religion or community—“stabilizes life.”
Han finds all spheres of life have become commodified, turning them into things to be consumed. Not only are things consumed, so are emotions. “You cannot consume things endlessly, but emotions you can,” he says. “Values today also serve as things for individual consumption.” They become commodities and are exploited for profit in a neoliberal context. “Neoliberalism often makes use of morality for its own sake,” thereby turning good intentions and convictions, however honorable or misguided they may be, into “marks of moral distinction.” A sustainable lifestyle, “vegan shoes,” and more all serve to increase “narcissistic self-respect.”
Opposed to the self-referential and narcissistic social media generation, Han sees rituals as “narrative processes” that decelerate the drive for consumption and offer moments of silence. In a society “governed by ritual, there is no depression. In such a society, the soul is fully absorbed by ritual forms; it is even emptied out.” Han laments that society has lost all feeling for true theatricality, but has instead traded the theatre for a “market, in which one exposes and exhibits oneself. Theatrical presentation gives way to a pornographic exhibition of the private.”
Rituals are also moments of closure, Han feels. Echoing Roger Scruton’s meditation on mourning, Han argues that today’s society is “characterized by an excess of openings and dissolving boundaries” and “losing the capacity for closure,” while life becomes a “purely additive process.” Everything has to take on a provisional nature so as to be better consumed. “Culture,” on the other hand, according to Han, is “a form of closure, and so founds an identity. However, culture is not an excluding but an including identity. It is therefore receptive of what is foreign.” Thus rituals “give form to the essential transitions of life…in the same way seasons do. They are forms of closure. Without them, we slip through.”
This appeal for structure and order—reminiscent of one of Jordan Peterson’s main themes—is embodied, for example, in Christianity: “The religion of Christianity is to a large extent narrative. Festivals such as Easter, Whitsun [Pentecost] and Christmas are key narratives, which provide meaning and orientation.”
Ritual, furthermore, is representative of a game of sorts, which modern society has forgotten how to play. War, an example upon which Han elaborates at length, used to have a game character and there had always been a sense of ‘fair play.’ By contrast, modern warfare “lacks the character of play.” “The compulsion of production destroys play. Modern wars are battles of production.” Han finds the idea of a “drone war” exemplifies the worst kind of war, lacking any honor, where death is the result of a mouse click. War as “ritual combat” was always characterized by “reciprocity,” but today it is “made to fit the forms of production.” He concludes: “The form of war that produces death is diametrically opposed to war as ritual combat.”
While some of Han’s ideas are not new, neither in the larger context of philosophy, nor even in the body of his own work, he makes an authentic case that the lack of ritual has philosophical, psychological, and cultural repercussions. Ideas such as the profusion of transparency, positivity, being overworked, psychopolitics, pornographizisation, etc. have already appeared in his other works.
Han’s criticism is welcome, pertinent, and current, but The Disappearance of Rituals suffers from a tangible absence of resolution. A short preface in which Han explicitly testifies that his work is not characterized by a desire to return to ritual also seems very disconcerting. Just a few sentences into the preface, he seems to undermine the entire force of his argument from the outset. Perhaps because of his Hegelian education, he is willing to present himself as the antithesis of society’s ailments, but shirks a productive synthesis, leaving the latter to fate, i.e. the violent sublation of the spirit in history. Considering Han’s background and his study of Catholic theology, the reader wonders why he does not draw further from this profound heritage and tradition for a productive and optimistic path forward. A return to ritual is easy; nay, it is already present in so many sectors of society: self-help groups, ‘life coaches,’ but also more serious venues such as debate societies and, most obviously, religion. The craving for said rituals may explain why so many are drawn to more ritualized forms of worship, such as the traditional Latin Mass. But regarding such phenomena, Han remains silent.
A conservative reader will agree with many—even all—of Han’s critiques. But they will also feel the absence of a constructive solution.
