Cosmic Connection
Primitive society was an organizational attempt to elevate wo/man to divine status. It is only in modern society that the mutual imparting of self-importance has trickled down to the simple maneuvering of saving face.
Primitive rituals were designed as an attempt to bring life in harmony with the cosmos; it was “carried out according to a particular theory of prosperity. It was an attempt to get nature to “give more life to the tribeâ€.
Ritual displayed, to the educated eye of the anthropologist, the fact that rituals were meant to determine the principles of the cosmos by trying to promote them while impersonating them.
A heightened sense of self-feeling comes not only from physical prowess but also by any kind of demonstration of our own excellence. Wo/man achieves this demonstration by games, taunting and humiliating an adversary, killing or torturing others; anything to heighten me and/or diminish my opponent. The height of such self-feeling is to become immune to death. The organism has great need to blow up her image. Only in society can a maximum self-importance be achieved.
Providing a means for self-inflation becomes one of the goals of society. “Man cannot impart life to him but must get it via ritual from his fellow man, and then we can say even further that man cannot impart importance to himself; and importance, we now see, is just as deep a problem in securing life: importance equals durability equals life.â€
Becker thinks that the only way to enter into the primitive society is to recognize the society as a religious priesthood with every individual playing a role in the generative rituals. This is difficult for us to comprehend unless we are prepared to comprehend that magic is religion we do not believe in and religion is magic that we do believe in.
Primitive man set up her society as a stage (do I hear Shakespeare speaking here?) that ran off one ritual drama after another. Western man has forgotten how to play at imparting “to life high style and significance.â€
It is only in modern society that the mutual imparting of self-importance has trickled down to the simple maneuvering of saving face. “Primitive society was a formal organization for the apotheosis [elevation to divine status] of man. Our own everyday rituals seem shallow precisely because they lack the cosmic connection. Instead of only using one’s fellow man as a mirror to make one’s face shine, the primitive used the whole cosmos.â€
Quotes from “Escape from Evilâ€â€”Ernest Becker
[b[Questions for discussion[/b]
Do you think that the science of anthropology can discover the motivation behind the rituals of primitive humans?
Does it make sense to you that a heightened sense of self-feeling comes not only from physical prowess but also by any kind of demonstration of our own excellence, and that the height of such self-feeling is to become immune to death? Do you think that science is capable of discovering such motivations for human behavior?
Do you think that the practice of decapitation is the ultimate act of causing someone to ‘lose face’?