A recent newspaper article recommended, “Save the anthem for when it is really needed.” The point is the national anthem has often become pro forma. Indeed, when the anthem was sung by a quartet at a recent Wabash College game, only a handful of people sang, a few more held their hand over their heart, and many did not pay attention. On some occasions, a celebrity sings a solo in a way no one could sing and in an outlandish egotistical manner. Some refuse to recognize a national song, and some are disrespectful. The question here is not about patriotism, but the importance of regular customary routines in preserving unity.
Sir Edmund Leach, Provost of King’s College Cambridge, defined ritual as the communicative aspect of customary behavior. Previously, ritual had been associated with religious practice, but Leach included both religious and secular behaviors. Ritual, then, is a syntax of communication shared by many groups defined in a variety of ways. Modes of dress, language or accent, cuisine, calendar, gesture, and art create a rhetoric of ritualization of personal and group identity.
The audience for such rhetorical acts is both the group itself and those outside. Socialization and individuation for citizens requires increased facility in verbal and non-verbal communication in rituals and language newly created and refined to enable understanding between individuals and groups. Dangerous and potentially fatal mistakes result from communication failure.
Wabash faculty meetings are ritual events. On Tuesday afternoon every two weeks, all faculty members, the president, and some staff members meet. The order of business is set and followed, even if there is no business to conduct and no vote taken other than to adjourn. Why meet so often and with a set pattern? They engage in discussions about reports and other matters, and learn thereby how to have civil, orderly discussions. Regular meetings define the faculty and socialize new faculty and staff into their duties and responsibilities. The main reason for having the regular meetings is that when something vital comes up for faculty decision, the faculty is established, well-ordered, and able to discuss, decide, and vote.
Some suggest reinstating all the former rituals of customary behavior that made us Americans: “E pluribus unum.” That is no longer an option for several reasons.
First, academic institutions have embraced a hermeneutics of suspicion in which norms and rituals are interpreted as exercises of power. Suspicion, deconstruction, and even debunking of cultural and national standards result. Cultural pessimism reigns. b) Perception lingers that elite influencers in media and advertising on the coasts reject former values. Elites’ perceive that citizens in small town and rural America are rubes who don’t understand new realities. Conflicting perceptions divide us. c) Rapid changes in demography and cultures are changing our future. d) Identity groups form silos, each of which develop unique rituals and norms that are obscure to outsiders. e) Contemporary individualism promises freedom that leaves people vulnerable. f) No majority of political leaders, citizens, or ideas enable leaders to develop positive patterns, so political stalemate exists. g) Generational transmission has broken down. h) Old models of assimilation are not feasible.
It is certain that chaos beckon if no commonly accepted rituals, norms, or standards of behavior exist. We must create building blocks for a new consensus that will provide the basis for some new and renewed rituals of unity. Learn about the new diversity of people, experiences and voices that are needed for the task. Learn about each in some detail through contacts with individuals, not with stereotypes. Focus on items about which there is agreement rather than on points of difference. Support people and institutions that strive for unity, not division.
Tiny steps in a grim landscape. Nevertheless, through the mists, hope lights our pathway toward a better tomorrow.
Raymond B. Williams, Crawfordsville, LaFollette Distinguished Professor in the Humanities emeritus, contributed this guest column.
