Ritual power depends on meaninglessness, not personal significance

Evidence

Atheism has yet to come up with rituals that can muster the symbolic weight of religion, and there are strong reasons to suspect that the failure is more than a contingent one. That’s because Atheism typically construes the death of God in terms of a disavowal of the Symbolic (=big Other) itself. There’s a close fit between this quintessentially postmodern disavowal — where official denial of the existence of the big Other is combined with a de facto observance of the symbolic at another level — and capitalist realism. As Althusser realised, the rituals of capitalist ideology function all the better for not being acknowledged as rituals at all. In place of the intransigent solemnity of the religious ritual, postmodern secularism presents us with either an eschewal of ritual altogether (no need for any kind ceremony), or “write-your-own-vows” personalisation, or a kind of ersatz humanist-kitsch, in which religious form is preserved even as belief in a supernatural God is denied. The problem is not a secular “lack of meaning”, but almost the opposite: it is religious rituals’ very meaninglessness, their lack of personal significance, which gives them much of their power. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 270

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies the claim that religious ritual power comes precisely from its lack of personal meaning — an inversion of the secular ‘lack of meaning’ diagnosis.
• XREF: Connects to Fisher’s broader capitalist realism and the Althusser point about unacknowledged ritual — resonates with the Frankfurt School thesis that ideology functions via unacknowledged practice. — connects to: Ritual forms are arbitrary so long as some ritual exists — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 399; Piety is produced through outward ritual performance rather than symbolizing inner belief — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 488; A meaningless ritual works as an unambiguous signal of authentic membership. — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 405 (+1 more)
• SEED: Angle: an essay on why secular ‘write-your-own-vows’ ceremonies fail precisely because ritual’s consoling power requires being subjected to a form you did not author.

Broader Connections

• Ritual forms are arbitrary so long as some ritual exists #corroborates (0.85) — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 399
• A meaningless ritual works as an unambiguous signal of authentic membership. #corroborates (0.85) — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 405
• Piety is produced through outward ritual performance rather than symbolizing inner belief #corroborates (0.80) — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 488