RSSFollowing are reader comments about "How Families Work" by
Mark Auslander.
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1.
Posted 03-16-10
I really like the thought that these rituals prepare us for the economic obligations of adult citizenship. I also have to wonder, though, in what ways they are, as you said, polyvocal; Might one also read them as a set of rituals that are always preparing us for death? Until DEATH do us part? This might also connect with Levi-Strauss notion (in 'Father Christmas Executed') of feeding those evil little gremlins with presents before we put them away at the New Year. The thing I can't link it to, though, is the constant commoditization. A ritual of fetishizing people in much the same way we do commodities, perhaps? Maybe it has something to do with presence, which Freud and Marx might entangle in with fetishizing.
Regardless, this has been a very stimulating article to read.
—Bryce Peake, University of Oregon- Eugene, OR
2.
Posted 03-18-10
Interesting comment, Bryce. In the most general sense, all ritual practices are engaged with death and entropy; the fact that things are forever falling apart is a major motivation (perhaps the preeminent motivation) for undertaking ritual action, not precisely to undo death but at another level of symbolic integration to recast the fact of death into a larger narrative frame. At one level, ritual arenas tend to dramatize the inevitability of death and decay but at another level they tend to promise something beyond mere biological decay and decomposition-- the possibility, if not of an afterlife, then of some sort of enduring continuity, often encoded within the reproduced ritual form itself. So in the case of the particular familial ceremonies under discussion the message would seem to be, yes loss and degeneration happen, but the family endures over time, and in that sense Death itself is overcome. The wedding ceremony does indeed at one level acknowledge the inevitability of death (till death do us part) but lays enormous emphasis at the same time on the endurance of the family form over time, in the face of mere biological loss. And yes, as Levi-Strauss proposes there is often a propitiating edge to some of these rites (Halloween and Christmas especially), buying off Death for another year.
I think you are on to something, that the regenerative logic of these ceremonies, triumphing over mere death, is intimately linked to super-abundant commodity consumption, to the spectacle of cornucopia, the Horn of Plenty, especially in the winter months. The core symbolic elements (the Christmas Tree, the Turkey, the Bridal Bouquet, the Halloween Mask) are indeed in one sense fetishes, but during the rites they do seem to be recast as transitional objects, in Winnicott's sense, and in that sense are subject to productive relinquishment and detachment by ritual actors. All that bears more thinking about!
—Ellen Schattschneider, Brandeis University (Waltham, MA)
3.
Posted 03-20-10
The idea of ritual as a way to recast entropy and death within a larger narrative frame and the use of symbolic "transitional objects" in ritual are really interesting ones.
Although at a smaller scale, the article and comments remind me of the several rituals my family undertakes on a daily basis. Every day when dropping off my kindergarten-age son at school, I read him a book in his classroom while other students trickle in. Although I hadn't really thought about it before past the "my son just needs this, and this is the way he is," this ritual helps my son deal with uncertainties as the family disperses for the day to do their own things, and the book, in a sense, serves as a transitional object which he picks out and then puts back after we finish reading it. At this point he is ready to engage with his friends, classmates, and teacher.
Just the other day he picked out "The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig," a total inversion of the classic tale. I read this article the day before and couldn't help be reminded of the multi-track messages of independence and continuity (and danger) that were strong in this article, and emerged quite humorously in "The Three Little Wolves." No wonder school drop-off can be hard!
—Jeremy Price, Lynch School of Education, Boston College
4.
Posted 04-23-10
I come late to this conversation, but I am thinking of another ritual-laden social phenomenon. That of the "good death." I have encountered a number of descriptions of improvised ritual involving gathering family around the dying one and singing him on his way, amiddle-class adoption of a ritual practice. It represents a channeling of the need to let go and a lesson to the living, a way of "rehearsing" death.
—Claire Mauro, Cultural Production, Brandeis Unversity
5.
Posted 04-24-10
In reference to Claire's comment, the "good death" was an especially prominent feature of 19th century/Victorian death practices, before dying was exported out of the household and increasingly re-located in hospital spaces (a feature of the "great confinement" that Foucault writes about). For a good treatment see Pat Jalland, "Death in the Victorian Family" (Oxford, 1996) including the first chapter's discussion of early Catholic and Protestant ideals of the good death. Hymn singing at the deathbed was long an important practice, and the dying were often held to be an important source of knowledge and wisdom.
i am especially fascinated by the racial politics of such death scenes in antebellum southern slave-owning households, in which the enslaved were at times expected to bid farewell to dying masters and mistresses. (In a case that I am writing about, an enslaved woman in the 1840s was commanded to kiss her dying white mistress upon the lips.)
It would be most interesting to learn more about present day attempts to stage versions of the Good Death, in hospices, hospitals, and in private homes. "Do not resuscitate" orders are geared in part towards allowing some sort of relatively serene interaction by loved ones with the dying. Claire's mention of song and music is fascinating, and would certainly be worth investigating; music of course is the paradigmatic model of the process of "attunement" that Schutz develops in reference to intersubjective awareness, so shared music making would appear to be a highly appropriate register for binding those imminently facing the ultimate separation.
—Mark Auslander, Brandeis University (Waltham, MA)
6.
Posted 04-28-10
This is a belated response to Jeremy's fascinating posting about his kindergarten-age son. I'm struck that the child must put back the book in its place before he is ready to engaging with others (beyond the restricted parent-child dyad). One way of reading this mini ritual practice is the child needs to exercise omnipotent control over this condensed icon of sociality (embedded in the book that he and his father read together). Once the child has exercised the voluntary action of putting away the book, of in effect relinquishing this token of social interaction on his own terms, he is now ready to move out to broader social engagements. Social interaction, Winnicott reminds us, depends on the extension of a healthy narcissistic orientation projected out into progressively wider social spheres, and this would seem to be precisely what your son is doing!
In a broader sense, I would be fascinated to learn more about the cultural history of reading to children in bed as they prepare to fall asleep; how precisely does reading help to prepare a child for the nightly separation from wakefulness?
—Ellen Schattschneider, Brandeis University (Waltham, MA)
7.
Posted 05-03-10
Ellen, thanks for your response. Your ending comment of bedtime reading piqued my interest. Although I am not a reading or literacy specialist, I do know that those who are hold this ritual to be of the utmost importance for future interest and achievement in reading. I did a quick search, and while I did not turn up a cultural history per se, I did find a few relevant articles that get at a cultural perspective:
Chou, W. H. (2009). Co-sleeping and the Importation of Picture Books About Bedtime. Children‘s Literature in Education, 40(1), 19–32.
Galbraith, M. (1999). "Goodnight Nobody" Revisited: Using an Attachment Perspective to Study Picture Books about Bedtime. Children's Literature Association Quarterly, 23, 172–180.
Robertson, J. P. (2001). Sleeplessness in the great green room: Getting way under the covers with Goodnight Moon. Children's Literature Association Quarterly, 25(4), 203–213.
It's really quite fascinating how daily separation and death intertwine. These articles suggest an ambivalent perspective on the literature we use to prepare children for sleep, and how this intertwining between separation and death occurs even at a young age.
I don't think I'm ever going to be able to look at Goodnight Moon--or bedtime reading, for that matter--the same way.
—Jeremy Price, Lynch School of Education, Boston College